totally defeated; this, however, did not prevent them from plundering the towns of their enemies. At last, Gov. Boggs called out the militia, with strict orders to expel the Mormons from the State, at the point of bayonet, if necessary. The Mormons were speedily surrounded, and forced to surrender; all were dismissed, upon giving promise to leave the State, with the exception of their leaders, who were arrested and committed to prison, but managed to escape beyond the boundaries of the State, before they could be brought to trial.

The whole body of the Mormons removed to Illinois in the years 1839 and 1840, being kindly received as sufferers in the cause of their religion, and permitted to settle at a place on the banks of the Mississippi, in the upper part of the county of Hancock, where they soon built a city. To this they gave the name of Nauvoo; it was scattered over some six square miles, part of it being built upon the flat skirting the river side, but the greater part upon the bluffs east of the river, on the brow of which, commanding a view of the country for 20 miles around, in Illinois and Iowa, towered the great temple of the Mormons.

The whig and democratic parties being each of them anxious to conciliate the Mormons to their interests, the latter experienced no difficulty in obtaining from the Legislature charters incorporating Nauvoo under the government of a Mayor, four Aldermen, and nine Councillors, with powers to pass ordinances, provided the same were not repugnant to the Constitution of the United States or Illinois, and incorporating also the militia of Nauvoo into a military legion, called "The Nauvoo Legion," entirely independent of the State militia, and accountable only to the Governor: besides incorporating a great tavern, to be called "The Nauvoo House," in which the prophet and his heirs were to possess a suite of rooms forever. Under these charters, a city government, and the Nauvoo Legion, were promptly organized, Joe Smith being at once elected Mayor, and next to the Governor in the command of the Legion.

In the autumn of the year 1841, the Governor of Missouri made a demand on Gov. Carlin, to deliver up to him Joe Smith, and several other Mormons, as fugitives from justice. Gov. Carlin issued an executive warrant to this effect, which writ, however, was returned without being served. Another such warrant having been issued by

him, Joe Smith was arrested and carried before Judge Douglass, who discharged him upon the ground, that the writ, having been once returned before its execution, was "functus officio."

Gov. Carlin issued another writ in 1842. Joe Smith was arrested again, but discharged by his own municipal court by a writ of habeas corpus; the common council of Nauvoo, of which he himself was the presiding member, having passed an ordinance empowering the municipal court of Nauvoo to have jurisdiction in all cases of arrests made in the city, by any process whatever; notwithstanding the charter granted to the municipal court jurisdiction only in cases of arrests for breach of some ordinance.

Early in the year 1842, while the contest for Governor was going on, Adam W. Snyder having been chosen as the democratic candidate, and Joseph Duncan, the former governor, as the whig candidate, Joe Smith issued a proclamation to the saints, exhorting them to vote for Mr. Snyder, and declaring Judge Douglass to be a master spirit. Having hitherto derived considerable support from the Mormon vote, the whig party, at the appearance of this proclamation, which clearly indicated, that they could no longer count upon their former friends, were greatly irritated against the Mormons, their papers abounding with recitals of the atrocities and enormities perpetrated at Nauvoo. They also charged with awful wickedness, the democrats for having admitted such fiends as the Mormous into their ranks, although, by this time, the Mormons had rendered themselves extremely odious to the great body of the people, it being believed, that the Mormons looked upon Illinois as the land promised them by the Lord; their Legion being intended for no other purpose, it was said, than to take possession of the State, whenever it should become strong enough. The excitement throughout the State in regard to the Mormons, soon reached a pitch, which made it evident, that a violent struggle, and perhaps bloodshed, was about to take place.

Adam W. Snyder, the democratic candidate, having died previous to the election, Thomas Ford, one of the Judges of the Supreme Court, at that time engaged in holding a Circuit Court on Fox river, was nominated candidate for Governor in his stead. He was elected Governor by a large majority; at the time he assumed the reins of government, he found the State laboring under the excitement of the

Mormon question. Her finances were in a ruinous condition; the treasury was utterly bankrupt, not containing enough money to pay postage on the usual letters; indebted, moreover, for the customary expenses of government, in the sum of $313,000; whilst the annual revenues provided for the payment of the expenses of government, amounted to but one-third of this sum. The currency of the State was annihilated, in consequence of which no taxes could be paid or collected; a debt of about $14,000,000 had been contracted for carrying out the internal improvement system; and the State, by borrowing beyond her means, had lost her credit. The people were indebted to the merchants: these again to the foreign merchants, or to the banks, and the banks to everybody; and none were able to pay. The confusion of public affairs was, in general, such as to make many despair of the possibility of devising a system of policy, which could relieve the State from the calamities, under which she was then suffering. Many of the whigs were in favor of repudiating the entire State debt, believing this course of proceeding to be acceptable to the great body of the people, and therefore well calculated to increase the power of their party, then smarting under the effects of the defeats they had repeatedly sustained in elections. The two leading organs of the whig party, the Sangamon Journal and the Alton Telegraph, openly contended, that the debt never could nor would be paid, and that everybody ought to acquiesce in this, as a matter of stern necessity, which admitted of no further discussion, and forbade all attempts to charm it away. The great majority, however, of the politicians of the two great parties, observed an ominous silence on the subject, none of them being willing to advocate a measure, which, with a taxhating people, might have proved in the highest degree injurious to their interests, by destroying their hardly-acquired popularity; so that, but for the energetic action of the Governor in the premises, who boldly took the lead, denouncing with manly firmness all refusals to pay the public debt, Illinois would probably have been made a repudiating State.

The property owned by the State consisted of 42,000 acres, purchased under the internal improvement system; 210,000 acres, granted by the United States under the distribution law of 1841; 230,467 acres of canal lands, besides 3,491 town lots in various towns on the

canal; the work done on the canal and railroads, with a large quantity of railroad, iron, and the stock in the banks. These were the only resources left, applicable to the liquidation of the whole debt, for the payment of which heavy taxation could not then be resorted to, since it would result in depopulating the country; so that the debt would never be paid.

During the summer of 1842, Justin Butterfield, a distinguished lawyer of Chicago, had several conversations on the subject of the canal with Arthur Bronson, a wealthy New York capitalist, interested in the State stocks of Illinois, and Mr. Michael Ryan: both of whom were acquainted with, and possessed the confidence of capitalists in Europe and America. In consequence of forcible representations on the part of Mr. Butterfield, a plan was devised and adopted by these capitalists and their friends, to the effect, that the owners of canal bonds should advance $1,600,000, the sum reported by the chief engineer to be necessary to complete the canal, to secure which new loan, and provide also for the ultimate payment of the entire canal debt, the State was to convey the canal property to them in trust, and impose a tax sufficient to pay a portion of the interest on the whole debt.

The success of this plan could only have been ensured by the adoption of the right course of policy in regard to the banks, by far the most important subject, that was deliberated upon by the Legislature at their session of 1842; since there were at stake about $3,100,000 worth of State stocks, upon the value of which the completion of the canal depended. The people clamored for some mode of liquidating the bank debts, many of them being in favor of repealing their charters, and appointing commissioners to take charge of their effects, to pay their debts, and collect whatever was due them; whilst by far the greater part of the people declared themselves in favor of a compromise, by which the State would be paid for its stock, and the banks bring their affairs to a close at once. The State Bank held $1,750,000 of State bonds, and $294,000 in Auditor's warrants, together with scrip, amounting in the aggregate to $2,100,000, which it agreed to disgorge at once. The Illinois Bank, at Shawneetown, was willing to deliver at once $500,000, of which $469,998 were in Auditor's warrants; and to pay the residue on a short credit. Those, who advocated the repeal of the bank charters, suggesting, that their effects be

placed in the hands of commissioners appointed for that purpose, did not consider that, like all public officers managing money matters, these commissioners would have set their ingenuity at work to devise means, by which to obtain for themselves whatever of the effects would have come in their hands, so that neither creditors nor stockholders would ever have got anything; nor did they consider, that, though the Legislature might repeal, the banks were at liberty to contest their right so to do, involving the case in endless litigation, the result of which might even have been a decision in their favor; whilst, in the meantime, they would not have been at a loss how to remove their assets to a place of safety, beyond the reach of their creditors. They also paid no regard to the fact, that a government, which, yielding to the excitement of the moment, hesitates not to, adopt such extreme and violent measures as cannot be justified in point of law, is calculated to excite such distrust in the minds of capitalists as to render them unwilling to subscribe to its stock, or expend their money for the improvements, which it authorizes. On the side of a compromise, it was argued, that the bonds held by the banks could not be suffered to be sold; for the sale of so great an amount of bonds, in addition to those already in the market, would not only still further depreciate their value, but, by impressing people with a belief that the State had wilfully assisted in depressing their value, in order to purchase its own bonds at the largest possible discount, would make them consider, that a State, which felt no repugnance to thus acting like a vulgar swindler, was certainly very far from entertaining any intention to pay a single cent on the public debt.

These reasons prevailing with the people, a majority of them declared themselves in favor of a compromise; accordingly, a bill of compromise with the State Bank was introduced into the House of Representatives, and passed by a vote of 107 to 4. It was at once agreed to by the bank, and Mr. Clernand, the chairman of the finance committee of the Lower House, became its principal advocate. As there existed an old feud between Mr. Clernand and Lyman Trumbull, Secretary of State, the latter threatened, that he would take good care, that the bill should be so altered in the Senate, which body had yet to vote on it, that "the framers, in the House, should not know their own bantling, when it came back to them." On hearing