  RENEWAL OF HOSTILITIES BY MISSOURI. IT would appear that Hatred's hunger is never fed; it seems to possess an appetite which is insatiable, and can never feel at ease so long as the object of its detestation remains within its reach; and even when that object is removed beyond the immediate power of Hatred to do it harm, as the dragon of the apocalypse when he could not follow the woman he had persecuted into the wilderness, cast out of his mouth a flood of water after her to destroy her—even so Hatred, when baffled in his efforts to destroy his victims, sends out floods of falsehood to overwhelm them by infusing his own venom into the breasts of others; that that destruction which he could not bring to pass himself, might be brought about by another. Such was the course of hate-blinded Missouri towards the Saints of God, whom she had driven beyond her borders. Seeing that she had not destroyed them, but that they were now upon the eve of enjoying an era of prosperity such as they had never enjoyed while within her borders, she employed all her cunning to incite the hatred of the citizens of Illinois against them. But this was not easy of accomplishment; and at first, the misrepresentations of a State that had been guilty of such outrages as those committed by Missouri against the Latter-day Saints, had but little weight in Illinois. Finding that their accusations against the people whom they had so wronged had little or no effect, an effort was made to give coloring to their statements; and stolen goods were conveyed from Missouri to the vicinity of Commerce, so that when they were found, suspicion might rest upon the people in whose neighborhood the stolen articles were discovered. Nor did their outrages stop at this. But doubtless being emboldened by reason of the general government's refusing to make any effort to redress the wrongs of the Saints, a company of men led by William Allensworth, H. M. Woodyard, Wm. Martin, J. H. Owsely, John Bain, Light T. Lait and Halsay White, crossed over the Mississippi to Illinois, at a point a few miles above Quincy, and kidnapped Alanson Brown, James Allred, Benjamin Boyce and Noah Rogers; and without any writ or warrant of any character whatever, they dragged them over to Missouri, to a neighborhood called Tully, in Lewis County. These unfortunate men were imprisoned for a day or two in an old log cabin, during which time their lives were repeatedly threatened. At one time Brown was taken out, a rope placed around his neck, and he was hung up to a tree until he was nearly strangled to death. Boyce at the same time was tied to a tree, stripped of his clothing and inhumanly beaten. Rogers was also beaten, and Allred was stripped of every particle of clothing, and tied up to a tree for the greater part of the night, and threatened frequently by a man named Monday, exclaiming: "G—d d—n you, I'll cut you to the hollow." He was finally, however, released without being whipped. After they had received this inhuman treatment, their captors performed an act purely Missourian in its character, that is, they gave them the following note of acquittal:
As soon as the people of Commerce and vicinity were informed of this outrage, Gentiles as well as Mormons were loud in their condemnation of it, and at once a mass meeting was called, and resolutions were adopted, expressing their unqualified indignation, and calling upon the governor of Illinois to take the necessary steps to punish those who had committed this outrage, and by vindicating the law, give the Missourians to understand there was a limit beyond which their deeds of violence must not pass. D.H. Wells, not then a member of The Church, and George Miller were appointed a committee to wait upon Governor Carlin, and lay the case before him. For this purpose they repaired to Quincy, and at the recital of the cruelties practiced upon the men who were the victims of the Missourians, the governor's wife, who was present at the interview, was moved to tears, and the governor himself was greatly agitated. He promised to counsel with the State attorney, who by law was made his adviser, and promised to take such steps as the case seemed to require, and the law to justify. Just what was done by Governor Carlin, however, I am unable to learn; but one thing is certain, and that is, the guilty parties were never brought to justice, nor even to a trial—indeed it may be that even then the love which Governor Carlin once had for the Saints, and which at last became dead, had begun to grow cold. Scarcely had the excitement occasioned by the kidnapping of Allred and his associates subsided, when Governor Boggs of Missouri made a requisition on Governor Carlin, of Illinois, for the persons of Joseph Smith, Jr., Sidney Rigdon, Lyman Wight, P.P. Pratt, Caleb Baldwin and Alanson Brown, as fugitives from justice. Governor Carlin granted the requisition—was it another case of Herod and Pilate being made friends over the surrender of God's Prophet? But fortunately when the sheriff went to Commerce with his requisition, Joseph and his brethren were not at home, and could not be found; so that the officers returned without them. These men were not fugitives from justice, no process had ever been found against them, the governor himself had connived at their escape from the hands of the officers charged with the duty of conducting them from Liberty, Clay County, to Boone County;[ These circumstances gave the Saints to understand that their peace in their beautiful situation on the banks of the placid, grand, old Mississippi was not to be without alloy; the goal of their final triumph and rest had not been reached. These incidents were a premonition of danger; they were indeed the few drops of rain which sometimes precede the storm, but a kind Providence shut out from their vision how fierce that storm would be, or how would they have had the courage to meet it? Footnotes |
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