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Letter to Editor, 22 January 1840
Source Note
Source Note
JS, Letter, , Chester Co., PA, to the editor of [Register and Examiner, West Chester, Chester Co., PA], 22 Jan. 1840; handwriting of ; signature of JS; four pages; private possession; photocopy in James C. Hayward, Collection, CHL.
The photocopy indicates that the original document has tears and breaks that have been mended by what appears to be clear cellophane tape. By 1977 the original document was held by James C. Hayward of Logan, Utah, but it is not clear how he obtained it. The photocopy was acquired by the Church Historical Department in 1983 from a document dealer and collector.
Footnotes
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See the full bibliographic entry for James C. Hayward, Collection, ca. 1836–1889, in the CHL catalog; JS, Brandywine, PA, Letter to Editor, 22 Jan. 1840, photocopy, not after 1982, copy in editors’ possession; Jessee, Personal Writings of Joseph Smith, 493; and JS, Brandywine, PA, Letter to Editor, 22 Jan. 1840, photocopy, ca. 1983, copy in editors’ possession.
Smith, Joseph. Letter to the Editor of Register and Examiner, Brandywine, PA, 22 Jan. 1840. Photocopy, not after 1982. Copy in editors’ possession.
Jessee, Dean C., ed. and comp. The Personal Writings of Joseph Smith. Rev. ed. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book; Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 2002.
Smith, Joseph. Letter to the Editor of Register and Examiner, Brandywine, PA, 22 Jan. 1840. Photocopy, ca. 1983. Copy in editors’ possession.
Historical Introduction
Historical Introduction
On 22 January 1840, JS composed a letter to the editor of an unnamed newspaper. Although it did not specify to which newspaper or editor it was directed, the letter appeared in the Register and Examiner, a newspaper published in West Chester, Pennsylvania, and edited by Joseph Painter, who was described as “an able writer and first-class business man.” The letter copied almost verbatim a statement of the ’ beliefs regarding government and laws that was first published in the 1835 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants. In this letter, JS changed the statement’s point of view from “we” to “I” and at the end added some information not present in the original statement. At the time he composed the letter, JS was in , Pennsylvania; three days after the date of the letter, he attended an ’ for the Brandywine .
JS stated he was sending the letter to counteract “many false rumors” about him and the church. By the time JS visited the area, church missionaries had been preaching in , Pennsylvania, for approximately a year. Although they over fifty people in a relatively short period of time, they also encountered opposition. Local resident later stated that church members were called “a terable” and “dangerous people” by Chester County citizens in 1839. In spring 1840, a “Philanthropist of Chester County” published a pamphlet that attempted to refute the Book of Mormon and the church’s interpretation of the Bible. According to one source, the pamphlet contained “falsehoods, misrepresentations, foul insinuations, wholesale abuse and slander of the doctrines and characters of the Latter Day Saints.”
Because he expressed in this 22 January letter his belief that governments were obliged to protect citizens in their exercise of religion, JS may have wanted the letter published to try to influence the public to take up the Saints’ cause of obtaining redress for their expulsion from in 1838 and 1839. JS may have directed others to send similar statements to additional newspapers. In April 1840, the Peoria Register and North-Western Gazetteer published a letter “received several weeks since” from a “B. D.” of Tazewell County, Illinois. This letter also reproduced the statement on government from the Doctrine and Covenants.
JS’s letter was published in the 11 February 1840 issue of the Register and Examiner. The text featured here is the manuscript version of the letter; because JS signed it, this letter may have been the same version that was sent to the Register and Examiner. However, the published letter contains some minor differences from the manuscript version, including a different date, suggesting that the featured version might be a draft of what was eventually sent. Editorial changes in the text were apparently incorporated into the printed letter, although there are some instances (noted herein) where the published letter follows the text of the statement on government in the Doctrine and Covenants rather than the text of the manuscript letter. The Liberator, an abolitionist newspaper in Boston, reprinted the letter in its 21 February 1840 issue without any commentary.
Footnotes
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Futhey and Cope, History of Chester County, Pennsylvania, 331, 671–672. As editor of the Register and Examiner, Painter “took advanced ground in favor of the cause of temperance, and was strongly anti-slavery.” He served as an agent for the Underground Railroad.
Futhey, J. Smith, and Gilbert Cope. History of Chester County, Pennsylvania, with Genealogical and Biographical Sketches. Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts, 1881.
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Lorenzo Barnes, Philadelphia, PA, 29 Jan. 1840, Letter to the Editor, Times and Seasons, Mar. 1840, 1:79. JS may have been at the home of Edward Hunter, a prosperous resident of Chester County who joined the church later in 1840 and who remembered JS coming to his house when JS visited the area. (Hunter, Edward Hunter, 316–317.)
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.
Hunter, William E. Edward Hunter: Faithful Steward. [Salt Lake City]: Mrs. William E. Hunter, 1970.
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Benjamin Winchester, Payson, IL, 18 June 1839, Letter to the Editor, Times and Seasons, Nov. 1839, 1:11; Lorenzo Barnes, Philadelphia, PA, 29 Jan. 1840, Letter to the Editor, Times and Seasons, Mar. 1840, 1:79; Lorenzo Barnes, Wilmington, DE, 8 Sept. 1839, Letter to the Editor, Times and Seasons, Dec. 1839, 1:27–28; see also Orson Pratt to Sarah Marinda Bates Pratt, 6 Jan. 1840, in Times and Seasons, Feb. 1840, 1:61.
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.
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Hunter, Edward Hunter, 316.
Hunter, William E. Edward Hunter: Faithful Steward. [Salt Lake City]: Mrs. William E. Hunter, 1970.
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Snow, E. Snow’s Reply to the Self-Styled Philanthropist of Chester County, 1. This anonymously authored pamphlet was published as Mormonism Unmasked, Showed to Be an Impious Imposture, and Mr. Bennett’s Reply Answered and Refuted. By a Philanthropist of Chester County (Philadelphia: T. K. and P. G. Collins, 1840).
Snow, Erastus. E. Snow’s Reply to the Self-Styled Philanthropist, of Chester County. No publisher, 1840.
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“The Mormons,” Peoria (IL) Register and North-Western Gazetteer, 24 Apr. 1840, [1]. “B. D.” was likely Benjamin Dobson, listed in the 1840 census as a resident of Tazewell County. Dobson was baptized in 1836. (“The Mormons for Harrison,” Peoria Register and North-Western Gazetteer, 17 Apr. 1840, [2]; 1840 U.S. Census, Tazewell Co., IL, 16; “Mormonism,” Peoria Register and North-Western Gazetteer, 29 June 1839, [1]; “Obituary,” Saints’ Herald, 1 Jan. 1877, 15.)
Peoria Register and North-Western Gazetteer. Peoria, IL. 1837–1843.
Census (U.S.) / U.S. Bureau of the Census. Population Schedules. Microfilm. FHL.
Saints’ Herald. Independence, MO. 1860–.
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“The Latter Day Saints,” Register and Examiner (Chester Co., PA), 11 Feb. 1840, [1].
Register and Examiner. West Chester, PA. 1836–1851.
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“The Latter Day Saints,” Liberator (Boston), 21 Feb. 1840, 32.
Liberator. Boston. 1831–1865.
a principle than mine Every person in this has a right to controll his own propperty and is not required to do any thing except by his own free voluntary act That he may impart to the poor according to the requirement of the gospel. “Give to him that asketh thee and from him that would borrow of thee turn <not> thou not away” I Math 5 chap 42. v.
I believe in liveing a virtuous upright and holy life before God and feel it my duty <to> perswad [persuade] all men in my power to do the same: That they may ciase [cease] to do evil and learn to do well and brake off from their Sins by Rigteousness
I close this by subscribing my self yours mo[st] obedient Servent
Joseph Smith Jr— [p. [4]]
Source Note
Source Note
Document Transcript
Document Information
Document Information
Footnotes
Footnotes
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JS’s statements here probably refer to accusations such as those made by La Roy Sunderland, who had written a pamphlet that Methodists in the Chester County area used to counteract the efforts of Mormon missionaries. Among other things, the pamphlet contained a section titled “Mormonism Is a System of Money-Making.” This section stated that “all who submit to Mormon dictation must yield up all their earthly property which they do not need for their support.” The pamphlet claimed that once church members handed over their property, church leaders would continue to hold it even if members wanted to leave the church. Members did consecrate property when they were attempting to establish the city of Zion in Jackson County, Missouri, from 1831 to 1833. This consecration was in accordance with a February 1831 revelation that directed members to donate their money, goods, and land to the church, after which they would receive back an inheritance, or stewardship, based on their circumstances, needs, and wants. Bishops were to administer the law of consecration by receiving consecrated properties, determining stewardships, and managing surplus property in church storehouses. In May 1833, JS informed Edward Partridge, bishop in Missouri, that even if someone was cut off from the church, “his inheritance is his still,” although whatever property had been “consecrated to the poor, for their benefit, & inheritance, & stewardship, he cannot obtain again by the law of the Lord.” A July 1838 revelation eliminated the requirement of an initial consecration of property but instructed church members to give all “their surplus property” to the bishop and then a “tenth of all their interest annually” thereafter. (Sunderland, Mormonism Exposed and Refuted, 22, 33; see also Lorenzo Barnes, Wilmington, DE, 8 Sept. 1839, Letter to the Editor, Times and Seasons, Dec. 1839, 1:27–28; Revelation, 9 Feb. 1831 [D&C 42:30–34]; “Let Every Man Learn His Duty,” The Evening and the Morning Star, Jan. 1833, [5]; Revelation, 20 May 1831 [D&C 51:3–4]; Letter to Edward Partridge, 2 May 1833; and Revelation, 8 July 1838–C [D&C 119:1, 4].)
Sunderland, La Roy. Mormonism Exposed and Refuted. New York City: Piercy and Reed, 1838.
Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.
The Evening and the Morning Star. Independence, MO, June 1832–July 1833; Kirtland, OH, Dec. 1833–Sept. 1834.
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See Isaiah 1:16–17.
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See Daniel 4:27.
Signature of JS.