Without Disclosing My True Identity
will be free indeed. Let nothing in this epistle be so construed as to
destroy the validity of contracts, or give any one [sic] license not to pay his
debts. The commandment is to pay every man his dues, and no man can
get to heaven who justly owes his brother or his neighbor, who has or can
get the means and will not pay it; it is dishonest, and no dishonest man
can enter where God is.^89Two days later, Joseph showed his contempt for the opinion of these men on the
matter by noting in his journal that he had already called for and hired an attorney to file
bankruptcy on his behalf.^90 In this way, Joseph distanced himself further from Brigham
Young, Heber C. Kimball, Orson Pratt, William Smith, John E. Page, Lyman Wight, Wilford
Woodruff, John Taylor, George A. Smith, and Willard Richards, in demonstration to these
Church “leaders” of their profound ignorance of who he truly was. Joseph greatly upset the
Twelve Apostles, along with Rigdon and Bennett, with his contempt for the United States
and his attitude towards the aforementioned statement (above) that they had decreed
without consulting him, as they usually did. Joseph wrote:
The justice or injustice of such a principle in law [i.e., bankruptcy], I leave
for them who made it, the United States. Suffice it to say, the law was as
good for the Saints as for the Gentiles, and whether I would or not, I was
forced into the measure by having been robbed, mobbed, plundered, and
wasted of all my property, time after time, in various places, by the very
ones who made the law, namely, the people of the United State[s], thereby
having been obliged to contract heavy debts to prevent the utter destruction
of myself, family and friends, and by those who were justly and legally
owing me, taking the advantage of the same act of bankruptcy, so that I
could not collect my just dues, thus leaving me no alternative but to become
subject again to stripping, wasting, and destitution, by vexatious [sic] writs,
and law suits, and imprisonments, or take that course to extricate myself,
which the law had pointed out.^91Joseph is Given More Time by the Missouri Court
Joseph was arrested in 1841 on the Missouri warrant.^92 Divine intervention resulted
in a court’s decision to dismiss the arrest warrant and place the onus again on the State of
Missouri to reissue another writ. The intervention came in subtly manipulating events that
would place a young itinerant (traveling) judge named Stephen A. Douglas in the right
location at the right time to oversee Joseph’s case for a writ of habeas corpus.^93
Judge Douglas was a consummate politician with a vested interest in ensuring that
Joseph was fairly treated. If Joseph was not treated fairly, Douglas knew he would alienate
his Mormon constituency. With wise premeditation, Douglas issued a ruling that released
Joseph at the time, but still did not negate Missouri’s right to seek justice in the future.
Although LDS history gives great accolade to O. H. Browning, Esq. for representing Joseph
with “immortal honor in the sight of all patriotic citizens,”^94 Joseph knew the true means by
which he was released: “I thank God, my Heavenly Father.”^95 It was not time for Joseph’s
demise just yet.