Joseph Smith Marvin S Hill Popular Books

Joseph Smith Marvin S Hill Biography & Facts

Joseph Smith, the founder and leader of the Latter Day Saint movement, and his brother, Hyrum Smith, were killed by a mob in Carthage, Illinois, United States, on June 27, 1844, while awaiting trial in the town jail. As mayor of the city of Nauvoo, Illinois, Joseph Smith had ordered the destruction of the facilities used to print the Nauvoo Expositor, a newly-established newspaper created by a group of non-Mormons and others who had seceded from Smith's church, the Church of Christ. The newspaper's first (and only) issue was highly critical of Smith and other church leaders, reporting that Smith was practicing polygamy and claiming he intended to set himself up as a theocratic king. In response, a motion to declare the newspaper a public nuisance was passed by the Nauvoo City Council, and Smith consequently ordered its press destroyed. The destruction of the press led to public outrage, and the Smith brothers and other members of the Nauvoo City Council were charged with inciting a riot. Warrants for Joseph Smith's arrest were dismissed by Nauvoo courts. Smith declared martial law in Nauvoo and called on the Nauvoo Legion to protect the city. After briefly fleeing Illinois, Smith returned and, along with Hyrum, voluntarily traveled to the county seat at Carthage to face the charges. After surrendering to authorities, the brothers were also charged with treason against Illinois for declaring martial law. The Smith brothers were detained at Carthage Jail awaiting trial when an armed mob of 150–200 men stormed the building, their faces painted black with wet gunpowder. Hyrum was killed almost immediately when he was shot in the face, shouting as he fell, "I am a dead man!" After emptying his pistol towards the attackers, Joseph tried to escape from a second-story window, but was shot several times and fell to the ground, where he was shot again by the mob. Five men were indicted for the killings, but were acquitted at a jury trial. At the time of his death, Smith was also running for president of the United States, making him the first U.S. presidential candidate to be assassinated. Smith's death marked a turning point for the Latter Day Saint movement, and since then, Latter Day Saints have generally viewed him and his brother as religious martyrs who were "murdered in cold blood". Background Followers of the Latter Day Saint movement began to move into Hancock County, Illinois, in 1839; at the time, most supported the Democratic Party. After their expulsion from the neighboring state of Missouri during the 1838 Mormon War, the Latter Day Saint movement's founder, Joseph Smith, travelled to Washington, D.C., to meet with President Martin Van Buren, seeking intervention and compensation for lost property. Van Buren said he could do nothing to help. Smith returned to Illinois and vowed to join the Whig Party. Most of his supporters switched with him, adding political tensions to the social suspicions in which Smith's followers were held by the local populace. Nauvoo Expositor Several of Smith's disaffected associates in Hancock County and in the city of Nauvoo, Illinois, where Smith was mayor, joined together to publish a newspaper called the Nauvoo Expositor, which put out its first and only issue on June 7, 1844.: v6, p430  Based on allegations by some of these associates, the Expositor reported that Smith practiced polygamy and that he tried to marry the wives of some of his associates. The newspaper further reported that eight of Smith's wives had already been married to other men (four were Latter Day Saints in good standing, who in a few cases acted as witnesses in Smith's marriage to his first wife) at the time they married Smith. Typically, these women continued to live with their first husbands, not Smith. Some accounts say Smith may have had sexual relations with one wife, who later in her life stated that he fathered children by one or two of his wives. The reliability of these sources is disputed by some Mormons. In response to public outrage generated by the Expositor, the Nauvoo City Council passed an ordinance declaring the newspaper a public nuisance which had been designed to promote violence against Smith and his followers. They reached this decision after some discussion, including citation of William Blackstone's legal canon, which defined a libelous press as a public nuisance. According to the Council's minutes, Smith said he "would rather die tomorrow and have the thing smashed, than live and have it go on, for it was exciting the spirit of mobocracy among the people, and bringing death and destruction upon us." Under the Council's new ordinance, Smith, as Nauvoo's mayor, in conjunction with the Council, ordered the city marshal to destroy the Expositor and its printing press on June 10, 1844. By the city marshal's account, the destruction of the press type was carried out orderly and peaceably. However, Charles A. Foster, a co-publisher of the Expositor, reported on June 12 that not only was the printing press destroyed, but that "several hundred minions ... injured the building very materially". Smith's critics said that the action of destroying the press violated freedom of the press. Some sought legal charges against Smith for the destruction of the press, including charges of treason and inciting a riot. Violent threats were made against Smith and the Latter Day Saints. Thomas C. Sharp, editor of the Warsaw Signal in Warsaw, Illinois, a newspaper hostile to the church, editorialized: War and extermination is inevitable! Citizens ARISE, ONE and ALL!!!—Can you stand by, and suffer such INFERNAL DEVILS! To ROB men of their property and RIGHTS, without avenging them. We have no time for comment, every man will make his own. LET IT BE MADE WITH POWDER AND BALL!!! Incarceration at Carthage Jail Warrants from outside Nauvoo were brought in against Smith and dismissed in Nauvoo courts on a writ of habeas corpus. Smith declared martial law on June 18 and called out the Nauvoo Legion, an organized city militia of about 5,000 men, to protect Nauvoo from outside violence. In response to the crisis, Illinois Governor Thomas Ford traveled to Hancock County, and on June 21 he arrived at the county seat in Carthage. On June 22, Ford wrote to Smith and the Nauvoo City Council, proposing a trial by a non-Mormon jury in Carthage and guaranteeing Smith's safety. Smith fled the jurisdiction to avoid arrest, crossing the Mississippi River into the Iowa Territory. On June 23, a posse under Ford's command entered Nauvoo to execute an arrest warrant, but they were unable to locate Smith. After he was criticized by some followers, Smith returned and was reported to have said, "If my life is of no value to my friends it is of none to myself.": v6, p549  He reluctantly submitted to arrest. He was quoted as saying, "I am going like a lamb to the slaughter; but I am calm as a summer's morning; I have a conscience void of offense towards God, and towards all men.... Discover the Joseph Smith Marvin S Hill popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Joseph Smith Marvin S Hill books.