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| − | {{JosephSmithPortal}}
| + | #REDIRECT[[Nauvoo city charter]] |
| − | {{draft}}
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| − | {{question}}
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| − | ==Question==
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| − | What was unique about the city of Nauvoo's charter? Why did it anger some non-Mormons?
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| − | ==Response==
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| − | To understand the Nauvoo charter, we must first review the history which preceeded it. We will start with Joseph Smith's incarceration in Liberty Jail.
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| − | ===Liberty Jail===
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| − | ;9 April 1839: Grand jury indicts Joseph and Co. for "murder, treason, burglary, arson, larceny, theft, and stealing."{{ref|indict1}} During their transport to another county from Liberty Jail, the judge, sheriff, and guards conspire to allow them to escape, probably because the state did not feel they could get a conviction.
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| − | ;20 April 1839: completion of evacuation of Saints from Missouri to Illinois.
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| − | ;22 April 1839: Joseph and companions rejoin saints at Quincy, Illinois
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| − | ===Nauvoo===
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| − | ;1 May 1839: Joseph Smith purchases first land at Commerce (later Nauvoo), Illinois.
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| − | ;October 1839: a high council and stake presidency called for Nauvoo
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| − | ===Attempts to Receive Redress for Missouri Persecutions===
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| − | ;28 November 1839: Elias Higbee and Joseph Smith arrive in Washington, D.C. to plead for redress because of the Missouri persecutions.
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| − | ;29 November 1839: Joseph and Elias meet with President Martin Van Buren.
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| − | ;Early Feb 1840: Joseph and Elias meet with President Van Buren again, and are told “Your cause is just, but I can do nothing for you.”
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| − | ;4 March 1840: Joseph arrives back in Nauvoo from Washington, D.C.
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| − | The efforts to obtain redress in Washington came to naught. It seems very clear to a modern reader that the US federal government should have been able to intervene to rectify the injustices done the Saints in Missouri. However, this matter was not entirely clear at the time, and many political leaders (especially those from the South) were of the opinion that such matters were to be left to state authorities.
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| − | Joseph Smith clearly favored an expansion of the U.S. Constitution’s powers to allow protection of persecuted minorities:
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| − | :I am the greatest advocate of the Constitution of the United States there is on the earth. . . The only fault I find with the Constitution is, it is not broad enough to cover the whole ground.
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| − | :Although it provides that all men shall enjoy religious freedom, yet it does not provide the manner by which that freedom can be preserved, nor for the punishment of Government officers who refuse to protect the people in their religious rights, or punish those mobs, states, or communities who interfere with the rights of the people on account of their religion. Its sentiments are good, but it provides no means of enforcing them.{{ref|const1}}
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| − | Indeed, the whole debate about what the federal government could and couldn’t force the states to do would eventually be settled only by the Civil War. The Mormons were too early and, frankly, not popular enough to push the matter to that point. Joseph’s view won out, though—the 14th Amendment to the Constitution (passed after the Civil War) gave all naturalized or natural-born Americans “citizenship” status in both their state and the United States, and provided that
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| − | :No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.{{ref|const2}}
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| − | ===Nauvoo and writing the Charter===
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| − | ;14 September 1840:John C. Bennett, quartermaster of Illinois, arrives in Nauvoo, is baptized, and begins helping to draft a city charter.
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| − | ;16 December 1840: City of Nauvoo charter, charter for Nauvoo legion, and charter for University of Nauvoo issued by the Legislative Assembly of Illinois with little debate.
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| − | The Democrats who welcomed the Mormon settlers initially probably hoped to use their block-voting tendencies to control the balance of power in the state. (Indeed, one Assemblyman sarcastically noted that the charter should be renamed “A Bill for the Encouragement of the Importation of Mormons”!{{ref|import1}}) Given the potential political power of the large number of immigrants, the state politicians were extra helpful in the matter of the charter, as BH Roberts noted:
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| − | :This effort to win the Saints to one political party or the other continued to be a factor in their affairs so long as they remained at Nauvoo. It was owing to this rivalry for their support that doubtless made it possible for the Saints to obtain larger grants of power for their city government, and greater political privileges and influence in the State than otherwise could have been obtained by them. It also was this rivalry for their favor... that made them alternately fulsomely flattered and heartily disliked; fawningly courted, and viciously betrayed.{{ref|roberts1}}
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| − | ===Powers of the Charter===
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| − | The Nauvoo Charter granted great latitude to the city. The executive head was the mayor, and he was assisted by four aldermen and nine city councilors. The mayor and aldermen were also judges in the city court, so the charter did not have the strict “separation of powers” that we have come to think of as proper. However, this was not unusual for the time. There were five other city charters granted by the state of Illinois before Nauvoo. A comparison is helpful:{{ref|firmage2}}
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| − | {| valign="top" border="1" style="width:100%"
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| − | !Nauvoo Charter Characteristic!!Compared with other existing charters in Illinois
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| − | | Councilors and alderman || Other cities generally have only one or the other
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| − | |No waiting period for participation in city government (likely because of the large numbers of immigrants from Canada and the British isles)||Other cities required that those in city government be American citizens with a residency requirement.
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| − | |Can pass any law “not repugnant” to the U.S. or Illinois state Constitution||Galena, Quincy, and Springfield had similar provisions
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| − | |Legislative powers to the council||“Nearly identical” to Springfield and Quincy
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| − | |Presence of Municipal court||Alton and Chicago also had courts
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| − | |City courts can issue writs of ''habeas corpus''||Alton charter also grants this right to the city
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| − | |Mayor is chief justice of city court; alderman are associate justices||Not present in other charters
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| − | |Court cases appealed to Hancock County courts (this is more restrictive than the other cities with courts)||More broad powers given to other cities: Chicago and Alton were equal, rather than subservient, to the county courts, and appeals went directly to the Illinois Supreme Court
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| − | |}
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| − | ==Conclusion==
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| − | ==Endnotes==
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| − | #{{note|indict1}} {{HoC1|vol=3|start=423}}
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| − | #{{note|const1}} {{HoC|vol=5|start=55|end=56}}
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| − | #{{note|const2}} U.S. Constitution, Amendments, Article XIV, {{link|url=www.house.gov/Constitution/Amend.html}}
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| − | #{{note|import1}} {{Zioncourts1|start=133}}
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| − | #{{note|roberts1}} {{HoC1|vol=4|start=xxi}}
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| − | #{{note|firmage2}} Derived from Zioncourts|start=85|end=onward}}
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| − | ==Further reading==
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| − | ===FAIR wiki articles===
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| − | {{JSLegalWiki}}
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| − | ===FAIR web site===
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| − | {{JSLegalFAIR}}
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| − | ===External links===
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| − | {{JSLegalLinks}}
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| − | ===Printed material===
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| − | {{JSLegalPrint}}
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