Transcript

Title: Brigham Young history documents, 1844-1866_Orson Spencer letter to A. W. Babbitt, 1844 December 14

Call Number: CR 100 696

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Nauvoo/ Dec. 16. 1844
Hon. Sir/
your favors of the present month have been duly received. We are ever pleased to
hear from you on matters pertaining to our interests as a people or to yours individually. We are
happy in the reflection that your vigilant eye will never slumber while the dearest rights & privileges
of a noble people are in jeopardy, or it is practicable for you to defend them. We know not what charges
will be preferred against us as grounds for the repeal of our Charters, or we would delight to expose
their impotence & fallacy. It is remarkable that in our case we are often necessitated to illustrate &
defend truths so obvious in their nature & bearing that they would cover our objector with shame &
contempt; that should dispute them before any other people. And we are often obliged to prove the
validity of covenants and Charters that would be beyond all reasonable question, if they had been
entered into with any other people than the Latter Day Saints- The experiment is however... to be made,
whether compacts solemnly entered into & Charters sacredly given, involving in their validity interests
too broad & deep and extensive for human utterance to define, shall be as sacredly observed-
Distant nations are making careful inquisition to know whether there is sufficient
virtue in our General & State Government to preserve their plighted faith inviolable. The State
of Illinois may repudiate and incur the just disdain of foreigners for a failure to pay some
dollars and cents justly due, but superlatively more insignificant is such a disgrace in comparison
with that which will accrue from the repeal of the Nauvoo Charters. It is indeed true that the
Nauvoo Charters confer upon us great & valuable privileges & render them perpetual.
In return for these great privileges we have neither been ungrateful or deficient in
contributing to the Common weal of the State- We have done more to convert the wide waste
of her idle soil into valuable products, & to call into her borders a greater increase of population
compromised of the best artizans, mechanics and husbandmen than any other people of the State
under similar circumstances. We have been continually calling to Eastern & Southern Citizens
& industrious foreignors, by our Epistolary communications & by a thousand living voices to
come & settle in the State of Illinois. We have discouraged nobody with the Phantom of
oppressive taxation. We have endeavored to persuade emigrants that lynching and mobocracy [word struck out]
so prevalent in some parts of the West would never be fostered by the Authorities of Illinois-
We have furnished a Specie praying market for the products of farmers living a hundred
miles interior. In times of drought our Mills have ground the Wheat of Old Citizens coming
80 or 100 miles Our Mechanics have been called for & dispersed abroad in adjoining Counties,
in order to multiply the conveniences of civilized life. And our laborers have reaped down the
harvest fields of hundreds and thousands of acres, heat must else have wasted or depreciated
in the hands of Old Citizens. And we can say in verity that during our short sojourn in this

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State under the ample canopy of our charter we have contributed more to the growth & temporal
prosperity of the State of Illinois & her Citizens than to our own. The years we have been here
have been to us pregnant with sacrifice. While we have been dispensing abroad our wealth, the old
citizens have been gathering in & treasuring it up. Our Gold & Silver and our industry have
enhanced the value of Lands to a great distance around us, and quickened the energies of the
people to industry. Under the sacred assurance of Chartered privileges to be perpetuated, we
have invested our substance, yea all our living. We have erected many public buildings at an
immense expense with mills & Our Citizens have entered into Companies and Associations and
the wholesome & profitable operations of these Companies cannot be closed up short of several
years, much less can they be carried on without liability to utter desolation & confusion, if
the chartered privileges, under the sanction of which they originated shall be taken away.
Many seem to mistake the nature of the Charter and consider it a Conditional Instrument
& if these conditions are not complied with, it is thereby supposed to be liable to be repealed.
But this is very wide of the truth The Constitution of the State of Illinois or of any other State
cannot be abrogated in consequence of being violated or infringed by the legislature of Illinois.
The Charter of Nauvoo cannot be repealed in consequence of being violated over a
thousand times in the grossest manner, because a repeal was no part of the penalty
conditioned in the instrument of the Charter. It would be no other than an ex post facto law
that should inflict a penalty, that the transgressor could not possibly be advertized of.
We shall consider a repeal of our Charter highly oppressive and we believe
the like unheard of. If we have infringed the Charter in any way or many ways,
we refuse not to submit to any penalty prescribed by the laws of the land when properly
adjudicated. But we know there is no such penalty as repeal. And now to conclude;
Unconscious of the least disloyalty to the State of Illinois or of any infractions of her
Charters & knowing that we have contributed liberally to the wealth prosperity & good order
of the State; and knowing that a repeal of our Charter would be no better than letting loose
a horde of wolves and carnivorous beasts upon an unguarded flock of sheep & tender
lambs, and being assured that the Legislature of Illinois also know perfectly that we
above all people need the aegis of chartered protection, because we have already been
kidnapped, whipped, robbed & one of their own Senators stands indicted for the Murder
of two of our best men.
Therefore they cannot cast us into a den of lions without State Arms, Laws,
& ordinances & be ignorant of the natural consequences of such an Act. And the sin be
upon their own heads & the heads of their abettors if they will do it. "The Lord is our
light, whom shall we fear" therefore let us be as bold & stedfast as Daniel, & peradventure

 

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the fury of the Lions will be stayed until their fangs rest upon our ungodly enemies. Should
(the fury of the Lions will be stayed until their fangs rest upon our ungodly enemies)
the Legislature repeal our Charter we shall be obliged in self defence to spread the details of
our unparallelled wrongs to the extremities of the Nation & the world & then into the
ears of the Lord of Sabarth. But we will not believe that they will do it. The injustice
cruelty and barbarity of such an Act is too appalling for us to entertain such a thought
concerning them- Surely before they take such a step they will wipe away the murdered
blood that cleaves to the violated faith of the State. Or will they say to the Murderers
of the Smith's & their numerous apologists; We the Sovereign State of Illinois have held
in our Custody the Mormon Leaders, while defenceless, for you to shoot at, & we have
taken away the State Arms from the balance of the Mormon fraternity, & last, but not
least of all, we have taken all that it was in our power to do, the protection of Chartered
laws & ordinances & now what doth hinder the destruction of the Mormons. Now
"this is your hour & the power of darkness"_ Quickly let the hideous yell of Massacre
Arson & Rapine sound through the peaceful city of Nauvoo, followed with billows of
horror agony & death in every Mormon abode. What more could a bloody Mob ask
of a State than they will have done when they take away our Charters. O Illinois
art thou such a Nero on Caligula!! O Brutus is it thou; that friend that gave us the hearty
welcome & liberal charter!! so changed- O blush at the thought! From the very day of such
an Act, let no chaplain invoke the beniguity of the heavens upon you henceforth. Let the
day itself be blotted from your State Journal as a day of delirium and insanity when
the broad current of reason humanity & justice were stayed in their natural channels.
But if thou wilt do the unnatural deed to thy fond & loyal child & still claim the
attributes of humanity & justice then rest assured, as the Lord God of Israel sits upon
his Eternal throne, the Gallows prepared for Mordecai shall one day be thy own.
Now Be: Babbit the house of Israel have made you their Watchman;
therefore give the trump a certain sound, fear not them that can kill the body only,
but rather fear him that can cast both soul and body into hell. Dear Be: see to it
that thy skirts are clean, and we are persuaded better things of you though we
thus write.
Therefore let us have a whole unaltered Charter- Give our best regards to
Mr. Backenstos your colleague & our friend. Accept my personal respects & believe
me truly yours; in behalf of the City Council & of the Twelve
A. Babbit Esqre.      Orson/Spencer

 

 

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[note in pencil]

Was it sent

SL City Council Minutes                                                                          
G.A. Smiths speech
[Perpendicular to the writings in pencil and also in pencil]

Filed in the Recorder’s Office

[the following note in ink written in the same hand as the letter]

Copy letter to 

Hon: Almond Babbit

Springfield 

Illinios