Page:The City of the Saints.djvu/537

Rh always two parties, the Whigs and Democrats, and we could not vote for one without offending the other; and it not unfrequently happened that candidates for office would place the issue of their election upon opposition to the "Mormons," in order to gain political influence from religious prejudice, in which case the "Mormons" were compelled, in self-defense, to vote against them, which resulted almost invariably against our opponents. This made them angry; and, although it was of their own making, and the "Mormons" could not be expected to do otherwise, yet they raged on account of their discomfiture, and sought to wreak their fury on the "Mormons." As an instance of the above, when Joseph Duncan was candidate for the office of Governor of Illinois, he pledged himself to his party that, if he could be elected, he would exterminate or drive the "Mormons" from the state. The consequence was that Governor Ford was elected. The Whigs, seeing that they had been outgeneraled by the Democrats in securing the "Mormon" vote, became seriously alarmed, and sought to repair their disaster by raising a kind of crusade against that people. The Whig newspapers teemed with accounts of the wonders and enormities of Nauvoo, and of the awful wickedness of a party which could consent to receive the support of such miscreants. Governor Duncan, who was really a brave, honest man, and who had nothing to do with getting the "Mormon" charters passed through the Legislature, took the stump on this subject in good earnest, and expected to be elected governor almost on this question alone. The third party, composed of counterfeiters, blacklegs, horse-thieves, and cut-throats, were a pack of scoundrels that infested the whole of the Western country at that time. In some districts their influence was so great as to control important state and county offices. On this subject Governor Ford says the following:

"Then, again, the northern part of the state was not destitute of its organized bands of rogues, engaged in murders, robberies, horse-stealing, and in making and passing counterfeit money. These rogues were scattered all over the north, but the most of them were located in the counties of Ogle, Winnebago, Lee, and De Kalb.

"In the county of Ogle they were so numerous, strong, and well organized that they could not be convicted for their crimes. By getting some of their numbers on the juries, by producing a host of witnesses to sustain their defense by perjured evidence, and by changing the venue of one county to another, by continuances from term to term, and by the inability of witnesses to attend from time to time at distant and foreign counties, they most generally managed to be acquitted."

There was a combination of horse-thieves extending from Galena to Alton. There were counterfeiters engaged in merchandising, trading, and store-keeping in most of the cities and villages, and in some districts, I have been credibly informed by men to whom they have disclosed their secrets, the judges, sheriffs, constables, and jailers, as well as professional men, were more or less associated with them. These had in their employ the most reckless, abandoned wretches, who stood ready to carry into effect the most desperate enterprises, and were careless alike of human life and property. Their object in persecuting the "Mormons" was in part to cover their own rascality, and in part to prevent them from exposing and prosecuting them; but the principal reason was plunder, believing that if they could be removed or driven they would be made fat on Mormon spoils, besides having in the deserted city a good asylum for the prosecution of their diabolical pursuits.

This conglomeration of apostate Mormons, religious bigots, political fanatics, and combination of blacklegs, all united their forces against the "Mormons," and organized themselves into a party, denominated "anti-Mormons." Some of them, we have reason to believe, joined the Church in order to cover their nefarious practices, and when they were expelled for their unrighteousness only raged with greater violence. They circulated every kind of falsehood that they could collect or manufacture against the Mormons. They also had a paper to assist them in their propagations called the "Warsaw Signal," edited by a Mr. Thomas Sharp, a violent and unprincipled man, who shrunk not from any enormity. The anti-Mormons had public meetings, which were very numerously attended, where they passed resolutions of the most violent and inflammatory kind, threatening to drive, expel, and exterminate the "Mormons" from the state, at the same time accusing them of all the vocabulary of crime.

They appointed their meetings in various parts of Hancock, M'Donough, and other counties, which soon resulted in the organization of armed mobs, under the direction