In Part 1 of this series we examined the composition of the Nauvoo City Council as they convened to deliberate over what to do about the publication of the Nauvoo Expositor. In Part 2 we examined the background of the witnesses that were called to testify before that body. We saw that despite the Churches portrayal of that body as an unbiased mix of members and non-members coming to a unanimous decision, the council was actually heavily biased and rife with conflicts of interest.
Now that we have a broader perspective of the men who would formulate the response to the Expositor, let’s examine what the actual city council discussion was about from a birds eye view.
Color Coded Minutes
When the deliberation of the Nauvoo City Council is described by Mormon apologists who want to put a faith promoting veneer on the events, there is usually a great deal said about how the even handed men of the council were primarily concerned with the danger of mob violence.
A recent podcast put out by the church historians at the Joseph Smith Papers project summarized the deliberations as follows:
“So as they met that Saturday and then again on Monday, they were deciding exactly what were the viable legal options to control what was becoming a tremendously dangerous situation. Dangerous for a couple of reasons and from a couple of different directions. One, from the citizens, themselves, of Nauvoo rising up against the publishers. Second, the newspaper itself would be reprinted and would be picked up by people anti to the Mormon cause, and that from the outside could cause an attack on the city.”
(Jeffrey N Walker, “The Martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith – Episode 49” timecode 2:50; mormonchannel.org)
To see what the deliberations were focused on I have taken the minutes and applied a color code to them to allow you to visibly see in a single snapshot what the discussion was about.
In the following diagram:
- text highlighted in Orange is that which deals with the administration of the session as well as discussion on legitimate issues and allegations raised by the Expositor.
- Text highlighted in yellow are comments that are specifically concerning the possibility of mob violence.
- Text highlighted in red is discussion and testimony that is purely ad hominem – aimed at discrediting the critics of Joseph by raising counter accusations of adultery, attempted assassination, abuse of the poor, seduction, etc.
- Text highlighted in purple deals with the question of whether Joseph offered money and position to Dr. Foster to buy him back into the church.
- Text highlighted in grey is simply quoted material from outside sources such as a letter to Joseph Smith or the Prospectus of the Expositor.
- Text highlighted in blue shows dissenting comments opposed to the destruction of the Expositor.
Color Coded Minutes of the Nauvoo City Council. Orange: Administrative or addressing claims of Expositor. Yellow: Concerns of Mob Violence. Red: Ad Hominem attacks on critics Purple: testimony regarding alleged Foster reconciliation. Grey: quotes from outside sources. Blue: Dissenting comments. See full color coded text here.
As you can see, there is relatively little discussion of the fear of mob violence (yellow) compared to the comments and testimony devoted towards attacking the character of Law and the other authors of the Expositor (red). Dallin Oaks summarized this well in his 1965 article on “The Suppression of the Nauvoo Expositor”
“So far as the synopsis discloses, the council spent a great deal of time discussing means of stopping the Expositor and of exposing the character of its publishers, but very little time considering and refuting its contents. The synopsis does recite that the paper’s representations about the doctrine and practice of plural marriage were denied, and that the councilors made numerous general references to the paper’s libelous nature without, however, specifically identifying the offensive statements.”
(Dallin H. Oaks, “The Suppression of the Nauvoo Expositor,” Utah Law Review 9 (1965):874. archive.org)
Also note the miniscule portion of the minutes devoted to defending the property and free speech rights of the publishers of the Expositor (blue).
Mad Hominem
An “Ad Hominem” attack is one aimed at discrediting your opponents character or attacking their personal traits in an attempt to undermine their argument. Ad Hominem was the primary substance of the deliberations that preceded the decision to destroy the Expositor issues and press.
Conclusion
It is colorfully clear that the council’s deliberation was primarily an assault on the character of the publishers of the Expositor rather than an assessment of the validity of its assertions. If the real business of the City Council was mitigating mob violence, then the deliberation would have focused on that issue, rather than the denigration of the character of the publishers of the Expositor.
The specter of mob violence was simply a useful pretext to justify any action that the government would take. It is not unlike the looming threat of “terrorism” that the modern US government uses to justify its own abuses of power.
If defenders of the faith claim that the City Council met to determine how to avoid mob violence, then it is legitimate to point out that much more testimony and deliberation was spent attacking the character of the Expositor’s publishers than dealing with the threat of violence.
In the posts to follow we will examine in finer detail the specific accusations that were made and look at those witnesses who stepped forward to testify against the publishers of the Expositor.
