| 241 Times and Seasons
"Truth will prevail."
Vol. IV No. 16.] CITY NAUVOO, ILL. JULY 1, 1843. [Whole No. 76
MISSOURI vs JOSEPH SMITH.
It has fallen to our lot of late years to keep an account of any remarkable circumstance that might transpire, in, and about this, and the adjoining states; as well as of distant provinces and nations. Among the many robberies, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tornadoes, fires, mobs, wars, &c. &c., which we have had to record, there is one circumstance of annual occurrence, which it has always fallen to our lot to chronicle. We allude not to the yearly inundations of the Nile, nor the frequent eruptions of Vesuvius or Etna, but to the boiling over of Tophet, alias the annual overflow of the excrescense [excretion] of Missouri. Not, indeed, like the Nile, overflowing its parched banks, invigorating the alluvial soil and causing vegetation to teem forth in its richest attire; but like the sulphurous [sulfurous] flame that burns unnoticed in the bowels of a volcano; kept alive by the combustion of its own native element, until it can contain itself no longer within the limits of its crater, it bursts beyond its natural bounds; and not satisfied with burning what is within its own bowels, it rushes furiously, wildly, and wantonly forth, and spreads its sulphurious [sulfurous] lava all around, scattering desolations in its path, destroying the cot of the husbandman, the fisherman, and the palace of the nobleman, in one general sweep; covering vegetation with its fiery lava, and turning the garden into a bed of cinders. So Missouri has her annual ebulitions [ebullitions], and unable to keep her fire within her own bosom, must belch forth her sulphuric [sulfuric] lava, and seek to overwhelm others with what is burning in her own bowels and destroying her very vitals; and as it happens that we are so unfortunate as to live near the borders of this monster, we must ever and anon, be smooted with the soot that flies off from her burning crater.
Without entering here into the particulars of the bloody deeds, the high handed oppression, the unconstitutional acts, the deadly and malicious hate, the numerous murders, and the wholesale robberies of that people; we will proceed to notice one of the late acts of Missouri, or the Governor of that state towards us. We allude to the late arrest of Joseph Smith.
Some two years ago Mr. Smith was apprehended upon a writ issued by Gov. Carlin upon a requisition from the Governor of Missouri, charging Mr. Smith with murder, arson, treason, &c. &c. Mr. Smith obtained a writ of Habeas Corpus, which was made returnable at Monmouth; he appeared before Judge Douglas and was honorably acquitted. We thought then that the eyes of community would be opened, and that a stop would have forever been put to those unhallowed proceedings, but no! this could not be, she must still pursue her victim, and for want of some more plausible excuse, after the monster of iniquity Gov. Boggs, whose iniquitous exterminating order has rendered him notorious not only in this country, but throughout Europe, had been shot at by some unknown ruffian, and his life jeopardized; it was thought a good opportunity to commence an attack upon Joseph Smith, particularly as an election was near at hand in this State, and it was thought by some of our political demagogues that some political capital could be made of it; Joseph Smith must therefore be sacrificed at the shrine of the hellish despotism of Missouri, and that of political aspirants of this State. What was the pledge that Gov. Duncan gave the people, if they would elect him? that he would have the Mormon charters repealed, and deprive them of all their other privileges. Thus the Mormons and Joseph Smith must be at the disposal of such inhuman reckless, blood thirsty, (we had like to have said,) republicans as these. Oh shame where is thy blush! and the attempted murder of Governor Boggs, to them is a good pretext. As if it were impossible that there should be found among the inhabitants of a State who had butchered scores in cold blood, who had robbed an innocent people of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of property; and who had driven thirteen thousand people from their homes, who had never violated law, a man who was base enough to seek to murder another without having the thing so far fetched as to try to heap it upon the head of a man who had not been in the State for years. This case like the other was finally brought to an issue, and Mr. Smith after an immensity of trouble and expense was exculpated in Springfield, before Judge Pope of the United States Court for the District of Illinois. The persecution and injustice of Missouri, and the illegality of the case was then abundantly developed, and Judge Pope ordered the case to be inserted on the docket in a manner that Mr. Smith should no more be troubled in relation to that matter. [Governor Ford at that time manifested a friendly disposition, and seemed
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