Chapter XLII. Calhoun's Reply to Joseph's Interrogatory

Joseph Answers him. His own Presidential Manifesto.

Letters from the Presidential candidates now began to arrive, in answer to the Prophet's inquiry, noted in a preceding chapter. The first was from John C. Calhoun, as follows:

Fort Hill, 2d December, 1843.

Sir: — You ask me what would be my rule of action relative to the Mormons, or Latter-day Saints, should I be elected President, to which I answer, that if I should be elected I would strive to administer the government according to the Constitution and the laws of the Union ; and that as they make no distinction between citizens of different religious creeds, I should make none. As far as it depends on the Executive department, all should have the full benefit of both, and none should be exempt from their operation.

But as you refer to the case of Missouri, candor compels me to repeat what I said to you at Washington, that, according to my views, the case does not come within the jurisdiction of the Federal Government, which is one of limited and specific powers.

With respect, I am, &c, &c,

J. C. Calhoun. Mr. Joseph Smith.

To this letter Joseph made one of his most characteristic replies. It was as follows :

Nauvoo, III., January 2d, 1844.

Sir: — Your reply to my letter of last November, concerning your rule of action towards the Latter-day Saints, if elected President, is at hand; and that you and your friends of the same opinion relative to the matter in question may not be disappointed as to me or my mind upon so grave a subject, permit me, as a law-abiding man, as a well-wisher to the perpetuity of constitutional rights and liberty, and as a friend to the free worship of Almighty God by all, according to the dictates of every person's own conscience, to say I am surprised that a man or men in the highest stations of public life should have made up such a fragile " view" of a case, than which there is not one on the face of the globe fraught with so much consequence to the happiness of men in this world or the world to come.

To be sure, the first paragraph of your letter appears very complacent and fair on a white sheet of paper. And who, that is ambitious for greatness and power, would not have said the same thing? Your oath would bind you to support the Constitution and laws ; and as all creeds and religions are alike tolerated, they must, of course, all be justified or condemned according to merit or demerit. But why, tell me, why are all the principal men held up for public stations so cautiously careful not to publish to the world that they will judge a righteous judgment, law or no law? For laws and opinions, like the vanes of steeples, change with the wind.

One Congress passes a law, another repeals it; and one statesman says that the Constitution means this, and another that ; and who does not know that all may be wrong? The opinion and pledge, therefore, in the first paragraph of your reply to my

question, like the forced steam from the engine of a steamboat, makes the show of a bright cloud at first, but when it comes in contact with a purer atmosphere, dissolves to common air again.

Your second paragraph leaves you naked before yourself, like a likeness in a mirror, when you say that, "according to your view, the Federal Government is one of limited and specific powers," and has no jurisdiction in the case of the "Mormons." So, then, a State can at any time, expel any portion of her citizens with impunity, and, in the language of Mr. Van Buren, frosted over with your gracious " views of the case." though the cause is ever so just, Government can do nothing for them, because it has no power.

Go on, then, Missouri, after another set of inhabitants (as the Latter-day Saints did) have entered some two or three hundred thousand dollars' worth of land, and made extensive improvements thereon. Go on, then, I say; banish the occupants or owners, or kill them, as the mobbers did manvof the Latter-day Saints, and take their land and property as spoil ; and let the Legislature, as in the case of the " Mormons," appropriate a couple of hundred thousand dollars to pay the mob for doing that job, for the renowned Senator from South Carolina, Mr. J. C. Calhoun, says the powers of the Federal Government are so specific and limited that it has no jurisdiction of the case ! O, ye people who groan under the oppression of tyrants ! — ye exiled Poles, who have felt the iron hand of Russian grasp ! — ye poor and unfortunate among all nations ! Come to the asylum of the oppressed ; buy ye lands of the General Government ; pay in your money to the treasury to strengthen the army and the navy; worship God according to the dictates of your own consciences ; pay in your taxes to support the great heads of a glorious nation ; but remember a

" sovereign State " is so much more powerful than the United States — the parent Government — that it can exile you at pleasure, mob you with impunity, confiscate your lands and property, have the Legislature sanction it, — yea, even murder you as by edict of an emperor, and it does no wrong ; for the noble Senator of South Carolina says the power of the Federal Government is so limited and specific that it has no jurisdistion of the case ! What think ye of imperium in imperio ?

Ye spirits of the blessed of all ages, hark ! Ye shades of departed statesmen, listen ! Abraham, Moses, Homer, Socrates, Solon, Solomon, and all that ever thought of right and wrong, look down from your exaltations, if you have any, for it is said, " In the midst of counselors there is safety ;" and when you have learned that fifteen thousand innocent citizens, after having purchased their lands of the United States and paid for them, were expelled from a " sovereign State," by order of the Governor, at the point of the bayonet, their arms taken from them by the same authority, and their right of migration into said State denied, under pain of imprisonment, whipping, robbing, mobbing, and even death, and no justice or recompense allowed ; and, from the Legislature, with the Governor at the head, down to the justice of the peace, with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a bowie knife in the other, hear them all declare that there is no justice for a " Mormon'' in that State ; and judge ye a righteous judgment, and tell me when the virtue of the States was stolen, where the honor of the General Government lies hid, and what clothes a Senator with wisdom ! O, nullifying Carolina ! O, little tempestuous Rhode Island ! Would it not be well for the great men of the nation to read the fable of the partial judge ; and when part of the free citizens of a State had been expelled contrary to the

Constitution, mobbed, robbed, plundered, and many murdered, instead of searching into the course taken with Joanna Southcott, Ann Lee, the French prophets, the Quakers of New England, and rebellious negroes in the slave States, to hear both sides and then judge, rather than to have the mortification to say, " 0,it is my bull that has killed your ox ! That alters the case ! I must inquire into it ; and if — and if — ."

If the General Government has no power to reinstate expelled citizens to their rights, there is a monstrous hypocrite fed and fostered from the hard earnings of the people. A real "bull beggar" upheld by sycophants. And although you may wink to the priests to stigmatize, wheedle the drunkards to swear, and raise the hue and cry of " Impostor! false prophet ! G — d d — n old Joe Smith !" yet remember, if the Latter-day Saints are not restored to all their rights and paid for all their losses, according to the known rules of justice and judgment, reciprocation and common honesty among men, that God will come out of his hiding place and vex this nation with a sore vexation ; yea, the consuming wrath of an offended God shall smoke throuofh the nation with as much distress and woe as independence has blazed through with pleasure and delight. Where is the strength of Government ? Where is the patriotism of a Washington, a Warren, and Adams ? And where is a spark from the watch-fire of '76, by which one candle might be lit that would glimmer upon the confines of Democracy? Well may it be said that one man is not a State, nor one State the nation.

In the days of General Jackson, when France refused the first instalment for spoliations, there was power, force, and honor enough to resent injustice and insult, and the money came. And shall Missouri, filled with negro drivers and white men

stealers, go " unwhipped of justice" for tenfold greater sins than France ? No! verily no ! While I have power of body and mind — while water runs and grass grows — while virtue is lovely and vice hateful, and while a stone points out a sacred spot where a fragment of American liberty once was, I or my posterity will plead the cause of injured innocence, until Missouri makes atonement for all her sins, or sinks disgraced, degraded, and damned to hell, "where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched."

Why, sir, the power not delegated to the United States and the States belongs to the people, and Congress sent to do the people's business has all power. And shall fifteen thousand citizens groan in exile ? O, vain men ! will ye not, if ye do not restore them to their rights and $2,000,000 worth of property, relinquish to them (the Latter-day Saints), as a body, their portion of power that belongs to them according to the Constitution ? Power has its convenience as well as inconvenience. " The world was not made for Caesar alone, but for Titus too."

I will give you a parable. A certain lord had a vineyard in a goodly land, which men labored in at their pleasure. A few meek men also went and purchased with money from some of these chief men that labored at pleasure a portion of land in the vineyard, at a very remote part of it, and began to improve it, and to eat and drink the fruit thereof, when some vile persons, who regarded not man, neither feared the lord of the vineyard, rose up suddenly and robbed these meek men, and drove them from their possessions, killing many.

This barbarous act made no small stir among the men in the vineyard, and all that portion who were attached to that part of the vineyard where the men were robbed, rose up in grand council, with their chief man, who had firstly ordered the deed to be

done, and made a covenant not to pay for the cruel deed, but to keep the spoil, and never let those meek men set their feet on that soil again, neither recompense them for it.

Now these meek men, in their distress, wisely sought redress of those wicked men in every possible manner, and received none. They then supplicated the chief men, who held the vineyard at pleasure, and who had the power to sell and defend it, for redress and redemption ; and those men, loving the fame and favor of the multitude more than the glory of the lord of the vineyard, answered : "Your cause is just, but we can do nothing for you, because we have no power."

Now when the Lord of the vineyard saw that virtue and innocence was not regarded, and his vineyard occupied by wicked men, he sent men and took the possession of it to himself, and destroyed these unfaithful servants, and appointed them their portion among hypocrites.

And let me say that all men who say that Congress has no power to restore and defend the rights of her citizens, have not the love of the truth abiding in them. Congress has power to protect the nation against foreign invasion and internal broil ; and whenever that body passes an act to maintain right with any power, or to restore right to any of her citizens, it is the supreme law of the land. And should a State refuse submission, that State is guilty of insurrection or rebellion, and the President has as much power to repel it as Washington had to march against the "whiskey boys of Pittsburgh," or General Jackson had to send an armed force to suppress the rebellion of South Carolina.

To close, I would admonish you, before you let your " candor " compel you again to write upon a subject great as the salvation of man, consequential as the life of the Saviour, broad as the principles of

eternal truth, and valuable as the jewels of eternity, to read in the eighth section and first article of the Constitution of the United States, the first, fourteenth and seventeenth "specific" and not very "limited powers" of the Federal Government, what can be done to protect the lives, property and rights of a virtuous people, when the administrators of the law and lawmakers are unbought by bribes, uncorrupted by patronage, untempted by gold, unawed by fear, and uncontaminated by tangling alliances — even like Caesar's wife, not only unspotted, but unsuspected ! And God, who cooled the heat of a Nebuchadnezzar's furnace, or shut the mouths of lions for the honor of a Daniel, will raise your mind above the narrow notion that the General Government has no power, to the sublime idea that Congress, with the President as Executor, is as almighty in its sphere as Jehovah is in his.

With great respect, I have the honor to be, Your obedient servant,

Joseph Smith.

But the Prophet, becoming tired of fruitlessly appealing to men in high places, now boldly issues his views, in the form of a manifesto, as follows :

Views of the powers and policy of the Government of the United States.

Born in a land of liberty, and breathing an air uncorrupted with the sirocco of barbarous times, I ever feel a double anxiety for the happiness of all men, both in time and in eternity.

My cogitations, like Daniel's, have for a long time troubled me when I viewed the condition of men throughout the world, and more especially in this boasted realm, where the Declaration of Independence " holds these truths to be self-ev'dent, that all

men are created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights ; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ; " but at the same time some two or three millions of people are held as slaves for life, because the spirit of them is covered with a darker skin than ours; and hundreds of our own kindred for an infraction, or supposed infraction, of some overwise statute, have to be incarcerated in dungeon glooms, or suffer the more moral penitentiary gravitation of mercy in a nutshell, while the duelist, the debauchee, and the defaulter of millions, and other criminals, take the uppermost rooms at feasts, or, like the bird of passage, find a more congenial clime by flight.

The wisdom which ought to characterize the freest, wisest, and most noble nation of the nineteenth century, should, like the sun in his meridian splendor, warm every object beneath its rays ; and the main efforts of her officers, who are nothing more or less than the servants of the people, ought to be directed to ameliorate the condition of all, black or white, bond or free, for the best of books says, " God hath made of one blood all nations of men, for to dwell on all the face of the earth."

Our common country presents to all men the same advantages, the same facilities, the same prospects, the same honors, and the same rewards; and without hypocricy, the Constitution, when it says, "we, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America," meant just what it said, without reference to color or condition, ad infinitum.

The aspirations and expectations of a virtuous people, environed with so wise, so liberal, so deep,

so broad, and so high a charter of equal rights as appears in said Constitution, ought to be treated by those to whom the administration of the laws is entrusted, with as much sanctity as the prayers of the saints are treated in heaven, that love, confidence and union, like the sun, moon and stars, should bear witness,

" Forever singing as they shine: 'The hand that made us is divine.'"

Unity is power ; and when I reflect on the importance of it to the stability of all governments, I am astounded at the silly moves of persons and parties to foment discord in order to ride into power on the current of popular excitement. Nor am I less surprised at the stretches of power or restrictions of right which too often appear as acts of legislators, to pave the way to some favorite political scheme, as destitute of intrinsic merit as a wolfs heart is of the milk of human kindness. * * *

The respected and venerable Thomas Jefferson, in his inaugural address, made more than forty years ago, shows what a beautiful prospect an innocent, virtuous nation presents to the sage's eye where there is space for enterprise, hands for industry, heads for heroes, and hearts for moral greatness. He said : " A rising nation spread over a wide and fruitful land, traversing all the seas with the rich productions of their industry, engaged in commerce with nations, who feel power and forget right, advancing rapidly to destinies beyond the reach of mortal eye — when I contemplate these transcendent objects, and see the honor, the happiness, and the hopes of this beloved country committed to the issue and the auspices of this day, I shrink from the contemplation, and humble myself before the magnitude of the undertaking."

Such a prospect was truly soul-stirring to a good man. But "since the fathers have fallen asleep" wicked and designing men have unrobed the Government of its glory, and the people, if not in dust and ashes, or in sackcloth, have to lament in poverty her departed greatness, while demagogues build fires in the North and South, East and West, to keep up their spirits till it is better times. But year after year has left the people to hope, till the very name of Congress, or State Legislature, is as horrible to the sensitive friend of his country as the house of "Bluebeard" is to children, or "Crockford's" Hell of London to meek men. * * *

* * * General Jackson, upon his ascension to the great chair of the Chief Magistracy, said : " As long as our government is administered for the good of the people, and is regulated by their will, as long as it secures to us the rights of person and property, liberty of conscience and of the press, it will be worth defending ; and so long as it is worth defending, a patriotic militia will cover it with an impenetrable cegis"

Gen. Jackson's administration may be denominated the acme of American glory, liberty, and prosperity, for the national debt, which in 181 5, on account of the preceding war, was $125,000,000, and being lessened gradually, was paid up in his golden day, and preparations were made to distribute the surplus revenue among the several States. And that august patriot, to use his own words in his farewell address, retired, leaving "a great people prosperous and happy, in the full enjoyment of liberty and peace, honored and respected by every nation of the world."

At the age then of sixty years, our blooming Republic began to decline under the withering touch of Martin Van Buren. Disappointed ambition, thirst for power, pride, corruption, party spirit,

faction, patronage, perquisites, fame, tangling alliances, priestcraft, and spiritual wickedness in high places, struck hands and reveled in midnight splendor.

Trouble, vexation, perplexity, and contention, mingled with hope, fear and murmuring, rumbled through the Union and agitated the whole nation, as would an earthquake at the centre of the earth, the world heaving the sea beyond its bounds and shaking the everlasting hills, so, in hopes of better times, while jealousy, hypocritical pretensions, and pompous ambition were luxuriating on the ill-gotten spoils of the people, they arose in their majesty like a tornado and swept through the land, till General Harrison appeared as a star among the storm-clouds for better weather. * * *

No honest man can doubt for a moment that the glory of American liberty is on the wane, and that calamity and confusion will sooner or later destroy the peace of the people. Speculators will urge a national bank as a savior of credit and comfort. A hireling pseudo priesthood will plausibly push abolition doctrines and doings and " human rights " into Congress and into every other place where conquest smells of fame or opposition swells to popularity. Democracy, Whiggery and cliquery will attract their elements and foment divisions among the people, to accomplish fancied schemes and accumulate power, while poverty, driven to despair like hunger forcing its way through a wall, will break through the statutes of men to save life and mend the breach in prison glooms. * * *

Now, O people! people ! turn unto the Lord and live, and reform this nation. Frustrate the designs of wicked men. Reduce Congress at least two-thirds. * * * Pay them two dollars and their board per diem. That is more than the farmer gets, and he lives honestly. Curtail the officers of

government in pay, number and power, for the Philistine lords have shorn our nation of its goodly locks in the lap of Delilah.

Petition your State Legislatures to pardon every convict in their several penitentiaries, blessing them as they go, and saying to them, in the name of the Lord, Go thy way, and sin no more.

Advise your legislators when they make laws for larceny, burglary, or any felony, to make the penalty applicable to work upon roads, public works, or any place where the culprit can be taught more wisdom ■ and more virtue, and become more enlightened. Rigor and seclusion will never do as much to reform the propensities of men as reason and friendship. / Murder only can claim confinement or death. Let tne penitentiaries be turned into seminaries of learning, where intelligence, like the angels of heaven, would banish such fragments of barbarism. * * *

Petition also, ye goodly inhabitants of the Slave States, your legislators to abolish slavery by the year 1850. * * Pray Congress to pay every man a reasonable price for his slaves out of the surplus revenue arising from the sale of public lands. * * Break off the shackles from the poor black man, and hire him to labor like other human beings, for "an hour of virtuous liberty on earth is worth a whole eternity of bondage." jAbolish the practice in the army and navy of trying- men by court-martial for desertion. If a soldier or marine runs away send him his wages, with this instruction : that his country will never trust him again — he has forfeited his hoiTorP

Make honor the standard with all men. Be sure that good is rendered for evil in all cases, and the whole nation, like a kingdom of kings and priests, will rise up in righteousness, and be respected as wise and worthy on earth, and as just and holy for heaven by Jehovah, the author of perfection. * *

Give every man his constitutional freedom, and the President full power to send an army to suppress mobs, and the States authority to repeal and impugn that relic of folly which makes it necessary for a governor of a State to make a demand of the President for troops in case of invasion or rebellon. The Governor himself may be a mobber, and instead of being punished, as he should be, for murder or treason, he may destroy the very lives, rights, and property he should protect. * * *

We have had Democratic Presidents, Whig- Presidents, a pseudo-Democratic-Whig President, and now it is time to have a President of the United States. And let the people of the whole Union, like the inflexible Romans, whenever they find a promise made by a candidate that is not practised as an officer, hurl the miserable sycophant from his exaltation, as God did Nebuchadnezzar, to crop the grass of the field with a beast's heart among the cattle. * * *

"Were I the President of the United States, by the voice of a virtuous people, I would honor the old paths of the venerated fathers of freedom. I would walk in the tracks of the illustrious patriots who carried the ark of the government upon their shoulders with an eye single to the glory of the people. * * *

I would, as the universal friend of man, open the prisons, open the eyes, open the ears, and open the hearts of all people, to behold and enjoy freedom — unadulterated freedom. And God, who once cleansed the violence of the earth with a flood, whose Son laid down his life for the salvation of all his Father gave him out of the'world, and who has promised that he will come and purify the world again with fire in the last days, should be supplicated by me for the good of all people.

With the highest esteem, I am a friend of virtue and of the people.

Joseph Smith.

Some time afterwards an editorial appeared in the Times and Seasons, headed " Who shall be our next President?" and closing- thus: " Whatever, therefore, be the opinions of other men, our course is marked out, and our motto henceforth will be, General Joseph Smith!" And thereupon was thrown out the banner, " For President, Joseph Smith."