--- title: Times and Seasons description: Issues of 1844 to 1845. authors: - Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints editors: - Ebenezer Robinson - Don Carlos Smith - Smith, Joseph, Jr. - Taylor, John collections: - periodicals tags: - newspaper - times-and-seasons - nauvoo - nineteenth-century periodical: Times and Seasons volume: 5 number: 2 published: 1844-01-15 publisher: E. Robinson and D. C. Smith; later John Taylor publisher_place: Commerce and Nauvoo, Illinois language: en type: article reference: "β€œAn Appeal to the People of the State of Maine,” *Times and Seasons* 5, no. 2 (January 15, 1844): 403–406." printed_title: AN APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MAINE. source: url: https://archive.org/details/per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1844-01-15_5_2 transcription: Text from the Centerplace.org transcription (https://www.centerplace.org/history/ts/v5n02.htm), with its page breaks; this Internet Archive scan is the reference copy (its OCR was used only as a witness for OCR repair) identifier: per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1844-01-15_5_2 start_page: 403 end_page: 406 curator_note: A Mormon newspaper published by the church in Nauvoo; included for historical study. Inclusion does not imply endorsement. rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1844 (Nauvoo, Illinois); published before 1931, so public domain in the United States source: https://archive.org/details/per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1844-01-15_5_2 publication_year: 1844 --- # An Appeal to the People of the State of Maine Respected fellow citizens,-I was born in the county of York, district of Maine, in the year 1,793. My first lesson on the principles of political and religious freedom, was learned among her brave and virtuous sons; and when in after years, we had come to the resolve that, the number of our citizens, the great extent of our territory, as well as the geographical position which we occupied, all claimed sovereignty, we as a band of enlightened freemen arose, and obtained for her the title of "free and independent" among the sister states. More than forty years of my life can I boast of being a happy citizen of Maine. With her hardy republicans I passed through all the vicissitudes and privations of peace and war, during that period. My father, as is well known to thousands, was identified with the long line of illustrious patriots, who achieved our liberties in the war of the revolution. From him I received the first impression of the rights of man. By him I was taught, before I understood the terms, that men are naturally born free, and as such have an indefeisable [indefeasible] right to worship God according to the dictates of their own understanding of his perfections. But the lesson we have so recently learned from the executive of a sovereign state, admonishes us that the day of American liberty is on the wane. That unless something to retrieve her lost character be shortly done, we may as well content ourselves, and expect the days of a Nero and a Calagulia [Caligula]. It is not unknow [unknown] to you that the entire church of Latter Day Saints have been expelled from the State of Missouri, for the simple fact that they believed the fullness of the gospel of Christ, had been restored to them through the ministration of angels; and that the Book of Mormon, was a divinely inspired record of the aboriginees [aborigines] of the western hemisphere. These two facts were sufficient in that state, with L. W. Boggs at the head of the executive department, to exterminate us in the chill of winter; to burn our dwellings-to rob us of our property-to ravish, torment, and murder our women and helpless children. After paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for land, and making improvements worthy the character of American operatives, all which were lost to us; the managers of the war, acting under the direct authority of the chief magistrate, forced us, at the point of bayonets, to sign a treaty, the items of which would have disgraced the damning deeds of a Pharaoh or Antiochous. In this treaty we covenanted to part with all our lands to defray the expences [expenses] of the war; a war which they themselves had created, and which they, with a barbarity disgraceful to savage warfare, had hitherto prosecuted against us. Another article in the treaty provided that we should forthwith leave the state of Missouri, and never make any further attempt to raise crops, or to do any thing whereby the citizens might take offence [offense]; for, said one of the prosecuting generals, "if you do, my men will be upon you, and you will be destroyed, men, women and children:" and in whatever light we looked upon the proceedings of the governor, whether our cause was just or not, it was all the same with him; our final departure from the state was the grand object with him, and he would see it accomplished. A third article claimed, that all our leading men were to be given to him (General Clark) to be tried for high treason. Among the number was our beloved Prophet. A court martial was immediately instituted, in which it was decreed that the Prophet, together with a few others, should be shot at six o'clock the next morning. This, however, was prevented by the remonstrance of one or two of Clark's officers. They were immediately conducted to prison, where they suffered the greatest indignity. Many scores suffered the same fate. Yet not the least vestige of legal preferment was ever seen in the whole affair. No testimony was had; none called against them. It has been carefully estimated by our historians that not far from fourteen thousand persons were ejected from Missouri in that infernal affair, that should suffuse with tears the face of every American. The same historians compute that not far from three hundred were either directly slaughtered, or from extreme sufferings from imprisonment-from hunger-the chills of winter, being reduced to the necessity, in many instances, of braving the winter blasts in a naked situation, were subjected to various disorders, that hurried them to a premature grave. One more case and one only will I relate, as our history has been pretty fully made known to the people of the United States. Near Haun's Mill, a company consisting of about forty men with their families, who had not yet participated in the turmoil of those times, being mostly strangers in that part of the country who being informed of the times in other counties entered into stipulations to live in peace with their new neighbors. It was solemnly agreed that if either party should afterwards discover any thing likely to come upon the other, injurious to them, the party having a knowledge should forthwith inform the other. Thus agreeing the delegates retired each to their respective party. The saints were busy about that time in preparing their dwellings for the approaching winter; and thought themselves perfectly secure under the treaty so sacredly formed. In a very few days, however, they discovered their mistake. The very same delegates who swore friendship to the saints, came upon them in an unguarded hour, with between two and three hundred men, and drove them from place to place, till at length they were driven into an old smith's shop, were they were slaughtered indiscriminately. In that massacre some eighteen of nineteen were butchered, who from the peril of the times found one common grave. Being promiscuously heaped together in an old excavation for water. Their surviving friends at the peril of their own lives, performed their last sad rites of sepulture. Nothing now remains to point out their lowly sepulchre [sepulcher], but their shapeless mound fast hastening to decay. But they live in our tenderest regards. In the affection of every saint while the world shall survive, they shall have an imperishable mansion; an everlasting monument to perpetuate their name. We have sought for justice in the courts of that state; we have presented our memorial to the legislature, humbly praying for the restoration of our property and our rights as American citizens. We have expended thousands and thousands of dollars in various attempts to recover our just claims; but even to this time we have not a consoling hope that Missouri will ever do anything for us. Nay, they still hold the hand of persecution, raised, if possible, to cut off our name from under heaven. Every possible scheme that can be devised, is brought into requisition for our overthrow. They have from time to time kidnapped our brethren, citizens of the state of Illinois. Loud and frequent demands are made on the governor for the body of Gen. Joseph Smith. Several times, since leaving Missouri, he has been tried in the courts of Illinois and the federal courts, and has always been honorably acquitted. We have also presented our memorial to Congress, accompanied with a schedule of claims, but the only consolation we have yet received from them is that 'our cause is just, but government has no power to redress us.' Preparations are being made at the present time to resume our memorial in the halls of congress. Should we fail of obtaining our rights from every source whatever, we still shall have gained one point, 'to make it apparent to all the world, that what was wanting in this case, was neither a criminal nor a prosecutor.' Another point we shall have gained, to be the discoverers of a desiderum [desideratum] in the constitution of the United States. If neither of an independent state, neither its legislature nor the great federal compact, has power to guard the lives and property of American citizens, then we shall have made a second discovery, that the framers of our constitution did not understand the business of legislation. Were the venerable fathers of our independence permitted to revisit the earth, how would they frown with indignation at the disgrace of their country. 'In vain they toiled, they bled in vain,' if one of the states of the great E Pluribus Unum, has a right to plunder, burn, murder, and exterminate from its borders, its peaceable citizens for conscience sake. Should we fail of redress in the present congress, we shall importune at every subsequent one, till we gain the object of our most ardent desires. From our origin to the present time, we have been a law abiding people. Our book of laws that we received by immediate revelation through our beloved seer, enjoins us in the most explicit manner, not to transgress the laws of the land. These things we have always done. With all these facts before the world, we believe that government has the power, amply and adequately to redress us. We expect it. We have the most inalienable right to expect it. While the crimson current that administers to our being, shall flow, we will contend for our injured rights.-We intend to test the efficacy of the government to the core. We believe that peradventure, there may yet be virtue, and that our cause may yet be heard. We can never forget the injuries done us in Missouri. They are ever present to our minds. We feel it impossible to efface them from our memories. We can never forget the blood of our brethren, so wantonly lavished to satisfy the infernal thirsts of men, as heinous to the righteous, as the fiends of hell. Were we to forget them, heaven itself would upbraid us. The immortal shades of our martyred brethren would spurn us from their presence. Their cries with those seen under the altar of God, as viewed by the ancient prophet, would ascend to the throne of Jehovah against us. We swear by the precious memory of the illustrious dead-the fathers of our independence, that we will remember them. We will do all in our power to mete out justice to those who without the least cause have murdered our friends. And if we fail may heaven and earth bear us witness that, what is wanting in this case, is not strength in the law, arising from 'the peculiar nature of American institutions;' but a faithful and virtuous administrator. Now therefore, knowing as I do, your devoted attachment to the cause of freedom and the free institutions of your country, and believing as I have every reason to, that the voice of the oppressed will not be unheeded by you, especially when it is declared to you that many from your happy state, are at this time suffering the highest degree of injustice from mobocracy in Missouri; I, in the name of every faithful saint, especially those who received their birth and education in Maine, appeal to your wisdom, to that high legal attainment which characterizes you as a sovereign state-to your natural sense of the rights of man, and to the of patriotism that burns within your bosoms, to do all within the grasp of your power, to redress us. We declare to you and to all the world, that we are an innocent people; and that for the gospel's sake, for the sake of the principles of glorious and eternal truth; we have been mobbed, whiped [whipped], imprisoned, tormented and slain. Should any man reply that if we are persecuted for the truths sake, we ought to receive it patiently, and not seek that which is our own, we respond, that if no other consideration whatever, should prompt us, the disgraced institutions of our bleeding country demand that we make every effort to magnify her laws. We seek for justice that recurrences of deeds so frightful may not distract the nation hereafter. We make this appeal to the people of the state of Main to let them know that an injury has been done the church of Christ in the nineteenth century. An injury which if unrepaired by government, will establish the most dangerous precedence, as others of a more direful nature will have license to follow. All past experience admonishes us that in a republican government, when vice and corruption gain the ascendency [ascendancy] over virtue, the most terrible revolutions are sure to follow. I will now relate a dream which I had, near the time that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was driven from Jackson county, in Missouri. In my dream, I was at the capital of the United States. All was solemn as the tomb. The voice of the eloquent orator was hushed to silence. The senator, the sage, the honorable, the rich and poor together, all were clad in mourning. Indeed, nature herself, and all things seemed to participate in the general gloom.-All was silent but the voice of one man. His, was low and solemn as the lonely sepulchre [sepulcher]. In the archives of state, there was a twilight, by which, with some difficulty, one could peruse the records. As I was returning from a spacious bureau, where it seemed I had been reading; in an opposite part of the room, I saw a man approaching the same bureau. I did not know him, but felt assured within myself that it was one of the ancients of the nation. He took from the bureau two or three small boxes; and as he presented one of them to me, exclaimed, 'these were the archives of state,' and while in the act of placing it in my hand, finished the sentence he had commenced, 'but it is turned to blood.' I saw while yet the words were on his tongue, the box dissolve to blood. Then I turned to view the other boxes; and they were also turned to blood. With sentiments of respect, I remain your humble servant, BENJAMIN ANDREWS.