| 219 and they saw a horde of marauders marching upon them by the Governor's order; they resolved to die in defense of homes and loved ones, can we blame them? It is just what brave men would have done and what brave men will now excuse them for doing.
It was some time before this that the order known as "Danites" was organized. This, as will be seen, was not done with the knowledge of the church authorities, nor by their order. It was a secret organization, which was severely condemned by the leaders of the church as soon as it became known to them. The chief instigator was not only reprimanded, but he was expelled from the church, and it was supposed the movement was effectually killed; but it was in after years revived by wicked and evil designing men, and has since been the cause of much evil. Joseph Smith in his history as published in the Millennial Star speaks very explicitly regarding this movement and the evils of it. He writes:-
"Lilburn W. Boggs had become so hardened by mobbing the saints in Jackson County, and his conscience so 'seared with a hot iron,' that he was considered a fit subject for the gubernatorial chair; and it was probably his hatred to truth and the 'Mormons,' and his bloodthirsty, murderous disposition, that raised him to the station he occupied. His exterminating order of the twenty-seventh aroused every spirit in the State of the like stamp of his own; and the Missouri mobocrats were flocking to the standard of General Clark from almost every quarter.
"Clark, although not the ranking officer, was selected by Governor Boggs as the most fit instrument to carry out his murderous designs; for bad as they were in Missouri very few commanding officers were yet sufficiently hardened to go all lengths with Boggs in this contemplated inhuman butchery, and expulsion from one of the should-be free and independent States of the Republic of North America, where the Constitution declares that 'every man shall have the privilege of worshipping God according to the dictates of his own conscience;' and this was all the offense the saints had been guilty of.
(page 219) |
