| 421 redress or protection were vain, and they heeded us not, until we were exiles in a strange land, though one (and to its honor be it spoken) where we found both friends and a home. But since our residence in Illinois, Missouri has followed us with the same relentless spirit of persecution. Warrants have been sent by the governor of Missouri to the governor of Illinois, demanding the body of your memorialist, and a number of others; for that of Joseph Smith three several warrants have been sent, all of which have been set aside by the legal authorities of Illinois; and yet they cease not their persecution. Our people are kidnapped, and carried into Missouri, and there are insulted and whipped (as many have been) and cast into prison, and left to get out as they could. All this without the forms of trial. Missouri is by these brutal means endeavouring [endeavoring] to make the public think that they have cause for this barbarity. But, let me ask your honorable body, what excuse can be pled for such inhuman barbarity and brutal recklessness? Let me further ask the attention of your honorable body to the fact, that all the before described outrages were committed by a body of men calling themselves militia, called out by order of the governor for the professed object of seeing that the laws were kept, and their supremacy maintained. Such was their pretended object, and under this cover they put at defiance the laws of both God and man; of nature, humanity, and decency; and in these unhallowed abuses of all the laws of civilized society in the world, they were upheld by the authorities of the state, and actually paid by the state, for committing theft, robbery, rapine, violence rape, and murder, with innumerable cruelties, painful to mention. And when we made application to the authorities for redress, we were insulted instead of receiving common civilities. The constitution of the United States provides, that the United States shall give to each state a republican form of government. Is it a republican form of government where such outrages can be committed in the face of the authorities, and yet no redress can be had; where all law is suspended to give place to cruelty, barbarity, and inhumanity? Let your honorable body answer.
Her statesmen in the national councils may attempt to plead excuses for these diabolical outrages, but all they can do is stamp infamy on their own characters, and engrave disgrace on the urn that contains their ashes after they sleep. What, I ask your honorable body, can be pled in extenuation of crimes so barbarous, cruelties so infamous, and outrages so violent. What crime can any man commit, it matters not how flagrant, which can, according to the laws of the civilized world, subject his wife to insult, his daughters to rape, his property to public plunder, his children to starvation, and himself and family to exile. The very character of the outrage is all the testimony I think your honorable body can ask-that it was without provocation on the part of the sufferers; for if there had been provocation then would the transgressors have had to suffer the penalty of broken laws, but their punishment-if such it can be called-was not the penalty inflicted for the breach of any law, for no law in existence knows such a penalty or penalties. Why then all this cruelty? Answer, because the people had violated no law; nor prevented from exercising the rights, which they, (according to the laws,) enjoyed, and had a right to be protected in, in any state in the union.
Being refused redress by the authorities of Missouri, to whom shall your memorialist look? He answers, to the people of his native state, and through them to the general government, and where can he look with more confidence, than to the patriots of Pennsylvania, the state of his nativity, and the place of the sepulchers of his fathers. Yes, your memorialist says in his heart, "I will tell you my wrongs and grievances and that of my brethren, in Pennsylvania; I will publish them in the streets, high ways and high places of the 'Key Stone State,' that her statesmen may plead the cause of suffering innocence in the halls of the National Legislature; her matrons may arise in the strength of patriotism; her fair ones in virtuous indignation, and their united voices cease not, until the cause of the innocent shall be heard, and their most sacred rights restored." To your honorable body then, the representatives of the people of his native state, your memorialist utters his complaining voice; to you he tells the tale of his wrongs, and his woes, and that of his brethren, and appeals to your honorable body, as one of Pennsylvania's native sons, and asks you in the name of all that is patriotic, republican and honorable, to instruct the whole delegation of Pennsylvania in congress, to use all lawful and constitutional means to obtain for us redress for our wrongs and losses. Believing as your memorialist does, that the general government has not only the power to act in the premises, but are bound by every sacred obligation by which American citizens are bound to one another, in our national compact, to see that no injury is inflicted without redress being made.
Weak indeed must be our republican institutions, and as contemptible our national capacity,
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