Thirty-Four (1839)Awake, O kings of the earth! Come ye, O, come ye, with your gold and your
silver, to the help of my people, the house of the daughters of Zion...and
send ye swift messengers, yea, chosen messengers, and say unto them: Come
ye, with all your gold, and your silver, and your precious stones, and with all
your antiquities; and with all who have knowledge of antiquities, that will
come, may come, and bring the box-tree, and the fir-tree, and the pine-tree,
together with all the precious trees of the earth;^30The Mississippi River was the center-point of trade in the westernmost states of the
early to mid-1800’s. Any city along its more than 2,000-mile length benefited greatly from
the vast amount of commerce flowing in its currents. The Church leaders found the perfect
spot for their fourth try at establishing their Zion. With some great irony, the small city they
founded near the banks of the Mississippi River was initially called “Commerce.”
The leaders found a piece of land where the people could do what they wanted
according to their hearts desire...which was not to live the gospel, but rather to make money
through commerce. The city they found, again, appropriately named Commerce, was later
named Nauvoo by Joseph, meaning “beautiful situation.”^31 Although debt had been the
curse that led to their downfall in Kirtland, the Saints did not care; they wanted their city
and entered into more debt to purchase it, completely disregarding another important
tenant of the “fullness of the everlasting Gospel”: “thou shalt not forswear thyself.”^32
Obviously, the Mormons had little credit with the people who knew that the Saints still
owed money in everyplace they had previously settled.
But no one wanted the area of Commerce, Illinois. This made it an easy purchase
for anyone wishing to put up with a virtual swampland where mosquitoes ruled both day
and night. During the summer of 1839, while draining the swamps, building houses, and
preparing the land for the immigration of hundreds of Saints, many contracted malaria^33
and other sicknesses.
Joseph Petitions Congress and the U.S. President for the Saints’ Grievances
While the Saints were migrating to the city of Commerce/Nauvoo, Illinois, Joseph
was constrained by the Church councils to seek redress from the government for their losses
in Missouri. None of the politicians would help curtail the persecution of the Saints in
Missouri and the increasing tide of anti-Mormonism in Illinois. Joseph presented a petition
to Congress about the abuses the Saints had endured and attempted to meet with President
Martin Van Buren, in an effort to get help from any of them.
Late in November, Joseph met with the President for just a few minutes and briefly
delivered his message. But it wasn’t until the next year in February that Joseph met again
with the U.S. President and received the answer that he had expected: nothing was going to
be done by the U.S. Government to help the Mormons.
Although none of the LDS/Mormon-slanted history books has portrayed it properly,
between their first meeting in November of 1839 and their last in February 1840, Van Buren did,
in fact, do some research and gather some intelligence about the problems the Mormons were
having. As a result, the U.S. President came to a reasonably sound conclusion based on the facts
that he discovered. His conclusion: the Mormons themselves had caused the greatest part of their
own problems. Joseph knew Van Buren was correct, but was unable to disclose this fact to the