Death of Joseph Smith - Incidents Leading To The Event

Incidents Leading To The Event

Several of Smith's disaffected associates at Nauvoo and Hancock County, Illinois, joined together to publish a newspaper called the Nauvoo Expositor. Its first and only issue was published June 7, 1844. Some of these associates alleged that Smith tried to marry their wives. About eight of Smith's wives were also married to other men (four were Mormon men in good standing, who in a few cases acted as a witness in Smith's marriage to his wife) at the time they married Smith. Typically, these women continued to live with their first husband, not Smith. Some accounts say Smith may have had sexual relations with one wife, who later in her life stated that he fathered children by one or two of his wives, although the reliability of these sources is disputed.

The bulk of the paper was devoted to three main criticisms of Smith: (1) The opinion that Smith had once been a true prophet, but had fallen by advocating polygamy, exaltation and other controversial doctrines; (2) the opinion that Smith, as both Mayor of Nauvoo and President of the Church, held too much power, which was further consolidated by the overwhelmingly Mormon make-up of Nauvoo's courts and city council, who intended establishing a theocracy via the Council of Fifty; and (3) the belief that Smith had corrupted women by forcing, coercing or introducing them into plural marriage.

In response to public outrage generated by the paper, the Nauvoo city council passed an ordinance declaring the newspaper a public nuisance designed to promote violence against Smith and his followers. They reached this decision after lengthy discussion, including citation of William Blackstone's legal canon, which included a libelous press as a public nuisance. According to the council's minutes, Smith said he "...would rather die tomorrow and have the thing smashed, than live and have it go on, for it was exciting the spirit of mobocracy among the people, and bringing death and destruction upon us."

Under the council's new ordinance, Smith, as Nauvoo's mayor, in conjunction with the city council, ordered the city marshal to destroy the paper and the press on June 10, 1844. By the city marshal's account, the destruction of the press type was carried out orderly and peaceably. However, Charles A. Foster, a co-publisher of the Expositor, reported on June 12 that additionally to the printing press being destroyed, the group which he dubbed "several hundred minions ... injured the building very materially" as well, though this is perhaps contradicted by the fact that the building was in use for at least another decade.

Smith’s critics said that he violated freedom of the press. Some sought legal charges against Smith for the destruction of the press, including charges of inciting riot and treason. Violent threats were made against Smith and the Mormon community. Thomas Sharp, editor of the Warsaw Signal, a newspaper hostile to the Mormons, editorialized:

Warrants from outside Nauvoo were brought in against Smith and dismissed in Nauvoo courts on a writ of habeas corpus. Smith declared martial law on June 18 and called out the Nauvoo Legion, an organized city militia of about 5,000 men, to protect Nauvoo from outside violence.