Joseph Smith was the subject of three extradition hearings held in Illinois in September 2013.

In 1841, 1842, and 1843, the state of Missouri tried to extradite Joseph Smith from the state of Illinois. Joseph Smith used a writ of habeas corpus each time to stop his extradition.

The Illinois Supreme Court Historic Preservation Commission and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum (a division of the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency) produced a rehearing and a panel discussion to educate the public on the use of habeas corpus (a writ that determines whether an individual is being detained legally). They work to bring awareness of legal events in Illinois.

The Missouri War of 1838—A Brief Summary

When Mormons lived in the state of Missouri in the 1830s, long-time residents of the state were concerned about Mormons settling there permanently. Parley P. Pratt, one of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles at the time, said that some people “had long watched our increasing power and prosperity with jealousy, and with greedy and avaricious eyes. It was a common boast that, as soon as we had completed our extensive improvements, and made a plentiful crop, they would drive us from the State, and once more enrich themselves with the spoils.”1 This was not the first time members of The Church of Jesus Christ had experienced trouble in Missouri, nor the first time they were persecuted in any state. Additionally, dissenters from the Church were joining the persecution of members of the Church.

Tensions escalated when an affidavit was sworn out against Joseph Smith falsely stating that he and another Mormon had organized an army of 500 men and had threatened death to old settlers and citizens in Daviess County. Other false claims of threats, rumors, and exaggerated stories circulated throughout Missouri. False reports of a Mormon uprising reached Missouri governor Lilburn W. Boggs. In the mobbings that followed, many Latter-day Saints were murdered and their lands and possessions were taken. Unsuccessfully, they appealed for relief to Governor Boggs several times. Mormons defended themselves, fueling stories that Mormons intended to sack and burn Richmond, Missouri.

Relying on the false reports of an insurrection by Mormons, Governor Boggs issued an extermination order. Violence against the Mormons erupted and they were brutally driven from the state. Joseph Smith and other Church leaders were taken prisoner and held in dungeon-like conditions for several months. They were charged with “murder, treason, burglary, arson, larceny, theft, and stealing.”2 Some state officials concluded that Joseph Smith and others would not be successfully prosecuted, so a sheriff and other guards allowed the prisoners to escape while taking them to a different county for trial. They joined other Latter-day Saints in Illinois.

A Writ of Habeas Corpus

In the new Mormon settlement of Nauvoo, Illinois, Smith and others discussed the form of government that their new city should have. The Nauvoo Charter became law on December 16, 1840. It was similar to charters granted to other cities in Illinois: Chicago, Alton, Galena, Springfield, and Quincy. It allowed them to establish a municipal court and a local militia. The charter helped Mormons feel like they finally had some legal security.

In 1841 Smith was arrested as a fugitive from Missouri. This was the first of three attempts to extradite Smith. The second happened when Smith was falsely accused of attempting to assassinate Governor Boggs in 1842. A third attempt happened in 1843 during the congressional race when John C. Bennett, former mayor of Nauvoo, revived the old charge of treason against Smith. A writ of habeas corpus, allowed under the Nauvoo Charter, provided his release.

Series of Events Exploring Habeas Corpus

The three Smith habeas corpus hearings were reenacted in the Lincoln Museum on September 24, 2013. The reenactment was based on the Mormons’ experiences in the early 1800s. A panel discussion on the use of habeas corpus over the last two centuries followed the reenactment. Panel members included U.S. District Court Judge Sue Myerscough of the Central District of Illinois; Michael Scodro, Solicitor General for the State of Illinois; Jeffrey Colman, partner at Jenner and Block in Chicago, who has worked on behalf of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay; and Jeffrey N. Walker of the Joseph Smith Papers Project, Salt Lake City, Utah.

Included in the event, experts  led tours of the Nauvoo historic sites. Dallin H. Oaks, one of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ, former dean of the University of Chicago Law School, and former Utah Supreme Court Justice, spoke at the LDS Center in Nauvoo.

Joseph Smith continues to be known for good and evil because of his place in American history as a result of his work to restore the gospel of Jesus Christ and to reestablish the Church of Jesus Christ.

Notes:

1. Parley P. Pratt, ed., Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1985), 150.

2. History of the Church, 3:315.

paulah

Paula Hicken was an editor with the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship from 2000 to 2013. She earned her BA degree in English from Brigham Young University. She edited Insights, the Maxwell Institute newsletter, and was the production editor for Faith, Philosophy, Scripture, Hebrew Law in Biblical Times (2nd ed.), Third Nephi: An Incomparable Scripture, and was one of the copy editors for Analysis of the Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon. She also helped manage the Maxwell Institute intellectual property and oversaw rights and permissions. She has published in the Ensign, the Liahona, the LDS Church News, and the FARMS Review.

Less well known is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s visit to Utah more than thirty years after writing a book set among “sinister” and “nefarious” Mormons in Salt Lake City. He admitted that he had been misled before his visit by the writings of the time, and he apologized for his inaccurate portrayal. He wrote that he had “great respect for the Mormons.”2

But a visit to the Mormons by prominent educator, author, orator, and presidential advisor, Booker T. Washington and what he thought about them is almost completely forgotten. This year marks the 100th anniversary of Washington’s visit to Utah and The Deseret News recently published an article describing what brought him to Utah.

Booker T. Washington was the most prominent African-American of his generation. In late March 1913 he traveled to Utah to “‘get right into the midst of the Mormons to see what kind of people they are, what they look like, what they are doing, and in what respect they are succeeding.’”

After his two-day visit, he wrote a 2,000-word account for the New York Age, which was one of the most influential African-American newspapers at that time.

“‘They have certainly made the desert blossom as a rose,’” he wrote. “‘I have never been among a more intelligent, healthy, clean, progressive, moral set of people than these people are.’”

During his visit he met with African-Americans and “local leaders, attended receptions in his honor and spoke to educators.” He also spoke to a large assembly of University of Utah students, where he was “‘greeted by vociferous applause.’”

Washington said of Utah students: “‘It has been my privilege to address schools and universities in nearly every part of America, and I saw without hesitation that I have never addressed a college anywhere where the students were more alert, more responsive, more intelligent than is true of the students in these Mormon colleges.’”

According to Max Mueller, who is writing a forthcoming paper titled “Booker T. Washington’s March 1913,” the superintendent of Salt Lake City schools visited Tuskegee Institute—the teachers college that Washington founded—and invited him to come and speak.

Washington’s visit was evidently in response to an invitation, a curiosity about the Mormons, and possibly a quest to obtain funding for his college.

Mueller said that Washington hoped to “‘create an independent, self-sufficient, respected community of industrious, conservative people’” and thought the Latter-day Saints were a model of that type of community. “‘The saints and African Americans actually have a shared history of exclusion from the mainstream, of persecution. So they had that in common.’”

Washington wrote:

“‘First  . . . the Mormons were most inhumanly persecuted almost from the first organization of their church. This was especially true in Missouri and Illinois. Hundreds of their followers were put to death. The courts gave them little protection. The mob that either killed or wounded the Mormons was seldom, if ever, punished. . . . but out of this inhuman and unjust treatment grew the strength of these people . . .

‘The second parallel between the Mormon and the Negro is this. These people, I am sure, have been misrepresented before the world. . . . The Negro is suffering today just as the Mormons are suffering and have suffered, because people from the outside have advertised the worst in connection with Mormon life and they seldom called attention to the best in connection with the life of the Mormons.’”

Washington’s observations are also interesting because “at that time The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints did not allow its members of African descent to be ordained to the priesthood.” (All worthy males are ordained to the priesthood now.) And because of racially discriminatory policies of the time, Washington wasn’t allowed to stay in the prestigious Hotel Utah.

But Mormons recognized their similarities with African-Americans and often “spoke out about extralegal violence against African-Americans.”

Booker T. Washington visited Utah to “see what kind of people” the Mormons were because he knew the value of getting “right into the midst” of them:

“‘I have learned by experience and observation that it is never safe to pass final judgment upon a people until one has had an opportunity to get into the real life of these people.’”

Notes:

1. The Voyage of the Amazon: A Close View of One Immigrant Company

2. 100 years since Booker T. Washington’s historic visit to the Mormons

This article was written by Paula Hicken, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Paula Hicken was an editor with the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship from 2000 to 2013. She earned her BA degree in English from Brigham Young University. She edited Insights, the Maxwell Institute newsletter, and was the production editor for Faith, Philosophy, Scripture, Hebrew Law in Biblical Times (2nd ed.), Third Nephi: An Incomparable Scripture, and was one of the copy editors for Analysis of the Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon. She also helped manage the Maxwell Institute intellectual property and oversaw rights and permissions. She has published in the Ensign, the Liahona, the LDS Church News, and the FARMS Review.

Additional Resources:

Black Mormons in Utah

A Mormon Declaration

paulah

Paula Hicken was an editor with the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship from 2000 to 2013. She earned her BA degree in English from Brigham Young University. She edited Insights, the Maxwell Institute newsletter, and was the production editor for Faith, Philosophy, Scripture, Hebrew Law in Biblical Times (2nd ed.), Third Nephi: An Incomparable Scripture, and was one of the copy editors for Analysis of the Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon. She also helped manage the Maxwell Institute intellectual property and oversaw rights and permissions. She has published in the Ensign, the Liahona, the LDS Church News, and the FARMS Review.