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Source: Church History Vol. 3 Chapter 6 Page: 137 (~1846)

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137 rancor and malignity. But our efforts to obtain freedom from such vicious monsters cost us much tribulation and precious blood.

"The impunity thus far granted the murderers by the Senate and other authorities of the State of Illinois has emboldened them and their apologists to set on foot a series of other exciting causes that they hope will either destroy this community, or prevent their criminals from being brought to punishment. We have not so much fear that our enemies will succeed in their fiendish designs against us, as we have that the peace and good order of the people of the State will be disturbed, and fearful anarchy and bloody misrule will ensue among those who listen to and countenance the fell designs of those who are stealing from quiet citizens of the State and palming upon them a spurious and false currency, and charging to the Mormons their own crimes. If they shall succeed, the citizens will be involved in continual larcenies, and neighborhood broils and crimes, the end of which cannot now be foreseen. We deprecate such evils and calamities because we desire the good of all mankind, as the gratuitous labors of the greater portion of our citizens in spreading truth throughout the world under much poverty and suffering, abundantly prove.

"As for us, our course is fixed, and while we are peaceable and loyal to the Constitution and laws of our country, and ever willing to join hands with the honest, virtuous, and patriotic in suppressing crime and punishing criminals, we will leave our enemies to judge whether it would not be better to make Nauvoo one universal burying ground, before we suffer ourselves to be driven from our hard-earned and lawful homes, by such high-handed oppression, and it may yet become a question to be decided by the community, whether the Mormons will, after having witnessed their best men murdered without redress, quietly and patiently suffer their enemies to wrench from them the last shreds of their constitutional rights; and whether they will not make their city one great sepulchre [sepulcher], rather than be the humble devotees at the shrine of mobocracy. But for the satisfaction of all concerned, we reiterate in the following resolutions, sentiments

(page 137)

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