dent nor safe for us to vote at the polls: still we have continued to maintain our right to vote, untill the blood of our best men has been shed, both in and the State of with impunity.
You are doubtless somewhat familiar with the history of our extermination from the state of ; wherein scores of our brethren were massacred; hundreds deid through want and sickness, occasioned by their unparralleled sufferings; some millions of our property were confiscated or destroyed; and some fifteen thousand souls fled for their lives, to the then hospitable and peaceful shores of :— And that the State of granted to us a liberal charter, for the term of perpetual succession, under whose provisions private rights have [p. [113]]
In January 1843 Governor Thomas Ford advised JS to “refrain from all political electioneeri[n]g” and expressed concern over Mormon bloc voting. Years later Ford recalled that during the 1844 election, “I was most anxious that the Mormons should not vote at this election, and strongly advised them against doing so.” Following this election, Ford warned the Latter-day Saints both privately and publicly that their voting practices incited opposition by non-Mormons. (JS, Journal, 6 Jan. 1843; Ford, History of Illinois, 362–363; Thomas Ford, Springfield, IL, to Willard Richards and William W. Phelps, Nauvoo, IL, 8 Sept. 1844, Willard Richards, Papers, CHL; Message of the Governor of the State of Illinois, 7.)
Ford, Thomas. A History of Illinois, from Its Commencement as a State in 1818 to 1847. Containing a Full Account of the Black Hawk War, the Rise, Progress, and Fall of Mormonism, the Alton and Lovejoy Riots, and Other Important and Interesting Events. Chicago: S. C. Griggs; New York: Ivison and Phinney, 1854.
Richards, Willard. Journals and Papers, 1821–1854. CHL. MS 1490.
Message of the Governor of the State of Illinois, in Relation to the Disturbances in Hancock County, December, 21, 1844. Springfield, IL: Walters and Weber, 1844.
On 6 August 1838 a riot broke out in Gallatin, Missouri, when several Mormons attempted to vote at a local election. (JS, Journal, 7–9 Aug. 1838; [Rigdon], Appeal to the American People,17–22.)
[Rigdon, Sidney]. An Appeal to the American People: Being an Account of the Persecutions of the Church of Latter Day Saints; and of the Barbarities Inflicted on Them by the Inhabitants of the State of Missouri. Cincinnati: Glezen and Shepard, 1840.
The Nauvoo municipal charter, granted by the Illinois legislature in December 1840, stated that it “shall have perpetual succession.” (An Act to Incorporate the City of Nauvoo [16 Dec. 1840], Laws of the State of Illinois [1840–1841], p. 52, sec. 1.)
Laws of the State of Illinois, Passed by the Twelfth General Assembly, at Their Session, Began and Held at Springfield, on the Seventh of December, One Thousand Eight Hundred and Forty. Springfield, IL: William Walters, 1841.