The Nauvoo Expositor Affair [Death of Mormon Joseph Smith]

Since I wrote a post on the assassinations of Joseph and Hyrum Smith on June 27, 1844, mentioning the the Expositor newspaper as the trigger for these events, located here, several people have asked to know more about the Expositor. This post relays a bit more about this subject. Enjoy.

In Mormon-controlled Nauvoo, Illinois, in May 1844, leaders of the Reformed Mormon Church, a dissenting group opposing what they considered abuse by Joseph Smith Jr., the church sect’s founding prophet, launched a newspaper independent of the control of the Latter Day Saint church. Led by William and Wilson Law, brothers who had previously been in the leadership of the church at Nauvoo, the Expositor published only one issue. The June 7, 1844, edition sounded the alarm about what the dissenters believed were abuses of authority by Joseph Smith. It also set off a chain of events that eventually led to the deaths of Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum.

The Expositor was intended from the beginning as a means of expressing dissent—perhaps the ultimate form of adherence to an ideal, for the dissenters feel it so important that they are willing to endure all forms of censure for it—and through it the publishers hoped to arouse the community against the secret practice of polygamy, raise concerns about other doctrines, and curb Joseph Smith’s theocratic control of the community.

Among other things, they opposed Smith’s efforts to hold himself above the law.

When its only issue appeared on June 7, 1844, the Expositor excited the city’s leadership. It condemned the taking of plural wives and denounced the practice as a villainy by depicting the psychological pressure that was brought to bear on the selected women. It also deplored Joseph Smith’s attempts to gain and wield political power and called for greater separation of church and state at Nauvoo. The publishers listed a whole series of resolutions designed to bring religious, moral, and political reform to the community. The Expositor not only opposed Smith’s control of Nauvoo, it held his behavior up to precisely the kind of critical examination that he had always managed to avoid within the church. And the publishers were very well informed. They addressed their fellow Mormons with authority—as men “thoroughly acquainted with [the church's] rise, its organization and its history.” If the Mormon community of Nauvoo had serious shortcomings, as the publishers asserted, then the church membership had to question the virtues claimed for it by Joseph Smith. Rather than a bastion of virtue in a corrupt nation as Smith insisted, the Law brothers asserted that Nauvoo was a place where moral, social, and political corruption reigned.

Hence, the opposition newspaper offered a view of the community which the Mormon prophet could not tolerate. His conception of Nauvoo as a God-led, separatist theocracy was at stake. Smith had to act, and he did.

The day after the Expositor hit the street, Joseph Smith, acting as Nauvoo’s mayor, convened the city council to take official action against it. In meetings on June 8, the council declared the Expositor a nuisance that must be destroyed. Smith insisted that this dissenting newspaper was a “treasonable” threat to the city’s “chartered rights,” asserted that the dissenters wanted to incite violence against Nauvoo, and called for its destruction no less than four times during the meetings.

When a council member had the audacity not to follow his lead, Smith showed his disapproval, remarking, “that he was sorry to have one dissenting voice, in declaring the Expositor a nuisance.” He wanted total compliance with his plan for removing the threat to his control of the community, just as he wanted total compliance from his followers.

No doubt, these proceedings violated the constitutional rights of the dissenters, for there was no due process of law. The city council was not a court, nor were the accused charged with anything, notified of the proceedings against them, or allowed to defend themselves. Furthermore, there was no existing nuisance law with respect to newspapers. An ordinance to cover the action was passed after the Expositor started publishing, and it was used as a pretext to destroy the press and intimidate the publishers. Clearly, the purpose of the city council meeting was not to seek the truth, or to administer justice, but to eliminate critics and to purge from the community an influence that was heretical, because the dissenters’ reform proposals challenged the central Mormon myths of inherent innocence and leadership by revelation. Nothing else that the Mormons did revealed so convincingly to the non-Mormon community around Nauvoo the threat to democracy present in Joseph Smith’s theocratic government.

More importantly, during the proceedings all sorts of slanderous remarks were made about the publishers which were unrelated to the contents of the Expositor and unsupported by evidence. That reveals much about the Mormon mythic consciousness, for which guilt and innocence were matters of belief, not of evidence. Moreover, the entire council meeting was deeply influenced by psychological projection. Aspects of the self—and of the community approved by the conscious self—that were disturbing to the Mormon mind (multiple sexual relationships, false swearing, etc.) were attributed to the dissenters, thereby relieving the inner tensions of the accusers. When council member Orson Spencer said, “We have found these men covenant breakers with God, with their wives!! &c.,” he unconsciously put his finger on the repressed anxieties that haunted the Mormon mind.

The council meeting was, in fact, an act of scapegoating, a psychological purgation or a casting out of “iniquity” by attributing it to others. When council member Levi Richards exclaimed about the press, “Let it be thrown out of this city,” he was expressing symbolically what most really wanted, the casting out of the dissenters for whom the press had spoken.

With the city council’s approval, Joseph Smith moved very quickly against the Expositor. As mayor he ordered the city police to destroy the press, and then he acted as Lieutenant General of the Nauvoo Legion to provide military support for this act of institutionalized violence. The press was destroyed without prior notice on the evening of June 10, 1844. Afterward, the men involved returned to the prophet’s home, where, as he told them, as recorded in his journal, “I gave them a short address and told them they had done right,” and assured them “that I would never submit to have another libelous publication…established in this city.” The men cheered him and went home.

Insight into to the theocratic rule of early Nauvoo, IL and the reasons for the gun battle between Joseph and Hyrum Smith and an irate mob that resulted in the deaths of the Smith brothers. [GF]

Ya gotta watch the audacious power grabs of Mormon leaders running for U.S. president (like Joseph Smith).

Nobody but nobody today would wonder about an inmate today being shot in a jail if such a prisoner had a loaded gun on his possession.

(I tell you what, any prisoner today who was armed with a gun and took out two people as he was being shot wouldn't receive a martyr's crown)

If Smith was walking in the true Savior's footsteps, where was Smith's "put down your sword" theology when a criminal accomplice gave a Nauvoo prisoner a lethal weapon? Smith didn't put the revolver down. (Note: had it been discovered & the mob held off, criminal charges could have been added to the charges Smith was already being held on.)

For some reason, Mormons didn't celebrate June 25, 1994 as the 150th anniversary of Smith's arrest for the charge of incitation of a "riot"...later changed to a charge of "treason."

So...
(1) Smith already had a separate pre-trial hearing for a separate charge of "adultery."
(2) He was arrested for inciting a "riot."
(3) Before his death, he was charged with "treason"
(4) He could have been charged with carrying an illegal weapon...sorry, even today's concealed permits wouldn't work for inmates then or now!!!
(5) Smith was an Illinois polygamist and laws existed on the books in the 1840s to prosecute him for this.
(6) Smith was also charged in the early 1840s as a before-the-fact accomplice to attempted murder of the Missouri Gov (Boggs). [That charge was later dropped]
(7) Earlier in his life, Smith underwent a trial for "glass looking" in New York -- and was found guilty
(8) He was rightly accused of bank fraud in Kirtland, Ohio...but then left the state (ever hear the term, "as phoney as a $3 bill?" -- well, Smith was running out of money...as one Web site once put it, "What to do? Hold a tent revival? Call an emergency capital fund drive? No none of that, Instead, he declared that the Lord, through Melchizedek Priesthood, had commanded him to open a bank, a bank to be called an 'Anti-Bank' to skirt Ohio laws. And it came to pass, thus sprang the $3 Mormon tender...In those days, the US government didn't print money, states chartered local banks to do that...in Ohio there was an anti-bank movement...far too much money floating around...the Mormons started the Kirtland Safety Society Anti-Bank, which minted currency. Because it was an Anti-Bank it required no charter, or so they maintained, because it was not a bank but an anti-bank, thus keeping with the anti-bank movement. The Mormon tender was backed by one dollar for every hundred printed. So there was once a $3 bill, purposed equal to $3 of US currency, only the signatories were Joseph Smith and Mormon bank president Signey Rigdon with Warren Parrish shill to disburse the stuff.") See Joseph Smith's 'Anti-Bank' [Wow! All Congress would have needed to do was to "follow the 'prophet's" example, print $3 bills with the names of Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank as signatories!!!]

Furthermore, had Smith lived today and tried the same shenanigans, he would have been charged with:
(9) Possible statutory rape of a servant girl who the Smith family took into their home (Smith later married her)
(10) Destruction of Property (printing press)
(11) A conspiracy to engage in the cover up of his Spring 1844 actions as mayor

(12) He could have also been impeached as Nauvoo mayor had not the riot Smith started on Mainstreet extended into his personal jailhouse.

Smith's first wife, Emma, essentially said this way before you did: "It was secret things which...cost Joseph and Hyrum their lives, and it will cost you and The Twelve your lives as it has done to them." (Source: Solemn Covenant, by B. Carmon Hardy, Univ. of Illinois)

Do Lds agree with Emma Smith on this, "It was the secret things which...cost Joseph and Hyrum their lives... (Or do they want to critique Emma?)

Imagine Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. He realizes he's going to be arrested.
So what does he do? Does he rebuke sword-wielding Peter and heal the soldier's ear had he been Smith-like? (No) Instead...
#1...before the soldiers arrived, the Mormon-like jesus would have hightailed it out of the garden across the river in order to not face consequences for his actions...
#2...then he would have had to be goaded back into town by a letter accusing him of cowardice (in Smith's case, the letter was from his first wife)...
#3...Instead of the true Jesus being helped along in carrying the cross by Simon of Cyrene, the Mormon-like jesus would have been "helped along" in carrying his cross by Cyrus of Nauvoo, who smuggled a weapon to the Mormon-like jesus...
#4...the Mormon-like jesus, instead of when threatened, would have actually joined Peter in cutting off ears with swords in hand and probably slitting throats...
#5...the Mormon-like jesus would have injured or killed three people...
#6...instead of having the famous line, "he who lives by the sword dies by the sword," I guess we have "he who lives by the smuggled pistol, dies by the rifle" -- but it's not very "Messianic" when we realize that what the true Jesus was teaching Peter has been turned on its head in the person of Joseph Smith.
#7...and then to top it all off...had the true Jesus acted like the Mormon-like jesus, we would have many millions more who would never even know that Jesus' "sword" words actually constituted a rebuke of Peter...
#8...and, in fact, we do see millions of the Mormon-like jesus followers now concluding: You know what, in a similar situation, I would have done the same -- and this entails not just taking up swords to cut off ears -- but actually still generations later defending criminally illegal actions of...
...(a) weapon smuggling into arrest situations;
...(b) possessing weapons in arrest situations -- and calling it "jesus-like";
...(c) using those weapons to try to kill multiple people.

[Yeah, just try mentioning you favor that the next time you try witnessing to a law enforcement officer or prison corrections officer]

Yeah, that's the portrait we want of the cross: A Roman soldier hammering a nail into the Lamb of God, and the Lamb of God responds by pulling a sword out of the soldier's sheath and proceeds to wound or kill three of them. (end sarc)

Joseph Smith then reacts by pulling his gun out of his pocket, opens the door and attempts to unload all 6 shots -- 3 misfire, he shoots 3 and kills 2. He then leaps up on the window ledge to try to cry the Masonic signal for help ("Oh lord my God, is there no help for the widow's son?") -- but falls in a hail of bullets -- at least one from the door & at least one from the windows outside...hit 4 times he dies...only being able to get out the initial part of the Masonic distress signal, "Oh lord my God..."

Insight into to the theocratic rule of early Nauvoo, IL...

The corporate Mormon theocratic overreach -- in evidence:

Lds Leader	Chronological 'Prophet' or Fundamental # (or Other Title)	Overlap Areas: Could the President of the U.S. become a 'puppet' to an Lds 'Prophet?' (The Lds Prophets -- in their own words)
John Taylor	Lds 'Prophet' #3	“The Almighty has established this kingdom with order and laws and every thing pertaining thereto…[so] that when the nations shall be convulsed, we may stand forth as saviours…and finally redeem a ruined world, not only in a religious but in a political point of view.” (Journal of Discourses, vol. 9, p. 342, April 13, 1862)
Orson Hyde	President of the Lds Quorum of the 12 Apostles for 28 years (1847-1875)	“What the world calls ‘Mormonism’ will rule every nation...God has decreed it, and his own right arm will accomplish it. This will make the heathen rage.” (Journal of Discourses, vol. 7, p. 53)
Heber J. Grant	Lds 'Prophet' #7	"Elder Marion G. Romney recalled the counsel of President Heber J. Grant: 'My boy, you always keep your eye on the President of the Church, and if he ever tells you to do anything, and it is wrong, and you do it, the Lord will bless you for it.' Then with a twinkle in his eye, he said, 'But you don't need to worry. The Lord will never let his mouthpiece lead the people astray'" (in Conference Report, Oct. 1960, p. 78)." Cited in Official Lds publication Search the Commandments: Melchizedek Priesthood Personal Study Guide, p. 209 (1984)
Harold B. Lee	Lds 'Prophet' #11	...President Harold B. Lee said: 'We must learn to give heed to the words and commandments that the Lord shall give through his prophet, '...as if from mine own mouth...(D&C 21:4-5)...You may not like what comes from the authority of the Church. It may contradict your political views. It may contradict your social views. It may interfere with some of your social life. But if you listen to these things, as if from the mouth of the Lord himself..." Cited in official Lds publication Remember Me: Relief Society Personal Study Guide I, p. 27 (1989)
Spencer Kimball	Lds 'Prophet' #12	"President Spencer W. Kimball said: '...We deal with many things which are thought to be not so spiritual; but all things are spiritual with the Lord, and he expects us to listen, and to obey..." (In Conference Report, Apr. 1977, p. 8; or Ensign, May 1977, p. 7) Cited in official Lds publication Come, Follow Me: Melchizedek Priesthood Personal Study Guide 1983, p.12 (1983)
What about Marion G. Romney, cousin to Mitt's father?	Who was he in Lds hierarchy? (Title: 'President' - Top 3 of church as 2nd counselor to both #11 & #12 Lds 'prophets')	"Elder Neal A. Maxwell has said: 'Following the living prophets is something that must be done in all seasons and circumstances. We must be like President Marion G. Romney, who humbly said, '..I have never hesitated to follow the counsel of the Authorities of the Church even though it crossed my social, professional, and political life' (Conference Report, April 1941, p. 123). There are, or will be moments when prophetic declarations collide with our pride or our seeming personal interests...Do I believe in the living prophet even when he speaks on matters affecting me and my specialty directly? Or do I stop sustaining the prophet when his words fall in my territory? if the latter, the prophet is without honor in our country! (Things As They Really Are, p. 73). Cited in official Lds publication, Search the Commandments: Melchizedek Priesthood Personal Study Guide, pp. 275-276 (1984)
Ezra Taft Benson	Lds 'Prophet' #13	Benson speech given 2/26/80 @BYU. Summary: “…remember, if there is ever a conflict between earthly knowledge and the words of the prophet, you stand with the prophet…” (See excerpts re: 3 of 14 'fundamentals' below) Source: Fourteen Fundamentals in Following the Prophet
Benson (cont'd)	Fundamental #5	5. The prophet is not required to have any particular earthly training or credentials to speak on any subject or act on any matter at any time. (My Q: Ya hear that Mitt Romney?)
Benson (cont'd)	Fundamental #9	9. The prophet can receive revelation on any matter, temporal* or spiritual.* (My Q: Still listening, Mitt?)
Benson (cont'd)	Fundamental #10	10. The prophet may advise on civic matters. (My Q: What say ye Mitt?)
B.H. Roberts	LDS Historian and Seventy. Note: Roberts was an elected Democratic Congressman from Utah in 1898 -- but was NEVER seated by Congress because of grass roots uproar vs. Roberts, who took a THIRD simultaneous wife in the early 1890s. Grass roots America collected 7 MILLION signatures on 28 banners and presented them to Congress...in pre-mass media 1800s!	“[T]he kingdom of God... is to be a POLITICAL INSTITUTION THAT SHALL HOLD SWAY OVER ALL THE EARTH; TO WHICH ALL OTHER GOVERNMENTS WILL BE SUBORDINATE AND BY WHICH THEY WILL BE DOMINATED.” The Rise and Fall of Nauvoo, 1900, p. 180
Mitt Romney as POTUS???	Aside from above prophetic impositions, why would Mitt not only honor what these 'prophets' have spoken, but what a future Lds 'prophet' may tell him to do?	The Law of Consecration Oath Mitt Romney has sworn in the Mormon temple (done before marriage/sealing in temple): "You and each of you covenant and promise before God, angels, and these witnesses at this altar, that you do accept the law of consecration as contained in this, the book of Doctrine and Covenants [he displays the book], in that you do consecrate yourselves, your time, talents, and EVERYTHING with which the Lord has blessed you, or WITH which he MAY bless you, to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, for the building up of the kingdom of God on the earth and for the establishment of Zion." Source: What is an LDS Church/Mormon temple marriage/sealing? [Q: Please define 'Zion': The LDS PR Web site (lds.org) defines its primary meaning: "membership in the [LDS] church."]

Addendum: Salt Lake Tribune, June 4, 2007: Romney candidacy has resurrected last days prophecy of Mormon saving the Constitution

Note especially the bold face portion below:

WASHINGTON - It's Mormon lore, a story passed along by some old-timers about the importance of their faith and their country. In the latter days, the story goes, the U.S. Constitution will hang by a thread and a Mormon will ride in on a metaphorical white horse to save it. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints says it does not accept the legend - commonly referred to as the "White Horse Prophecy" - as doctrine. The issue, however, has been raised on those occasions when Mormons have sought the Oval Office: George Romney was asked about it during his bid in 1968, Sen. Orrin Hatch discussed it when he ran in 2000, and now Mitt Romney. "It is being raised," says Phil Barlow, a professor of Mormon history and culture at Utah State University. "I've heard it a bit lately." Romney says he doesn't believe in the supposed prophecy, nor did his father when he ran. "I haven't heard my name associated with it or anything of that nature," Mitt Romney told The Salt Lake Tribune during an interview earlier this year. "That's not official church doctrine. There are a lot of things that are speculation and discussion by church members and even church leaders that aren't official church doctrine. I don't put that at the heart of my religious belief." The disputed prophecy was recorded in a diary entry of a Mormon who had heard the tale from two men who were with Joseph Smith in Nauvoo, Ill. when he supposedly declared the prophecy. "You will see the Constitution of the United States almost destroyed," the diary entry quotes Smith as saying. "It will hang like a thread as fine as a silk fiber." Not only will the Mormons save the Constitution, under the prediction, but the prophecy goes further, insinuating that Mormons will control the government. "Power will be given to the White Horse to rebuke the nations afar off, and you obey it, for the laws go forth from Zion," the prophecy says.

Mormon wild cards:

Do you realize that if you were a temple Mormon in 1926, you promised to fulfill the following Oath of Vengeance in the temple ceremony:

You and each of you do covenant and promise that you will pray and never cease to pray to Almighty God to avenge the blood of the prophets upon this nation, and that you will teach the same to your children and to your children's children unto the third and fourth generation. Source: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2335353/posts

From the article: When its only issue appeared on June 7, 1844, the Expositor excited the city’s leadership.

Ah, what an understatement!

From the article: It condemned the taking of plural wives and denounced the practice as a villainy by depicting the psychological pressure that was brought to bear on the selected women. It also deplored Joseph Smith’s attempts to gain and wield political power and called for greater separation of church and state at Nauvoo. The publishers listed a whole series of resolutions designed to bring religious, moral, and political reform to the community. The Expositor not only opposed Smith’s control of Nauvoo, it held his behavior up to precisely the kind of critical examination that he had always managed to avoid within the church.

Hmmm...on this last sentence, kind of like another POTUS candidate running for Prez, now, eh?

From the article: And the publishers were very well informed. They addressed their fellow Mormons with authority—as men “thoroughly acquainted with [the church's] rise, its organization and its history.” If the Mormon community of Nauvoo had serious shortcomings, as the publishers asserted, then the church membership had to question the virtues claimed for it by Joseph Smith. Rather than a bastion of virtue in a corrupt nation as Smith insisted, the Law brothers asserted that Nauvoo was a place where moral, social, and political corruption reigned.

Yes. And this very same question about the corruptness of the corporate Mormon church leadership needs to be addressed today! Financial fraud, by Mormon bishops & ex-bishops and other Lds lay leaders is rampant! Within the past few years, two Mormon bishop illegal aliens were deported. ...the opposition newspaper offered a view of the community which the Mormon prophet could not tolerate. His conception of Nauvoo as a God-led, separatist theocracy was at stake. Smith had to act, and he did. The day after the Expositor hit the street, Joseph Smith, acting as Nauvoo’s mayor, convened the city council to take official action against it. In meetings on June 8, the council declared the Expositor a nuisance that must be destroyed. Smith insisted that this dissenting newspaper was a “treasonable” threat to the city’s “chartered rights,” asserted that the dissenters wanted to incite violence against Nauvoo, and called for its destruction no less than four times during the meetings. When a council member had the audacity not to follow his lead, Smith showed his disapproval, remarking, “that he was sorry to have one dissenting voice, in declaring the Expositor a nuisance.” He wanted total compliance with his plan for removing the threat to his control of the community, just as he wanted total compliance from his followers. No doubt, these proceedings violated the constitutional rights of the dissenters, for there was no due process of law. The city council was not a court, nor were the accused charged with anything, notified of the proceedings against them, or allowed to defend themselves. Furthermore, there was no existing nuisance law with respect to newspapers. An ordinance to cover the action was passed after the Expositor started publishing, and it was used as a pretext to destroy the press and intimidate the publishers. Clearly, the purpose of the city council meeting was not to seek the truth, or to administer justice, but to eliminate critics and to purge from the community an influence that was heretical, because the dissenters’ reform proposals challenged the central Mormon myths of inherent innocence and leadership by revelation.

Yes. What truly links the Mormons of 1844 to the CURRENT Mormons is how they justify the actions of Smith's City Council... If you go to this link The Martyrdom: The Prophet Seals His Testimony with His Blood [168th anniversary of Lds censorship] -- then click on the Lds.org original source of that article -- you'll find these two lines from the OFFICIAL Mormon church site:

The Nauvoo Expositor was an anti-Mormon newspaper that slandered the Prophet and other Saints and called for the repeal of the Nauvoo Charter. City officials feared that this publication would lead to mob action.

How crazy is that! The Mormon church STILL claims over 150 years later that the mob action ordered by Joseph Smith was done to prevent a mob action! Wow! Incredible!

What a corrupt revisionist take of history! And it shows how dangerous Mormon "prophets" with puppets in the White House would be...ANYTHING they see as pre-empting "mob action" would be worthy of mob action!!!

Because "The LDS Church Library no longer allows access to the Nauvoo City Council and High Council minutes from 1839 to 1845" -- per Mormon columnist Doug Gibson (Nauvoo City Council’s minutes of 1840s provide chaos, contention and lies [Lds' Smith Shenanigans]) ... allow us to retreat in history to 168 years ago to find a solid description of what occurred.

From an article re-post of what happened: Mr. Sharp: -- I hasten to inform you of the UNPARALLELED OUTRAGE, perpetrated upon our rights and interests, by the ruthless, lawless, ruffian band of MORMON MOBOCRATS, at the dictum that of that UNPRINCIPLED wretch Joe Smith. We were privately informed that the CITY COUNCIL, which had been in extra session, for two days past; had enacted an ordinance in relation to libels, providing that anything that had been published, or anything that might be published tending to disparage the character of the officers of the city should be regarded as LAWLESS. They also declared the "Nauvoo Expositor," a "nuisance," and directed the police of the city to proceed immediately to the office of the Expositor and DESTROY THE PRESS and also the MATERIALS, by THROWING them into the STREET!!!! If any resistance were made, the officers were directed to demolish the building and property, of all who were concerned in publishing said paper; and also take all into custody, who might refuse to obey the authorities of the City. Accordingly, a company consisting of some 200 men, armed and equipped, with Muskets, Swords, Pistols, Bowie Knives, Sledge-Hammers, &c, assisted by a crowd of several hundred minions, who volunteered their services on the occasion, marching to the building, and breaking open the doors with a Sledge Hammer, commenced the work of destruction and desperation. They tumbled the press and materials into the street, and set fire to them, and demolished the machinery with sledge hammer, and injured the building very materially. We made no resistance; but looked on and felt revenge, but leave it for the public to avenge this climax of insult and injury.
Source: Unparralled Outrage at Nauvoo (Mormon - OPEN) (Original source: The Warsaw Messenger)

From the article: Nothing else that the Mormons did revealed so convincingly to the non-Mormon community around Nauvoo the threat to democracy present in Joseph Smith’s theocratic government.

The Mormon leadership indeed provoked the whole thing...because, as it was, Smith already had tremendous power in Nauvoo. It would have taken something of this magnitude to get other towns in the area so riled up into action.

How would we feel, if the Mormon "prophet" of today, "determined" that Free Republic was a "public nuisance" and ordered "a company consisting of some 200 men, armed and equipped, with Muskets, Swords, Pistols, Bowie Knives, Sledge-Hammers to march to Fresno, break down JimRob's business doors with a Sledge Hammer, and commence the work of destruction and desperation, tumbling computers, etc. into the street, and set fire to them, and demolished the machinery with sledge hammer??? Or what if the Mormon "prophet" simply used a Mormon president to more subtly accomplish the same?

Mormons celebrate all this? Why? Because they celebrate Smith as a martyr. And it was principally this act he ordered, that led to an eventual gun battle where Smith died (two guns were smuggled into Smith in prison, just like Ron Gardner's acts in Utah where he sat on death row for having a weapon smuggled into him)

Mormons don't celebrate Smith the criminal, but Smith the "martyr." They wind up essentially endorsing what Smith did to the Nauvoo Expositor. Hence, this doesn't remain merely an act in history. It catapults through time.

Go ahead. Ask your Mormon neighbor: "Was Joseph Smith committing criminal acts by ordering the destruction of the Expositor?" The answer you'll get will show where their absolutes lie -- and it won't be with Freedom of the Press.

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