| 547 when the mourning of the fatherless and the widow causes anguish in heaven; when the poor among all nations cry day and night for bread and a shelter from the heat and storm; and when the degraded black slave holds up his manacled hands to the great statesmen of the United States, .and sings,
"O, liberty, where are thy charms,
That sages have told me are sweet!"
and when fifteen thousand free citizens of the high blooded Republic of North America, are robbed and driven from one state to another without redress or redemption, it is not only time for a candidate for the presidency to pledge himself to execute judgment and justice in righteousness, law or no law, but it is his bounden duty, as a man, for the honor of a disgraced country and for the salvation of a once virtuous people, to call for a union of all honest men, and appease the wrath of God, by acts of wisdom, holiness and virtue! The fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
Perhaps you may think, I go too far, with my strictures and inuendoes [innuendoes] because in your concluding paragraph you say: "It is not inconsistent with your declarations to say, that you have viewed with a lively interest the progress of the Latter day Saints, that you have sympathized in their sufferings, under injustice as it appeared to you, which has been inflicted upon them; and that you think, in common with all other religious communities they ought to enjoy the security and protection of the constitution and the laws." If words were not wind, and imagination not a vapor, such 'views' 'with a lively interest' might coax out a few Mormon votes; such 'sympathy' for their suffering under injustice, might heal some of the sick, yet lingering amongst them; raise some of the dead, and recover some of their property, from Missouri; and finally if thought was not a phantom, we might, in common with other religious communities, 'You think', enjoy the security and protection of the constitution and laws! But during ten years, while the Latter day Saints have bled, been robbed, driven from their own lands, paid oceans of money into the Treasury to pay your renowned self and others for legislating and dealing out equal rights and priveleges [privileges] to those in common with all other religious communities, they have waited and expected in vain! If you have possessed any patriotism, it has been vailed [veiled] by your popularity for fear the saints would fall in love with its charms. Blind charity and dumb justice never do much towards alleviating the wants of the needy, but straws show which way the wind blows. It is currently rumored that your dernier resort for the Latter day Saints, is, to emigrate to Oregon, or California. Such cruel humanity; such noble injustice; such honorable cowardice; such foolish wisdom, and such vicious virtue, could only eminate [emanate] from Clay. After the saints have been plundered of three or four millions of land and property, by the people and powers of the sovereign state of Missouri; after they have sought for redress and redemption from the County Court to Congress, and been through religious prejudice, and sacerdotal dignity; after they have builded a city and two temples at an immense expense of labor and treasure; after they have increased from hundereds [hundreds] to hundreds of thousands: and after they have sent missionaries to the various nations of the earth, to gather Israel according to the predictions of all the holy prophets since the world began, that great plenipotentiary; the renowned Secretary of State, the ignoble duelist, the gambling senator; and Whig candidate for the presidency, Henry Clay: the wise Kentucky Lawyer, advises the Latter Day Saints to go to Oregon to obtain Justice and set up a government of their own; O ye crowned heads among all nations, is not Mr. Clay a wise man, aud [and] very patriotic! why Great God! to transport 200,000 people through a vast prairie; over the Rocky Mountains, to Oregon, a distance of nearly 2000 miles, would cost more than four millions! or should they go by Cape Horn, in ships to California, the cost would be more than twenty millions! and all this to save the United States from inheriting the disgrace of Missouri, for murdering and robbing the saints with impunity! Benton and Van Buren, who make no secret to say, if they get into power, they will carry out Boggs extermination plan to rid the country of the Latter Day Saints, are little
"Little nipperrkins of milk,
Compared to "Clay's" great aqua fortis Jars."
Why, he is a real giant in humanity: send the Mormons to Oregon and free Missouri from debt and disgrace! Ah! sir, let this doctrine go throughout the whole earth, that we, as Van Buren said, know your cause is just but the United States government can do nothing for you, because it has no power; you must go to Oregon, and get justice from the Indians!
I mourn for the depravity of the world; I despise the hypocrisy of christendom; I hate the imbecility of American statesmen; I detest the shrinkage of candidates for office, from pledges and responsibility; I long for a day of righteousness, when he, "whose right it is to reign, shall judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth," and I pray God, who hath given our fathers a promise of a
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