justice for his crimes and to expel the saints from the State. It was like building the magazine of the enemy in the city of Refuge; and also after the first number of the Expositor the city council declared the paper a public nuisance and dangerous to the peace of the commonwealth; and they thereupon ordered the office of the paper to be demolished by the marshal and his posse."
This shows the moral character of the spirit by which the Mormon prophet was inspired! Why did not those leaders challenge an open investigation? Smith's course in this matter showed that he was possessed of the spirit of an unprincipled tyrant; and could he have had his way there would have been an end to free speech and liberty of the press. The Mormon prophet showed that he was possessed of the same spirit and made of the same material of the Mohammedan prophet. The following shows the true spirit of this modern prophet.
"In the winter of 1843—1844." says Governor Ford, of Illinois, who was intimately acquainted with Smith and his associates, "the Common Council passed some other ordinance to protect their leaders from arrest, on demand from Missouri. They enacted that no writ issued from any other place than Nauvoo, for the arrest of any person in it, should be executed in the city, without an approval thereon endorsed by the Mayor; that if any public officer by virtue of any foreign writ, should attempt to make any arrest in the city without such approval of his process, he should be subject to imprisonment for life, and that the Governor of the State should not have the power of pardoning the offender without the consent of the Mayor."
Remember, gentle reader, Joseph Smith was the mayor. This gives an insight to the spirit of the man. He purposed to place himself above all civil authority, and live as he pleased in defiance of all civil law! He was then living in adultery—practicing polygamy in defiance of all civil law, in opposition to all principles of virtue and morality. He did not propose that his licentious course should be interfered with. The first
