All year I have noticed a big plaque on the wall of the high council room, so a few weeks ago I looked at it and found that it was a framed document, a reproduction of the letter that Brigham Young wrote to the governor of North Carolina, William A. Graham, on April 25, 1845.
In 1845, at the height of the Church's persecution in Nauvoo, Illinois, Pres. Young wrote to many governors, asking to be received into their states as refugees. I can only assume that Governor Graham didn't respond, or replied in the negative. Because Pres. Young could not find any state to take them in, the saints emigrated to Utah.
This is on the plaque:
A Plea for Asylum
Brigham Young Bicentennial Display at the Apex Stake Center, High Council Room
Display created June 1, 2001
When Brigham Young's 1845 plea for religious asylum in North Carolina and other states failed, the Mormons' great western migration began. 156 years later, 56,000 members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints live and worship in the state--four times the number who followed Brigham Young across the central plains, settled in Utah between 1847-1848, and began the colonization of the American West.
These labels are below the photos of each man:
Brigham Young, Church President 1847-1877
William A. Graham, North Carolina Governor 1845-1849
I typed the whole document for you to read:
Nauvoo, Illinois, April 25th 1845
Honorable Sir,
Suffer us, Sir, in behalf of a disfranchised and long afflicted people to prefer a few suggestions for your serious consideration, in hope of a friendly and unequivocal response, at as early a period as may suit your convenience, and the extreme urgency of the case seems to demand.
It is not our present design to detail the multiplied and aggravated wrongs that we have received in the midst of a nation that gave us birth. Some of us have long been loyal citizens of the state over which you have the honor to preside; while others claim citizenship in each of the states of this great confederacy. We say we are a disfranchised people. We are privately told by the highest authorities of this state, that it is neither prudent nor safe for us to vote at the polls; still we have continued to maintain our right to vote, until the blood of our best men has been shed, both in Missouri and Illinois with impunity.
You are doubtless somewhat familiar with the history of our extermination from the state of Missouri, wherein scores of our brethren were massacred, hundreds died through want and sickness occasioned by thier unparalleled sufferings; some millions of our property were confiscated or destroyed, and some fifteen thousand souls fled for their lives to the then peaceful and hospitable shores of Illinois; and that the state of Illinois granted to us a charter, for the term of perpetual succession under whose provisions private rights have become invested, and the largest city in the state has grown up, numbering about 20,000 inhabitants.
But, Sir, the startling attitude recently assumed by the state of Illinois forbids us to think that her designs are any less vindictive than those of Missouri. She has already used the military of the State, with the Executive at their head, to coerce and surrender up our best men to unparalleled murder, and that too under the most sacred pledges of protection and safety. As a salvo for such unearthly perfidy and guilt, she told us, through her highest executive officer, that the laws should be magnified, and the murderers be brought to justice; but the blood of her innocent victims had not been wholly wiped from the floor of the awful arena, where the citizens of a sovereign state pounced upon two defenceless servants of God, our Prophet and our Patriarch, before the Senate of that State rescued one of the indicted actors in that mournful tragedy from the Sheriff of Hancock County, and gave him an honorable seat in her Hall of Legislation. And all others who were indicted by the Grand Jury of Hancock Couty, for trhe murder of Generals Joseph and Hyrum Smith, are suffered to roam at large, watching for further prey.
To crown the climax of those bloody deeds, the State has repealed all those chartered rights by which we might have defended ourselves, lawfully, against aggressors. If we defend ourselves hereafter against violence, whether it comes under the shadow of law or otherwise, (for we have reason to expect it both ways,) we shall then be charged with treason and suffer the penalty. And if we continue passive and nonresistant, we must expect to perish, for our enemies have sworn it.
And, here, Sir, permit us to stae, that Gen. Joseph Smith during his short life, was arraigned at the bar of his country about fifty times, charges with criminal offences, but was acquitted every time by his country, his enemies, or rather his religious oponents, almost invariably being his judges; and we further testify, that as a people, we are law-abiding, peacable and without crime, and we challenge the world to prove the contrary; and while other less cities in Illinois have had special courts instituted to try their criminals, we have been stript of every source of arraigning marauders and murderers who are prowling, around to destroy us, except the common magistracy.
With the facts before you, Sir, will you write to us without delay, as a father and friend, and advise us what to do? We are, many of us, citizens of your state, and all members of the same great confederacy. Our fathers, nay, some of us, have fought and bled for our country, and we love her constitution dearly.
In the name of Israel's God, and by virtue of multipled ties of country and kindred, we ask your friendly interposition in our favor.
Will it be too much for us to ask you to convene a special session of your State Legislature, and furnish us an asylum, where we can enjoy of rights of conscience and religion unmolested?
Or, will you, in a special message to that body, when convened, recommend a remonstrance against such unhallowed acts of oppression and expatriation as this people have continued to receive from the states of Missouri and Illinois?
Or, will you favor us by your personal influence, and by your official rank?
Or, will you express your views concerning what is called the "Great Western Measure" of colonizing the Latter Day Saints in Oregon, The Northwestern Territory, or some location remote from the states, where the hand of oppression shall not crush every noble principle, and extinguish every patriotic feeling?
And now, Hon. Sir, having reached out our imploring hands to you with deep solemnity, we would importune with you, as a father, a friend, a patriot and statesman; by the constitution of American Liberty; by the blood of our fathers who have fought for the independence of this republic; by the blood of the martyrs which has been shed in our midst; by the wailings of the widows and orphans; by our murdered fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, wives and children; by the dread of immediate destruction from secret combinations now forming for our overthrow; and by every endearing tie that binds man to man, and renders life bearable; and that too, for aught we know, for the last time, that will lend your immediate aid to quell the violence of mobocracy, and exert your influence to establish us, as a people, in our civil and religious rights, where we now are, or in some part of the United States, or at some place remote therefrom, where we may colonize in peace and safety, as soon as circumstances will permit.
We sincerely hope, that your future prompt measures towards us, will be dictated by the best feellings that dwell in the bosom of humanity---and the blessings of a grateful people, and of many, ready to perish, shall come upon you.
We are, Sir;
With great respect,
Your most obdt servts,
Brigham Young, President
Willard Richards, Clerk of the Quorum of the Twelve
N.R. Whitney, George Miller, Trustees of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
Committee in behalf of the Church of Jesus Christ, of Latter Day Saints, of Nauvoo Illinois.
P.S. As many of our communications, postmarked "Nauvoo" have failed of their destination, and as the mails around us have been intercepted by our enemies, we shall send this to some distant office, by the hand of a special messenger.
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