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 r- bodies; that if he was not let alone he would be a second Mahomet to this generation, and that he would make it one gore of blood from the Rocky mountains to the Atlantic ocean." The defiant and menacing tone of the Mormon leaders contributed much to the excitement against them. Rigdon, in a sermon preached at Far West, July 4, 1838, said : " We take God and all the holy angels to witness this day, that we warn all men in the name of Jesus Christ to come on us no more for ever. The man, or the set of men, who attempts it, does it at the expense of their lives. And that mob that comes on us to disturb us, it shall be be- tween them and us a war of extermination, for we will follow them till the last drop of their blood is spilled, or else they will have to exterminate us. For we will carry the seat of war to their own houses, and their own fami- lies, and one party or the other shall be utterly lestroyed." Toward the close of 1838 the conflict between the Mormons and the Mis- mrians assumed the character and proportions " civil war. The Mormons armed themselves, and, assembling in large bodies, fortified their towns and defied the officers of the law. The militia of the state was called out by the gov- ernor, and Rigdon and Smith were arrested, charged with treason, murder, and felony. The forces of the state being overwhelming in number, the Mormons capitulated and agreed to quit Missouri, and to the number of several thousands crossed the Mississippi into Illinois. They were soon after joined by Smith, who broke out of the jail where he had been con- fined awaiting trial. Rigdon had previously been liberated by a writ of habeas corpus. The Mormons were kindly received in Illinois, and Dr. Isaac Galland, who owned a large tract of land at Commerce, in Hancock co., gave Smith a considerable portion of it in order to enhance the value of the rest by the settlement of the Mormons there. Smith accordingly re- ceived a revelation commanding the saints to establish themselves at Commerce, and build a city to be called Nauvoo on the land presented to him, which he divided into house lots and sold to his followers at high prices. By this transaction, and by other equally successful speculations, the prophet in a few years amass- ed a considerable fortune. Nauvoo soon grew to be a city of several thousand inhabitants, the saints being summoned by a new revelation to assemble there from all quarters of the world, and to build a temple for the Lord, and a hotel in which Smith and his family should "have place from generation to generation, for ever and ever." The legislature of Illinois mted a charter for the city of Nauvoo, con- ing upon it extraordinary privileges, which tabled Smith, Rigdon, and the other leaders to exercise almost unlimited civil power. They were authorized by charter to organize a mil- itary body, which was accordingly formed under the name of the Nauvoo legion, and comprised nearly all the Mormons capable of MORMONS 835 bearing arms. Smith was commander of this force with the rank of lieutenant general. Be- sides this office, he held those of mayor of the city and first president of the church. By a revelation given April 6, 1830, he had been appointed "seer, translator, prophet, apostle of Jesus Christ, and elder of the church ;" and the Lord had said to him : " The church shall give heed to all his words and commandments which he shall give unto you; for his word shall ye receive as if from my own mouth, in all patience and faith." The civil and military offices which he conferred upon himself at Nauvoo and the legion at his command gave him supreme power within the city, whose charter had been purposely so framed that the state authorities were almost excluded from jurisdiction within its limits. On April 6, 1841, the foundation of the temple was laid at Nauvoo, by Lieut. Gen. Smith, who appeared at the head of the legion, surrounded by a numerous military staff ; and the saints being commanded by revelation not only to con- tribute to its erection, but to labor personally upon the work every tenth day, its walls rapidly arose. In 1838 Smith had persuaded several women to cohabit with him, calling them his spiritual wives, although he had a lawful wife to whom he had been married in 1827. His wife became jealous of these rivals, and to pacify her Smith received, July 12, 1843, a revelation authorizing polygamy. This fact being whispered at Nauvoo, much scandal was created in consequence. The imputation was strenuously denied in public, and in 1846 the heads of the church deemed it prudent to put forth a formal denial in the following words: "Inasmuch as this church of Christ has been reproached with the crimes of for- nication and polygamy, we declare that we believe that one man should have but one wife, and one woman but one husband ; except in case of death, when either is at liberty to marry again." It was not till 1852 that they admitted the truth, and boldly avowed and defended polygamy on the authority of the revelation of 1843. Meantime Smith in 1843 and 1844 made advances to so many women in Nauvoo, soliciting them to become his spiritual wives, that great uproar was created by the declarations of those whose virtue was proof against his attempts. Among others who re- pelled and denounced him publicly was Mrs. Foster, wife of Dr. Foster. Her husband, to- gether with William Law and others who had been similarly outraged, renounced Mormon- ism, and commenced at Nauvoo the publica- tion of a newspaper, the "Expositor," to ex- pose Smith. In the first number they printed the affidavits of 16 women to the effect that Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, and others had endeavored to convert them to the spiritual wife doctrine, and to seduce them under the plea of having had special commission from heaven. This publication created great excite- ment, and on May 6, 1844, Smith and a party