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“Latin for the Illiterati is a perfect companion for every reader,
student, and scholar on his or her lifelong journey.” – Ingram

“Stone … has penned one of those rare reference works that is both
highly affordable and highly useful … While many resources supply
similar information … few sources also include such a range of
sayings and phrases, in this case well over 5,000. In addition, the last
section of Stone’s work is a real boon to reference librarians …
Highly recommended.” – Library Journal

“If you’re a student trying to improve your vocabulary, this is a great

book. If you’re a law student trying to figure out what phrases meant
before they meant what they mean, this is a great book. For those
who have forgotten the three years of parochial-school Latin, this is
a really great book.” – Publisher’s Weekly

“Latin for the Illiterati will be a terminus ad quem (i.e.,finishing point) for
many a question about the terra incognita (i.e.,unknown land) that even
common Latin expressions are to many people today. [The book], of
course, delves more deeply into the Latin lexicon than a polyglot
source … and therein lies its value. Bene!” – Rettig on Reference

“A ready reference dream come true …” – American Libraries

Also by Jon R. Stone

More Latin for the Illiterati (1999)

The Routledge Dictionary of Latin Quotations (2005)
The Routledge Book of World Proverbs (2006)
Dictionnaire Rose des Locutions Latines (2007)

and

A Guide to the End of the World (1993)

On the Boundaries of American Evangelicalism (1997)
Prime-Time Religion:An Encyclopedia of Religious Broadcasting (1997)
The Craft of Religious Studies (1998)
Expecting Armageddon: Essential Readings in Failed Prophecy (2000)
The Essential Max Müller: On Language, Mythology, and Religion (2002)
Readings in American Religious Diversity (2007)
L AT I N
F O R T H E I L L I T E R AT I

A Modern Phrase Book for an Ancient Language

Second Edition

Jon R. Stone
First published 1996
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Second edition published in 2009

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

© 2009 Jon R. Stone

Introduction © 2009 Richard LaFleur
Typeset by Saxon Graphics Ltd, Derby

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or

utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested

ISBN 10: 0-415-77767-4 (pbk)

ISBN 13: 978-0-415-77767-4 (pbk)

 To my mother
Bobbie Jean Stone
who taught me my first Latin words:
Amo, Amas, Amat
 CONTENTS

Foreword by Richard A. LaFleur ix

Preface to the First Edition xii

Preface to the Second Edition xvi

References xix

Pronunciation Guide xxi

Latin for the Illiterati

Verba (Common Words and Expressions) 1

Dicta (Common Phrases, Mottoes, and

Familiar Sayings) 141

Abbreviations 261

Miscellaneous 277

English–Latin Index 295

 F O R E WO R D
by Richard A. LaFleur

“Latin was the parent tongue to every known language ever spoken
by anyone on the planet earth!” Well, not quite true, but that’s what
a student of mine exuberantly penned as part of his answer to a test
question some years back. That bit of an overstatement made him an
illiteratus, I suppose, but a well intentioned one. And I must admit I
was partly to blame, because, like most of my discipuli (that’s Latin for
“students,”), the poor lad had likely heard me referring to our
beloved lingua Latina as “The Mother Tongue” at least twice or
thrice weekly throughout the course of our semester together.
My own first encounter with the immortal language was at age
12 in a 7th-grade elective Latin class. Then it was Charlton Heston
in the 1959 blockbuster film Ben Hur, and Kirk Douglas’s Spartacus
the next year, that had me hooked for life: I could hardly sit still in
my seat, I was so enthralled by those chariot races and gladiatorial
combats; forty years later Russell Crowe as General Maximus
Decimus Meridius in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator had much the same
effect, and my wife Alice and I watched every single episode of
HBO’s Rome mini-series multiple times. Gladiator swept the
Oscars, capturing five awards including “Best Film” and “Best
Actor” and demonstrating not merely the continuing enthusiasm
of Americans for “sword and sandal” movies, but more generally the

ix
 FOREWORD BY RICHARD A. LAFLEUR

West’s widespread interest in ancient Roman civilization, not least

for its vast influence on our own culture.
A large part of that influence, and of our fascination with the
Romans, derives not merely from gladiators and charioteers but
from the intimate connection of our language to theirs. English is
not, strictly speaking, a “Romance language” (the term denotes
“Romans,” not “romantics”!), as are Italian, Spanish, Portuguese,
French, and Romanian, which evolved out of the language of the
conquerors, each in its own way in its own region of the Roman
Empire. Nevertheless at least 60% of English is “Latinate,” deriving
either directly or indirectly from Latin. Both languages are part of
the vast Indo-European (IE) linguistic family, which includes
languages throughout most of Europe as well as Iranian and
languages of India deriving from the ancient Sanskrit. English is
descended from the Germanic branch of the IE family, Latin from
the ancient Italic, yielding a kind of “sibling” relationship that
accounts for the vast number of cognates that exist in the two
languages, such as “mother” and mater, “brother” and frater, “two”
and duo, etc. But the majority of English words—like “maternal,”
“fraternal,” and “duet”—that are actually “derived” from Latin
flowed into the language due to a variety of circumstances,
including the Roman occupation of Britain, the Norman invasion
of England, when the Anglo-Saxons adopted much of the speech
of their French conquerors into their own discourse, and by direct
borrowing from Latin that continues even today, especially for
medical and other bio-scientific terminology.
The result, as Jon R. Stone notes in his Preface to this immensely
helpful libellus (“little volume”), is that Latin is ubiquitous (from
ubique “everywhere”) in our language and culture. Jon, now a
professor of Religious Studies at the California State University at
Long Beach, had studied lots of German and Greek by the time he
commenced his doctoral study, but not much Latin, and so when
he encountered the Latin cornucopia (cornu + copia) that turned up in
the books he was faced with reading for his graduate exams—he
cites Rudolf Otto’s The Idea of the Holy in particular—he found the
experience, as most folks nowadays would, more than a little
daunting. Like all good scholars, though, he did not shy away from
the unfamiliar, but instead began compiling lists (a man after my

x
 FOREWORD BY RICHARD A. LAFLEUR

own heart!) of the countless Latin words, phrases, famous quota-

tions, and abbreviations that he encountered in his extensive
reading, lists that over several years he augmented and eventually
formalized and that led ultimately to the first edition of Latin for the
Illiterati (LFTI ) and then to the companion volumes, also published
by Routledge, More Latin for the Illiterati, which focuses specifically
on the Latin terminology common in the areas of medicine, law,
and religion, and The Routledge Dictionary of Quotations: The
Illiterati’s Guide to Latin Maxims, Proverbs, and Sayings, a wonderful
collection of some 8,000 quotable quotes from the ancients in the
tradition of Erasmus’s Adagia. Professor Stone’s main purpose in
authoring these three books has been to make the vast treasure of
Latin in English more accessible, to educate, inform, and entertain
readers, while helping perpetuate the contributions of the Romans
and their ennobling language to our own language and culture.
Everyone who reads widely (or savors confronting the challenge of
a New York Times crossword puzzle!) should own all three volumes
and keep them near at hand.
This edition of LFTI is much expanded from the first, and so
offers up and illuminates an even richer trove of the Latin we
encounter everywhere, every day in the English-speaking world.
For the second edition, Professor Stone has added more than a
thousand new entries, mostly to his collection of Dicta (“Common
Phrases, Mottoes, and Familiar Sayings”), thus making that section
about as extensive as his compilation of Verba (“Common Words
and Expressions”). He has also done some useful reorganizing of
these two main sections of the book, helpfully expanded the Index
by some 500 entries, supplied a list of the writers identified as the
sources of many of the quotations, and included a list of common
prefixes, conjunctions, particles and prepositions.
Let this invaluable handbook be the vade mecum (you can look
that up right here and now, if you don’t know the meaning) for your
adventures in 21st-century Latin, and, as Saint Augustine said, in a
different context and of a different book, tolle lege, tolle lege!

Richard A. LaFleur
University of Georgia

xi
 P R E FAC E TO T H E
FIRST EDITION

A decade ago, while in my first years of graduate study, I was taking

a seminar in which my fellow graduate students and I were
required to read standard theoretical works in the History of
Religions. Among the books on that long list of dry academic
tomes were several titles in the philosophy of religion, including
Rudolf Otto’s neo-Kantian work, The Idea of the Holy (or Das
Heilige). It was here that I came face-to-face with the ghosts of a
dead language: Latin.
Though as an undergraduate I had encountered the usual i.e.s
and e.g.s, along with the periodic cogito ergo sums and et tu, Brutes,
Otto presented a nearly insurmountable challenge to a boy who had
studied German and Greek. Indeed, the proliferation of Latin words
and quotations began to haunt me as I struggled through Otto’s
work. What was one to make of such things as the “numinous”
experience (from the word numen) with its characteristic religious
feelings of awful dread and awe-inspiring fascination that Otto
called mysterium tremendum and mysterium fascinosum? Worse still
were the seemingly innumerable phrases that came with no corre-
sponding English translation, leaving me to ward off these menacing
spirits as best I could with a moldy old Latin dictionary I had found
for half a dollar in a downtown used bookstore.

xii
 PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

To help exorcize these daemons, I began keeping lists of the Latin

words and phrases I continuously encountered in my reading. These
lists began to grow over my several years of graduate study to the
point that they filled a section of the weather-worn notebook I had
used during my college days. It was at that point that I decided to
type these lists into a handy reference book, not simply for my use
but for the use of others likewise haunted. While I would not claim
to have rid myself of these ghosts altogether—I still keep lists—I
have become fairly comfortable with their presence in my life. What
is more, one happy and incidental result of the struggle to deliver
myself from my ignorance was a genuine love of Latin and an appre-
ciation of its remarkable influence in the development of Western
philosophical and cultural thought. But of greater importance, what
I have learned over the past ten years is that one need not be
haunted by the specter of Latin.
Latin forms an integral part of our daily lives and its use is founda-
tional to our major branches of knowledge from law and medicine to
literature and commerce. To deal adequately with its ubiquitous
presence, it is necessary to have access to helpful reference tools.
Unfortunately, few reference works exist that focus on remedying
the challenges faced by the modern reader whose educational expe-
rience—even at the college level—is not firmly grounded in the so-
called Classical tradition. Sadly, most of the books that are available to
the general reader, while sometimes amusing, are really of no prac-
tical value (for instance, few of us have the occasion—or the incli-
nation—to give a toast or recite the Gettysburg Address in Latin; and
fewer still have an audience of relatives or interested business asso-
ciates willing to endure such novelty). This book seeks to correct this
deficiency by giving the student and general reader a helpful and
practical reference guide. Here, then, is a fairly comprehensive
compendium of nearly 6,000 Latin words, phrases, and standard
abbreviations taken from the world of art, music, law, philosophy,
theology, medicine and the theater, as well as miscellaneous remarks
and sagely advice from ancient writers such as Virgil, Ovid, Cicero,
Terence, Juvenal, Seneca, and others, a vade mecum of sorts, that is
meant to guide its users as well as instruct them.
Because the specific aim of this book is not to teach Latin but to
help the modern reader exorcize the ghosts of this ancient and

xiii
 PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

influential tongue, the various sections are arranged in alphabetical

order, giving first the Latin word or phrase and then its common
or usual meaning. In some cases, a literal translation of the word or
phrase is given in brackets [ ], followed by its more specialized or
colloquial meaning.An explanation of its origins or usage is some-
times given in parentheses. While most of the translations are not
mine per se, having been culled from reference books and diction-
aries over the years, many of the bracketed translations and most of
the parenthetical remarks are my own, with the aid, that is, of
Cassell’s Concise Latin Dictionary.Although I have carefully checked
and rechecked both the spellings and tenses of words, I fear that
inadvertent errors may still have crept into this text. If mistakes
exist beyond the rare editorial lapses, they are my own fault (mea
culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa).
In addition, I have attempted to be gender-inclusive and
gender-neutral wherever possible and whenever such modifica-
tions did not compromise grammatical integrity too greatly or run
counter to the spirit of a word’s or phrase’s meaning. I must also
point out that on occasion the reader may spot a Greek word or
two.As with most languages, foreign words also crept into Latin as
the Roman Empire began to expand its territories through
conquest. Many of those listed in this work became fairly standard
by the Christian era, including such words as logos (word), sophia
(wisdom), soter (savior), hippodromos (race track), margarita (pearl),
and sarcophagus (coffin).
Finally, let me say a word or two about the insensitive or preju-
dicial sayings that occasionally appear in this work. In truth, I
cringe at some of the phrases in the popular Roman “body of
knowledge” that reveal a flagrant disregard of and disrespect for
human cultural differences. However, in partial defense of the
Romans, I think it is foolish for us moderns, with our greater
historical and cultural perspective, to condemn a people who could
not escape their own peculiar world with its illiberal views of
women and its hostility toward all things foreign. We moderns
certainly “know better” than the ancients did, though it did take us
nearly two millennia to liberate ourselves from our unenlightened
view of the world. Having said this, it must be remembered that, in
the end, this book is a reference work, not an apology for Western

xiv
 PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

Roman culture. Though we cannot erase our cruel and ignorantly

insensitive past, we can certainly learn from it and endeavor to live
above and beyond it.
Valeat Quantum Valere Potest.

Jon R. Stone
University of California, Santa Barbara
February 1995

xv
 P R E FAC E TO T H E
SECOND EDITION

Generally speaking, the publication of a new edition provides

authors and editors an opportunity to add new material, to update
existing information, to correct errors in the first edition, to answer
their critics, or in other ways atone for various authorial sins—of
omission as well as commission. Such is the case with this revised
and expanded edition of Latin for the Illiterati. Since its publication by
Routledge in 1996, this small reference text has enjoyed a measure
of success in what, at that time, had been a crowded and highly
competitive market for Latin books. While LFTI’s success has been
gratifying, at the same time the mistakes in and shortcomings of this
book have continued to vex my soul. Having been haunted by the
ghosts of the Latin language in my graduate student years, now, as a
graying member of Plato’s Academy, I find myself haunted and
tormented by the specter of my inadvertent slips of the pen—in
both the transmission and the translation of Latin words and phrases.
Here, at long last, in this second edition, have I been able to exorcize
these troublesome daemons.
In preparing the second edition, I have endeavored to improve
the text in a number of ways that would be both useful and
appealing to the reader. For instance, I have added roughly 1,000

xvi
 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
 child!" when in one moment she shewed signs of life, and attempted to
speak.

I immediately gave her to drink a little cold water, and bathed her head
with the same. She then sat up and vomited considerably, and she is
now so far recovered as this morning to sing a verse of a hymn and
walk about as usual.

During my presidency over the Liverpool Conference, which is nearly

eighteen months, I have witnessed many cases of healing, but never
any so very striking as the one I have just related.

If you deem the narrative worthy of a place in your pages of the

Millennial Star, you are quite at liberty to insert it.

I remain, dear brother,

Yours sincerely in the Gospel of Jesus,

GEORGE MITCHELSON.

Monday, 29.—At ten, a.m., the Twelve Apostles, together with

Brother Hyrum and John P. Greene, met at the mayor's office, The
to take into consideration the proper course for this people to Presidential
Election
pursue in relation to the coming Presidential election.
Considered.
The candidates for the office of President of the United States
at present before the people are Martin Van Buren and Henry Clay. It is
morally impossible for this people, in justice to themselves, to vote for the
re-election of President Van Buren—a man who criminally neglected his
duties as chief magistrate in the cold and unblushing manner which he did,
when appealed to for aid in the Missouri difficulties. His heartless reply
burns like a firebrand in the breast of every true friend of liberty—"Your
cause is just, but I can do nothing for you."

As to Mr. Clay, his sentiments and cool contempt of the people's rights are
manifested in his reply—"You had better go to Oregon for redress," which
would prohibit any true lover of our constitutional privileges from
supporting him at the ballot-box.

It was therefore moved by Willard Richards, and voted unanimously—

That we will have an independent electoral ticket, and that Joseph Smith be
a candidate for the next Presidency; and that we use all honorable means in
our power to secure his election.

I said—

The Prophet on the Campaign.

If you attempt to accomplish this, you must send every man in the city
who is able to speak in public throughout the land to electioneer and
make stump speeches, advocate the "Mormon" religion, purity of
elections, and call upon the people to stand by the law and put down
mobocracy. David Yearsly must go,—Parley P. Pratt to New York,
Erastus Snow to Vermont, and Sidney Rigdon to Pennsylvania.

After the April Conference we will have General Conferences all over
the nation, and I will attend as many as convenient. Tell the people we
have had Whig and Democratic Presidents long enough: we want a
President of the United States. If I ever get into the presidential chair, I
will protect the people in their rights and liberties. I will not
electioneer for myself. Hyrum, Brigham, Parley and Taylor must go.
Clayton must go, or he will apostatize. The Whigs are striving for a
king under the garb of Democracy. There is oratory enough in the
Church to carry me into the presidential chair the first slide.

Captain White, of Quincy, was at the Mansion last night, and this morning
drank a toast. * * * "May Nauvoo become the empire seat of government!"

I dictated to Brother Phelps the head of my pamphlet, entitled,

"Views on the Powers and Policy of the Government of the Commenceme
United States." nt of the
Prophet's
Views on
A Millerite lecturer came into the office with Brother Clayton, Powers and
about five, p.m. I had some conversation with him about the Policy of U.S.
definition of the Greek word Hades, and the Hebrew word
Sheol, &c. He lectured in the evening in the hall.

Prayer-meeting at Elder Brigham Young's.

Governor Ford wrote the following expostulatory epistle to the citizens of

Hancock County, through the Warsaw Signal:—

Governor Ford's Warning to the People of Hancock County.

SPRINGFIELD January 29, 1844.

DEAR SIR:—I have received the copy of the proceeding and

resolutions of a meeting of the citizens of Hancock County, which you
did me the honor to send me.

I have observed with regret that occasions have been presented for
disturbing the peace of your county; and if I knew what I could legally
do to apply a corrective, I would be very ready to do it. But if you are a
lawyer, or at all conversant with the law, you will know that I, as a
governor, have no right to interfere in your difficulties.

As yet, I believe that there has been nothing like war among you: and I
hope that all of you will have the good sense to see the necessity of
preserving peace. If there is anything wrong in the Nauvoo charters, or
in the mode of administering them, you will see that nothing short of
legislative or judicial power is capable of enforcing a remedy.

I myself had the honor of calling the attention of the Legislature to this
subject at the last session; but a large majority of both political parties
in that body either did not see the evil which you complain of, or, if
they did, they repeatedly refused to correct it. And yet a call is made
upon me to do that which all parties refused to do at the last session.

I have also been called upon to take away the arms from the Mormons,
to raise the militia to arrest a supposed fugitive, and in fact to repeal
some of the ordinances of the City of Nauvoo.

Hancock County is justly famed for its intelligence; and I cannot

believe that any of its citizens are so ignorant as not to know that I
have no power to do these things.

The absurd and preposterous nature of these requests give some color
to the charge that they are made for political effect only. I hope that
this charge is untrue; for, in all candor, it would be more creditable to
those concerned to have their errors attributed to ignorance than to a
disposition to embroil the country in the horrors of war for the
advancement of party ends.

But if there should be any truth in the charge, (which God forbid.) I
affectionately entreat all the good citizens engaged in it to lay aside
their designs and yield up their ears to the voice of justice, reason, and
humanity. All that I can do at present is to admonish both parties to
beware of carrying matters to extremity.

Let it come to this—let a state of war ensue, and I will be compelled to

interfere with executive power. In that case also, I wish, in a friendly,
affectionate, and candid manner, to tell the citizens of Hancock
County, Mormons and all, that my interference will be against those
who shall be the first transgressors.

I am bound by the laws and Constitution to regard you all as citizens

of the State, possessed of equal rights and privileges, and to cherish the
rights of one as dearly as the rights of another. I can know no
distinction among you except that of assailant and assailed.

I hope, dear sir, you will do me the favor to publish this letter in the
papers of your county, for the satisfaction of all persons concerned.

I am, with the highest respect,

Your obedient servant,

THOMAS FORD.
Tuesday 30.—At eleven, a.m., I went into the office with Colonel Jackson.

One, p.m., held mayor's court at my office, on the case "City versus Thomas
Coates." Fined the defendant $25 and costs for beating John Ellison.

A Millerite preached again in the assembly room, and Elder Rigdon replied
to him. There was a full house.

Prayer-meeting at Elder Brigham Young's.

Wednesday, 31.—Eleven, a.m., I called at the office, and told

Benjamin Winchester to go to Warsaw and preach the first Winchester's
principles of the Gospel, get some lexicons, and return home. Mission to
Warsaw.
Prayer-meeting at Elder Brigham Young's in the evening.
There seems to be quite a revival throughout Nauvoo, and an inquiry after
the things of God, by all the quorums and the Church in general.

Sidney Rigdon published a lengthy appeal to the Legislature

of the State of Pennsylvania, setting forth in pathetic style the Rigdon's
grievances he had suffered through the persecution against the Appeal to
Pennsylvania.
Church by the State of Missouri, which concludes as follows:
—

Peroration of Rigdon's Appeal to Pennsylvania.

In confidence of the purity and patriotism of the representatives of the

people of his native state, your memorialist comes to your honorable
body, through this his winged messenger, to tell you that the altar
which was erected by the blood of your ancestors to civil and religious
liberty, from whence ascended up the holy incense of pure patriotism
and universal good will to man, into the presence of Jehovah, a savior
of life, is thrown down, and the worshipers thereat have been driven
away, or else they are lying slain at the place of the altar. He comes to
tell your honorable body that the temple your fathers erected to
freedom, whither their sons assembled to hear her precepts and cherish
her doctrines in their hearts, has been desecrated—its portals closed, so
that those who go up thither are forbidden to enter.
 He comes to tell your honorable body that the blood of the heroes and
patriots of the revolution, who have been slain by wicked hands for
enjoying their religious rights, the boon of Heaven to man, has cried
and is crying in the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth, saying, "Redress,
redress our wrongs, O Lord God of the whole earth."

He comes to tell your honorable body that the dying groans of infant
innocence and the shrieks of insulted and abused females, and many of
them widows of revolutionary patriots, have ascended up into the ears
of Omnipotence, and are registered in the archives of eternity, to be
had in the day of retribution as a testimony against the whole nation,
unless their cries and groans are heard by the representatives of the
people, and ample redress made, as far as the nation can make it, or
else the wrath of the almighty will come down in fury against the
whole nation.

Under all these circumstances, your memorialist prays to be heard by

your honorable body touching all the matters of his memorial. And as a
memorial will be presented to Congress this session for redress of our
grievances, he prays your honorable body will instruct the whole
delegation of Pennsylvania, in both houses, to use all their influence in
the national councils to have redress granted.

And, as in duty bound, your memorialist will ever pray.

SIDNEY RIGDON.

Miss E. R. Snow published the following apostrophe to—

"MISSOURI."

What aileth thee, O Missouri! that thy face should gather blackness?
and why are thy features so terribly distorted?

Rottennesss has seized upon thy vitals, corruption is preying upon thy
inward parts, and the breath of thy lips is full of destructive contagion.
What meaneth thy shaking? and why art thou terrified? Thou hast
become like Belshazzar. "Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin!" is indeed
written against thee; but it is the work of thine own hand; the
characters upon thy wall are of thine own inscription; and wherefore
dost thou tremble?

Wouldst thou know the interpretation thereof? Hast thou sought for a
Daniel to declare it unto thee? Verily one greater than a Daniel was in
thy midst; but thou hast butchered the Saints, and hast hunted the
Prophets like Ahab of old.

Thou has extinguished the light of thy own glory; thou hast plucked
from thy head the crown of honor; thou hast divested thyself of the
robe of respectability; thou hast thrust from thine own bosom the veins
that flowed with virtue and integrity.

Thou hast violated the laws of our sacred constitution; thou hast
unsheathed the sword against thy dearest national rights, by rising up
against thine own citizens, and moistening thy soil with the blood of
those that legally inherited it.

When thou hadst torn from helpless innocence its rightful protectors
thou didst pollute the holy sanctuary of female virtue, and barbarously
trampled upon the most sacred gems of domestic felicity.

Therefore the daughters of Columbia count thee a reproach, and blush

with indignation at the mention of thy name.

Thou hast become an ignominious stain on the escutcheon of a noble,

free and independent republic; thou hast become a stink in the nostrils
of the Goddess of Liberty.

Thou art fallen—thou art fallen beneath the weight of thine own
unhallowed deeds, and thine iniquities are pressing as a heavy load
upon thee.

But although thy glory has departed—though thou hast gone down like
a star that is set forever, thy memory will not be erased; thou wilt be
had in remembrance even until the Saints of God shall forget that the
way to the celestial kingdom is "through great tribulation."

Though thou shouldst be severed from the body of the Union, like a
mortified member—though the lion from the thicket should devour
thee, thy doings will be perpetuated; mention will be made of them by
the generations to come.

Thou art already associated with Herod, Nero, and the bloody
Inquisition; thy name has become synonymous with oppression,
cruelty, treachery, and murder.

Thou wilt rank high with the haters of righteousness and the shedders
of innocent blood: the hosts of tyrants are waiting beneath to meet thee
at thy coming.

O ye wise legislators! ye executives of the nation! ye distributors of

justice! ye advocates of equal rights! arise and redress the wrongs of
an innocent people, and redeem the cause of insulted liberty.

Let not the contagious spirit of corruption wither the sacred wreath that
encircles you, and spread a cloud of darkness over the glory of your
star-spangled banner;

Lest the monarchs of the earth should have you in derision; lest you
should be weighed in the balance with the heathen nations, and should
be found wanting; lest the arm of the Lord should be revealed in
judgment against you; lest an arrow of vengeance from the almighty
should pierce the rotten fabric of a once sheltering constitution, and
your boasted confidence become like an oak dismembered of its
branches, whose shattered trunk is torn piecemeal by the uprising of
the tempest!

For the cries of the widow and fatherless, the groans of the oppressed
and the prayers of the suffering exile have come up before the God of
Hosts, who brought our pilgrim fathers across the boisterous ocean,
and raised up a Washington to break the yoke of foreign oppression.
 Morley Settlement, January, 1844.

Thursday, February 1.—At home: weather cold.

Phinehas Richards published a thrilling appeal to the

inhabitants of his native state of Massachusetts, to consider An Appeal to
the wrongs sustained in the loss of lives and property, and Massachusetts
—Phineas
other damages done to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-
Richards.
day Saints, of which he is a member.

Elder Reuben Hedlock wrote to President Brigham Young, giving the

names of those who had emigrated at the expense of the office, amounting
to $2,378; which is due from the emigrants.

Friday, 2.—Dr. Willard Richards called and read Phinehas Richards' appeal
to the inhabitants of Massachusetts, for redress of Missouri grievances.

Prayer-meeting at Elder Brigham Young's. Weather cold.

I went into the assembly room, where I found Elders Wilford Woodruff,
Willard Richards, and W. W. Phelps, to whom I related the following
dream, which Elder Willford Woodruff reported:

The Prophet's Dream—Troubled Waters Overcome.

I was standing on a peninsula, in the midst of a vast body of water

where there appeared to be a large harbor or pier built out for boats to
come to. I was surrounded by my friends, and while looking at this
harbor I saw a steamboat approaching the harbor. There were bridges
on the pier for persons to cross, and there came up a wind and drove
the steamboat under one of the bridges and upset it.

I ran up to the boat, expecting the persons would all drown; and
wishing to do something to assist them, I put my hand against the side
of the boat, and with one surge I shoved it under the bridge and righted
it up, and then told them to take care of themselves. But it was not long
before I saw them starting out into the channel or main body of the
water again.
The storms were raging and the waters rough. I said to my friends that
if they did not understand the signs of the times and the spirit of
prophecy, they would be apt to be lost.

It was but a few moments after when we saw the waves break over the
boat, and she soon foundered and went down with all on board.

The storm and waters were still very rough; yet I told my friends
around me that I believed I could stem those waves and that storm, and
swim in the waters better than the steamboat did; at any rate I was
determined to try it. But my friends laughed at me, and told me I could
not stand at all, but would be drowned.

The waters looked clear and beautiful, though exceedingly rough; and
I said I believed I could swim, and I would try it anyhow. They said I
would drown. I said I would have a frolic in the water first, if I did;
and I drove off in the raging waves.

I had swam but a short distance when a towering wave overwhelmed

me for a time; but I soon found myself on the top of it, and soon I met
the second wave in the same way; and for a while I struggled hard to
live in the midst of the storm and waves, and soon found I gained upon
every wave, and skimmed the torrent better; and I soon had power to
swim with my head out of water: so the waves did not break over me
at all, and I found that I had swam a great distance; and in looking
about, I saw my brother Samuel by my side.

I asked him how he liked it. He said, "First rate," and I thought so too.
I was soon enabled to swim with my head and shoulders out of water,
and I could swim as fast as any steamboat.

In a little time it became calm, and I could rush through the water, and
only go in to my loins, and soon I only went in to my knees, and
finally could tread on the top of the water, and went almost with the
speed of an arrow.

I said to Samuel, See how swift I can go! I thought it was great sport
and pleasure to travel with such speed, and I awoke.
Saturday 13.—Prayer-meeting in the assembly room.

The High Council met. Did but little business.

A rather favorable article appears in Niles' National Register of this date,

noticing the correspondence between myself and John C. Calhoun, a copy
of which is contained in the political department of the same number.

It also notices the correspondence between myself and James Arlington

Bennett, publishing the same, with some of our city ordinances. The editor
also quotes the following from the Hawk Eye:—

Mormon Improvements.

Although much complained has been made about the Mormons, we

saw on our late trip evidences of improvement on our prairies which
we consider highly creditable to the Mormons who made them,
without whom we doubt whether they would have been made for many
years to come. All those who have traveled over the large prairie
between Fort Madison, Warsaw and Carthage, remember how dreary it
was a few years since. Now it is studded with houses and good farms.
The English, who understand hedging and ditching far better than our
people, have gone upon that prairie and have enclosed extensive fields
in this manner. Along the old Rock Island tract, which we traveled
seven years ago, and which was then a dreary waste, we saw a field
enclosed with a good sod fence, six miles long and one wide. We think
such enterprise is worthy to be mentioned. As long as the Mormons are
harmless, and do not interfere with the rights of our people we think
they should be treated well. We shall never convince them that they are
a deluded people, as far as their religious notions are concerned, in any
other way.

Sunday 4.—I attended prayer-meeting with the quorum in the

assembly room, and made some remarks respecting the The 144,000
hundred and forty-four thousand mentioned by John the Selection
Begun.
Revelator, showing that the selection of persons to form that
number had already commenced.
President Brigham Young held a meeting at Brother Chamberlain's, in the
neighborhood north of the city; and Elder Wilford Woodruff, at Thomas
Kingston's, six miles east of the city.

Monday 5.—The regular session of the Municipal Court was

opened in the Mayor's office. Present, George W. Harris, City Council
George A. Smith, and N. K. Whitney. Adjourned to the
Nauvoo Mansion, on account of the severity of the weather. I presided as
Chief Justice. The assessors of the different wards in the city presented their
tax-lists, which occupied nearly all day. The court remitted the taxes of the
widows and of the poor who were unable to pay.

In the afternoon, Elder William Weeks (whom I had employed

as architect of the Temple,) came in for instruction. I Architecture of
instructed him in relation to the circular windows designed to the Nauvoo
Temple.
light the offices in the dead work of the arch between stories.
He said that round windows in the broad side of a building
were a violation of all the known rules of architecture, and contended that
they should be semicircular—that the building was too low for round
windows. I told him I would have the circles, if he had to make the Temple
ten feet higher than it was originally calculated; that one light at the centre
of each circular window would be sufficient to light the whole room; that
when the whole building was thus illuminated, the effect would be
remarkably grand. "I wish you to carry out my designs. I have seen in vision
the splendid appearance of that building illuminated, and will have it built
according to the pattern shown me."

Called at my office in the evening, and revised my "Views of

the Powers and Policy of the Government of the United Originality of
States." I was the first one who publicly proposed a national Bank Views.
bank on the principles set forth in that pamphlet.

Tuesday, 6.—Very cold day.

I spent the evening with my brother Hyrum, Sidney Rigdon, and the Twelve
Apostles and their wives, at Elder John Taylor's; took supper, and had a
very pleasant time.
Wednesday, 7.—An exceedingly cold day. In the evening I met with my
brother Hyrum and the Twelve Apostles in my office, at their request, to
devise means to promote the interests of the General Government. I
completed and signed my "Views of the Powers and Policy of the
Government of the United States," which I here insert:

Views of the Powers and Policy of the Government of the United

States.—Joseph Smith.

Born in a land of liberty, and breathing an air uncorrupted with the

sirocco of barbarous climes, I ever feel a double anxiety for the
happiness of all men, both in time and in eternity.

My cogitations, like Daniel's have for a long time troubled me, when I
viewed the condition of men throughout the world, and more
especially in this boasted realm, where the Declaration of
Independence "holds these truths to be self-evident, that all men are
created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness;" but at the same time some two or three millions of people
are held as slaves for life, because the spirit in them is covered with a
darker skin than ours; and hundreds of our own kindred for an
infraction, or supposed infraction, of some over-wise statute, have to
be incarcerated in dungeon gloom, or penitentiaries, while the duellist,
the debauchee, and the defaulter for millions, and other criminals, take
the uppermost rooms at feasts, or, like the bird of passage, find a more
congenial clime by flight.

The wisdom which ought to characterize the freest, wisest, and most
noble nation of the nineteenth century, should, like the sun in his
meridian splendor, warm every object beneath its rays; and the main
efforts of her officers, who are nothing more nor less than the servants
of the people, ought to be directed to ameliorate the condition of all,
black or white, bond or free; for the best of books says, "God hath
made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the
earth."
Our common country presents to all men the same advantages, the
facilities, the same prospects, the same honors, and the same rewards;
and without hypocrisy, the Constitution, when it says, "We, the people
of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish
justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense,
promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to
ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution
for the United States of America," meant just what it said without
reference to color or condition, ad infinitum.

The aspirations and expectations of a virtuous people, environed with

so wise, so liberal, so deep, so broad, and so high a charter of equal
rights as appears in said Constitution, ought to be treated by those to
whom the administration of the laws is entrusted with as much sanctity
as the prayers of the Saints are treated in heaven, that love, confidence,
and union, like the sun, moon, and stars, should bear witness,

"For ever singing as they shine,

The hand that made us is divine!"

Unity is power; and when I reflect on the importance of it to the

stability of all governments, I am astounded at the silly moves of
persons and parties to foment discord in order to ride into power on the
current of popular excitement; nor am I less surprised at the stretches
of power or restrictions of right which too often appear as acts of
legislators to pave the way to some favorite political scheme as
destitute of intrinsic merit as a wolf's heart is of the milk of human
kindness. A Frenchman would say, "Presque tout aimer richesses et
pouvoir." (Almost all men like wealth and power.)

I must dwell on this subject longer than others; for nearly one hundred
years ago that golden patriot, Benjamin Franklin, drew up a plan of
union for the then colonies of Great Britain, that now are such an
independent nation, which, among many wise provisions for obedient
children under their father's more rugged hand, had this:—"They have
power to make laws, and lay and levy such general duties, imports, or
taxes as to them shall appear most equal and just, (considering the
ability and other circumstances of the inhabitants in the several
colonies,) and such as may be collected with the least inconvenience to
the people, rather discouraging luxury than loading industry with
unnecessary burthens." Great Britain surely lacked the laudable
humanity and fostering clemency to grant such a just plan of union;
but the sentiment remains, like the land that honored its birth, as a
pattern for wise men to study the convenience of the people more than
the comfort of the cabinet.

And one of the most noble fathers of our freedom and country's glory,
great in war, great in peace, great in the estimation of the world, and
great in the hearts of his countrymen, (the illustrious Washington,) said
in his first inaugural address to Congress—"I behold the surest pledges
that as, on one side, no local prejudices or attachments, no separate
views or party animosities will misdirect the comprehensive and equal
eye which ought to watch over this great assemblage of communities
and interests, so, on another, that the foundations of our national policy
will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality,
and the pre-eminence of free government be exemplified by all the
attributes which can win the affections of its citizens and command the
respect of the world."

Verily, here shine the virtue and wisdom of a statesman in such lucid
rays, that had every succeeding Congress followed the rich instruction
in all their deliberations and enactments, for the benefit and
convenience of the whole community and the communities of which it
is composed, no sound of a rebellion in South Carolina, no rupture in
Rhode Island, no mob in Missouri expelling her citizens by Executive
authority, corruption in the ballot-boxes, a border warfare between
Ohio and Michigan, hard times and distress, outbreak upon outbreak in
the principal cities, murder, robbery, and defalcation, scarcity of
money, and a thousand other difficulties, would have torn asunder the
bonds of the Union, destroyed the confidence of man with man, and
left the great body of the people to mourn over misfortunes in poverty
brought on by corrupt legislation in an hour of proud vanity for self-
aggrandizement.
The great Washington, soon after the foregoing faithful admonition for
the common welfare of his nation, further advised Congress that
"among the many interesting objects which will engage your attention,
that of providing for the common defense will merit particular regard.
To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of
preserving peace." As the Italian would say—"Buono aviso."

The elder Adams, in his inaugural address, give national pride such a
grand turn of justification, that every honest citizen must look back
upon the infancy of the United States with an approving smile, and
rejoice that patriotism in their rulers, virtue in the people, and
prosperity in the Union once crowded the expectations of hope,
unveiled the sophistry of the hypocrite, and silenced the folly of foes.
Mr. Adams said, "If national pride is ever justifiable or excusable, it is
when it springs not from power or riches, grandeur or glory, but from
conviction of national innocence, information, and benevolence."

There is no doubt such was actually the case with our young realm at
the close of the last century. Peace, prosperity, and union filled the
country with religious toleration, temporal enjoyment, and virtuous
enterprise; and grandly, too, when the deadly winter of the "Stamp
Act," the "Tea Act," and other close communion acts of Royalty had
choked the growth of freedom of speech, liberty of the press, and
liberty of conscience—did light, liberty, and loyalty flourish like the
cedars of God.

The respected and venerable Thomas Jefferson, in his inaugural

address, made more than forty years ago, shows what a beautiful
prospect an innocent, virtuous nation presents to the sage's eye, where
there is space for enterprise, hands for industry, heads for heroes, and
hearts for moral greatness. He said, "A rising nation spread over a wide
and fruitful land, traversing all the seas with the rich productions of
their industry, engaged in commerce with nations who feel power and
forget right, advancing rapidly to destinies beyond the reach of mortal
eye,—when I contemplate these transcendent objects, and see the
honor, the happiness, and the hopes of this beloved country committed
to the issue and the auspices of this day. I shrink from the
contemplation, and humble myself before the magnitude of the
undertaking."

Such a prospect was truly soul-stirring to a good man. But "since the
fathers have fallen asleep," wicked and designing men have unrobed
the Government of its glory; and the people, if not in dust and ashes, or
in sackcloth, have to lament in poverty her departed greatness, while
demagogues build fires in the north and south, east and west, to keep
up their spirits till it is better times. But year after year has left the
people to hope, till the very name of Congress or State Legislature is
as horrible to the sensitive friend of his country as the house of
"Bluebard" is to children, or "Crockford's" Hell of London to meek
men.[1]

When the people are secure and their rights properly respected, then
the four main pillars of prosperity—viz., agriculture, manufactures,
navigation, and commerce, need the fostering care of Government; and
in so goodly a country as ours, where the soil, the climate, the rivers,
the lakes, and the sea coast, the productions, the timber, the minerals,
and the inhabitants are so diversified, that a pleasing variety
accommodates all tastes, trades, and calculations, it certainly is the
highest point of supervision to protect the whole northern and
southern, eastern and western, centre and circumference of the realm,
by a judicious tariff. It is an old saying and a true one, "If you wish to
be respected, respect yourselves."

I will adopt in part the language of Mr. Madison's inaugural address,

—"To cherish peace and friendly intercourse with all nations, having
correspondent dispositions; to maintain sincere neutrality towards
belligerent nations; to prefer in all cases amicable discussion and
reasonable accommodation of differences to a decision of them by an
appeal to arms; to exclude foreign intrigues and foreign partialities, so
degrading to all countries, and so baneful to free ones; to foster a spirit
of independence too just to invade the rights of others, too proud to
surrender our own, too liberal to indulge unworthy prejudices
ourselves, and too elevated not to look down upon them in others; to
hold the union of the States as the basis of their peace and happiness;
to support the Constitution, which is the cement of the Union, as well
in its limitations as in its authorities; to respect the rights and
authorities reserved to the States and to the people as equally
incorporated with and essential to the success of the general system; to
avoid the slightest interference with the rights of conscience or the
functions of religion, so wisely exempted from civil jurisdiction; to
preserve in their full energy the other salutary provisions in behalf of
private and personal rights, and of the freedom of the press,—so far as
intention aids in the fulfillment of duty, are consummations too big
with benefits not to captivate the energies of all honest men to achieve
them, when they can be brought to pass by reciprocation, friendly
alliances, wise legislation, and honorable treaties."

The Government has once flourished under the guidance of trusty

servants; and the Hon. Mr. Monroe, in his day, while speaking of the
Constitution, says, "Our commerce has been wisely regulated with
foreign nations and between the States. New States have been admitted
into our Union. Our Territory has been enlarged by fair and honorable
treaty, and with great advantage to the original States; the States
respectively protected by the national Government, under a mild
paternal system against foreign dangers, and enjoying within their
separate spheres, by a wise partition of power, a just proportion of the
sovereignty, have improved their police, extended their settlements,
and attained a strength and maturity which are the best proofs of
wholesome laws well administered. And if we look to the condition of
individuals, what a proud spectacle does it exhibit! On whom has
oppression fallen in any quarter of our Union? Who has been deprived
of any right of person or property?—who restrained from offering his
vows in the mode which he prefers to the Divine Author of his being?
It is well know that all these blessings have been enjoyed in their
fullest extent; and I add, with peculiar satisfaction, that there has been
no example of a capital punishment being inflicted on any one for the
crime of high treason." What a delightful picture of power, policy, and
prosperity! Truly the wise man's proverb is just—Righteousness
exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.
But this is not all. The same honorable statesman, after having had
about forty years' experience in the Government, under the full tide of
successful experiment, gives the following commendatory assurance
of the efficiency of the Magna Charta to answer its great end and aim
—to protect the people in their rights. "Such, then, is the happy
Government under which we live; a Government adequate to every
purpose for which the social compact is formed; a Government
elective in all its branches, under which every citizen may by his merit
obtain the highest trust recognized by the Constitution, which contains
within it no cause of discord, none to put at variance one portion of the
community with another, a Government which protects every citizen in
the full enjoyment of his rights, and is able to protect the nation against
injustice from foreign powers."

Again, the younger Adams, in the silver age of our country's

advancement to fame, in his inaugural address (1825), thus candidly
declares the majesty of the youthful republic in its increasing
greatness;—"The year of jubilee, since the first formation of our union,
has just elapsed: that of the Declaration of Independence is at hand.
The consummation of both was effected by this Constitution. Since
that period, a population of four millions has multiplied to twelve. A
Territory, bounded by the Mississippi, has been extended from sea to
sea. New States have been admitted to the Union, in numbers nearly
equal to those of the first confederation. Treaties of peace, amity, and
commerce have been concluded with the principal dominions of the
earth. The people of other nations, the inhabitants of regions acquired,
not by conquest, but by compact, have been united with us in the
participation of our rights and duties, of our burdens and blessings.
The forest has fallen by the ax of our woodsman. The soil has been
made to teem by the tillage of our farmers. Our commerce has
whitened every ocean. The dominion of man over physical nature has
been extended by the invention of our artists. Liberty and law have
marched hand in hand. All the purposes of human association have
been accomplished as effectively as under any other Government on
the globe, and at a cost little exceeding, in a whole generation, the
expenditures of other nations in a single year."
In continuation of such noble sentiments, General Jackson, upon his
ascension to the great chair of the chief magistracy, said, "As long as
our Government is administered for the good of the people, and is
regulated by their will, as long as it secures to us the rights of person
and property, liberty of conscience, and of the press, it will be worth
defending; and so long as it is worth defending, a patriotic militia will
cover it with an impenetrable aegis."

General Jackson's administration may be denominated the acme of

American glory, liberty, and prosperity; for the national debt, which in
1815, on account of the late war, was $125,000,000, and being
lessened gradually, was paid up in his golden day, and preparations
were made to distribute the surplus revenue among the several States;
and that august patriot, to use his own words in his farewell address,
retired, leaving "a great people prosperous and happy, in the full
enjoyment of liberty and peace, honored and respected by every nation
of the world."

At the age, then, of sixty years, our blooming Republic began to

decline under the withering touch of Martin Van Buren! Disappointed
ambition, thirst for power, pride, corruption, party spirit, faction,
patronage, perquisites, fame, tangling alliances, priestcraft, and
spiritual wickedness in high places, stuck hands and revelled in
midnight splendor.

Trouble, vexation, perplexity, and contention, mingled with hope, fear,

and murmuring, rumbled through the Union and agitated the whole
nation, as would an earthquake at the centre of the earth, the world
heaving the sea beyond its bounds and shaking the everlasting hills; so,
in hopes of better times, while jealousy, hypocritical pretensions, and
pompous ambition were luxuriating on the ill-gotten spoils of the
people, they rose in their majesty like a tornado, and swept through the
land, till General Harrison appeared as a star among the storm-clouds
for better weather.

The calm came, and the language of that venerable patriot, in his
inaugural address, while descanting upon the merits of the Constitution
and its framers, thus expressed himself:—"There were in it features
which appeared not to be in harmony with their ideas of a simple
representative Democracy or Republic. And knowing the tendency of
power to increase itself, particularly when executed by a single
individual, predictions were made that, at no very remote period, the
Government would terminate in virtual monarchy.

"It would not become me to say that the fears of these patriots have
been already realized. But as I sincerely believe that the tendency of
measures and of men's opinions for some years past has been in that
direction, it is, I conceive, strictly proper that I should take this
occasion to repeat the assurances I have heretofore given of my
determination to arrest the progress of that tendency, if it really exists,
and restore the Government to its pristine health and vigor."

This good man died before he had the opportunity of applying one
balm to ease the pain of our groaning country, and I am willing the
nation should be the judge, whether General Harrison, in his exalted
station, upon the eve of his entrance into the world of spirits, told the
truth, or not, with acting President Tyler's three years of perplexity, and
pseudo-Whig-Democrat reign to heal the breaches or show the
wounds, secundum artem.

Subsequent events, all things considered, Van Buren's downfall,

Harrison's exit, and Tyler's self-sufficient turn to the whole, go to show
—[2] * * * certainly there is a God in heaven to reveal secrets.

No honest man can doubt for a moment but the glory of American
liberty is on the wane, and that calamity and confusion will sooner or
later destroy the peace of the people. Speculators will urge a national
bank as a savior of credit and comfort. A hireling pseudo-priesthood
will plausibly push abolition doctrines and doings and "human rights"
into Congress, and into every other place where conquest smells of
fame, or opposition swells to popularity. Democracy, Whiggery, and
cliquery will attract their elements and foment divisions among the
people, to accomplish fancied schemes and accumulate power, while
poverty, driven to despair, like hunger forcing its way through a wall,
will break through the statues of men to save life, and mend the breach
in prison glooms.
A still higher grade of what the "nobility of nations" call "great men"
will dally with all rights in order to smuggle a fortune at "one fell
swoop," mortgage Texas, possess Oregon, and claim all the unsettled
regions of the world for hunting and trapping; and should an humble,
honest man, red, black, or white, exhibit a better title, these gentry
have only to clothe the judge with richer ermine, and spangle the
lawyer's finger with finer rings, to have the judgment of his peers and
the honor of his lords as a pattern of honesty, virtue, and humanity,
while the motto hangs on his nation's escutcheon—"Every man has his
price!"

Now, O people! people! turn unto the Lord and live, and reform this
nation. Frustrate the designs of wicked men. Reduce Congress at least
two-thirds. Two Senators from a State and two members to a million of
population will do more business than the army that now occupy the
halls of the national Legislature. Pay them two dollars and their board
per diem (except Sundays.) That is more than the farmer gets, and he
lives honestly. Curtail the officers of Government in pay, number, and
power; for the Philistine lords have shorn our nation of its goodly
locks in the lap of Delilah.

Petition your State Legislatures to pardon every convict in their several

penitentiaries, blessing them as they go, and saying to them, in the
name of the Lord, Go thy way, and sin no more.

Advise your legislators, when they make laws for larceny, burglary, or
any felony, to make the penalty applicable to work upon roads, public
works, or any place where the culprit can be taught more wisdom and
more virtue, and become more enlightened. Rigor and seclusion will
never do as much to reform the propensities of men as reason and
friendship. Murder only can claim confinement or death. Let the
penitentiaries be turned into seminaries of learning, where intelligence,
like the angels of heaven, would banish such fragments of barbarism.
Imprisonment for debt is a meaner practice than the savage tolerates,
with all his ferocity. "Amor vincit omnia."

Petition, also, ye goodly inhabitants of the slave States, your legislators

to abolish slavery by the year 1850, or now, and save the abolitionist
from reproach and ruin, infamy and shame.

Pray Congress to pay every man a reasonable price for his slaves out
of the surplus revenue arising from the sale of public lands, and from
the deduction of pay from the members of Congress.

Break off the shackles from the poor black man, and hire him to labor
like other human beings; for "an hour of virtuous liberty on earth is
worth a whole eternity of bondage." Abolish the practice in the army
and navy of trying men by court-martial for desertion. If a soldier or
marine runs away, send him his wages, with this instruction, that his
country will never trust him again; he has forfeited his honor.

Make honor the standard with all men. Be sure that good is rendered
for evil in all cases; and the whole nation, like a kingdom of kings and
priests, will rise up in righteousness, and be respected as wise and
worthy on earth, and as just and holy for heaven, by Jehovah, the
Author of perfection.

More economy in the national and state governments would make less
taxes among the people; more equality through the cities, towns and
country, would make less distinction among the people; and more
honesty and familiarity in societies would make less hypocrisy and
flattery in all branches of the community; and open, frank, candid
decorum to all men, in this boasted land of liberty, would beget
esteem, confidence, union, and love; and the neighbor from any state
or from any country, of whatever color, clime or tongue, could rejoice
when he put his foot on the sacred soil of freedom, and exclaim, The
very name of "American" is fraught with "friendship!" Oh, then, create
confidence, restore freedom, break down slavery, banish imprisonment
for debt, and be in love, fellowship and peace with all the world!
Remember that honesty is not subject to law. The law was made for
transgressors. Wherefore a * * * * good name is better than riches.

For the accommodation of the people in every state and territory, let
Congress show their wisdom by granting a national bank, with
branches in each State and Territory, where the capital stock shall be
held by the nation for the Central bank, and by the states and territories
for the branches; and whose officers and directors shall be elected
yearly by the people, with wages at the rate of two dollars per day for
services; which several banks shall never issue any more bills than the
amount of capital stock in her vaults and the interest.

The net gain of the Central bank shall be applied to the national
revenue, and that of the branches to the states and territories' revenues.
And the bills shall be par throughout the nation, which will mercifully
cure that fatal disorder known in cities as brokerage, and leave the
people's money in their own pockets.

Give every man his constitutional freedom and the president full
power to send an army to suppress mobs, and the States authority to
repeal and impugn that relic of folly which makes it necessary for the
governor of a state to make the demand of the President for troops, in
case of invasion or rebellion.

The governor himself may be a mobber; and instead of being

punished, as he should be, for murder or treason, he may destroy the
very lives, rights, and property he should protect. Like the good
Samaritan, send every lawyer as soon as he repents and obeys the
ordinances of heaven, to preach the Gospel to the destitute, without
purse or scrip, pouring in the oil and the wine. A learned Priesthood is
certainly more honorable than "an hireling clergy."

As to the contiguous territories to the United States, wisdom would

direct no tangling alliance. Oregon belongs to this government
honorably; and when we have the red man's consent, let the Union
spread from the east to the west sea; and if Texas petitions Congress to
be adopted among the sons of liberty, give her the right hand of
fellowship, and refuse not the same friendly grip to Canada and
Mexico. And when the right arm of freemen is stretched out in the
character of a navy for the protection of rights, commerce, and honor,
let the iron eyes of power watch from Maine to Mexico, and from
California to Columbia. Thus may union be strengthened, and foreign
speculation prevented from opposing broadside to broadside.
Seventy years have done much for this goodly land. They have burst
the chains of oppression and monarchy, and multiplied its inhabitants
from two to twenty millions, with a proportionate share of knowledge
keen enough to circumnavigate the globe, draw the lightning from the
clouds, and cope with all the crowned heads of the world.

Then why—oh, why will a once flourishing people not arise, phoenix-
like over the cinders of Martin Van Buren's power, and over the
sinking fragments of smoking ruins of other catamount politicians, and
over the windfalls of Benton, Calhoun, Clay, Wright, and a caravan of
other equally unfortunate law doctors, and cheerfully help to spread a
plaster and bind up the burnt, bleeding wounds, of a sore but blessed
country?

The Southern people are hospitable and noble. They will help to rid so
free a country of every vestige of slavery, whenever they are assured of
an equivalent for their property. The country will be full of money and
confidence when a National Bank of twenty millions, and a State Bank
in every state, with a million or more, gives a tone to monetary
matters, and make a circulating medium as valuable in the purses of a
whole community as in the coffers of a speculating banker or broker.

The people may have faults, but they should never be trifled with. I
think Mr. Pitt's quotation in the British Parliament of Mr. Prior's
couplet for the husband and wife, to apply to the course which the
King and ministry of England should pursue to the then colonies of the
now United States, might be a genuine rule of action for some of the
breath-made men in high places to use towards the posterity of this
noble, daring people:—

"Be to her faults a little blind;

Be to her virtues very kind."

We have had Democratic Presidents, Whig Presidents, a pseudo-

Democratic-Whig President, and now it is time to have a President of
the United States; and let the people of the whole Union, like the
inflexible Romans, whenever they find a promise made by a candidate
that is not practiced as an officer, hurl the miserable sycophant from
his exaltation, as God did Nebuchadnezzar, to crop the grass of the
field with a beast's heart among the cattle.

Mr. Van Buren said, in his inaugural address, that he went in the
Presidential chair the inflexible and uncompromising opponent of
every attempt, on the part of Congress, to abolish slavery in the
District of Columbia, against the wishes of the slave-holding States,
and also with a determination equally decided to resist the slightest
interference with it in the States where it exists.

Poor little Matty made this rhapsodical sweep with the fact before his
eyes, that the State of New York, his native State, had abolished
slavery without a struggle or a groan. Great God, how independent!
From henceforth slavery is tolerated where it exists, constitution or no
constitution, people or no people, right or wrong: Vox Matti! Vox
Diaboli! And peradventure, his great "sub-treasury" scheme was a
piece of the same mind. But the man and his measures have such a
striking resemblance to the anecdote of the Welshman and his cart-
tongue, that when the Constitution was so long that it allowed slavery
at the capitol of a free people, it could not be cut off; but when it was
so short that it needed a sub-treasury to save the funds of the nation, it
could be spliced! Oh, granny, granny, what a long tail our puss has got.
[3]
* * * But his mighty whisk through the great national fire, for the
presidential chestnuts, burnt the locks of his glory with the blaze of his
folly!

In the United States the people are the government, and their united
voice is the only sovereign that should rule, the only power that should
be obeyed, and the only gentlemen that should be honored at home and
abroad, on the land and on the sea. Wherefore, were I the president of
the United States, by the voice of a virtuous people, I would honor the
old paths of the venerated fathers of freedom; I would walk in the
tracks of the illustrious patriots who carried the ark of the Government
upon their shoulders with an eye single to the glory of the people, and
when that people petitioned to abolish slavery in the slave states, I
would use all honorable means to have their prayers granted, and, give
liberty to the captive by paying the Southern gentlemen a reasonable
equivalent for his property, that the whole nation might be free indeed!

When the people petitioned for a National Bank, I would use my best
endeavors to have their prayers answered, and establish one on
national principles to save taxes, and make them the controllers of its
ways and means. And when the people petitioned to possess the
territory of Oregon, or any other contiguous territory, I would lend the
influence of a Chief Magistrate to grant so reasonable a request, that
they might extend the mighty efforts and enterprise of a free people
from the east to the west sea, and make the wilderness blossom as the
rose. And when a neighboring realm petitioned to join the union of
liberty's sons, my voice would be, Come—yea, come, Texas; come
Mexico, come Canada; and come, all the world: let us be brethren, let
us be one great family, and let there be a universal peace. Abolish the
cruel custom of prisons (except certain cases), penitentiaries, court-
martials for desertion; and let reason and friendship reign over the
ruins of ignorance and barbarity; yea, I would, as the universal friend
of man, open the prisons, open the eyes, open the ears, and open the
hearts of all people, to behold and enjoy freedom—unadulterated
freedom; and God who once cleansed the violence of the earth with a
flood, whose Son laid down His life for the salvation of all His Father
gave him out of the world, and who has promised that He will come
and purify the world again with fire in the last days, should be
supplicated by me for the good of all people. With the highest esteem,
I am a friend of virtue and of the people,

JOSEPH SMITH,

NAUVOO, ILLINOIS, February 7, 1844.

 Footnotes:

1. Reference is had to Crockford's famous gaming club house at No. 50 on

the west side of St. James St., London.

2. For Explanation of Ellipses See footnote p. 75 this volume.

3. For explanation of Ellipses See footnote p. 75 this volume.

 CHAPTER IX.
COMMENTS ON CANDIDACY OF
JOSEPH SMITH FOR PRESIDENT OF
THE UNITED STATES—TENDERS OF
PEACE TO MISSOURI—PRELIMINARY
STEPS TO WESTERN MOVEMENT OF
THE CHURCH—JAMES A. BENNETT
AND VICE PRESIDENCY.

Wednesday, February 7, 1844.—A piece of doggerel appears in the Warsaw

Message of this date, entitled "Buckeye's Lamentations for the Want of
More Wives," evidently the production of Wilson Law, and breathing a very
foul and malicious spirit.

Thursday, 8.—Held Mayor's court, and tried two negroes for attempting to
marry white women: fined one $25, and the other $5. In the evening there
was a political meeting in the assembly room, when Brother Phelps publicly
read for the first time my "Views of the Powers and Policy of the General
Government." I addressed the meeting as follows:—

Views of the Prophet on His Candidacy for President of United States.

I would not have suffered my name to have been used by my friends

on anywise as President of the United States, or candidate for that
office, if I and my friends could have had the privilege of enjoying our
religious and civil rights as American citizens, even those rights which
the Constitution guarantees unto all her citizens alike. But this as a
people we have been denied from the beginning. Persecution has rolled
upon our heads from time to time, from portions of the United States,
like peals of thunder, because of our religion; and no portion of the
Government as yet has stepped forward for our relief. And in view of
these things, I feel it to be my right and privilege to obtain what
influence and power I can, lawfully, in the United States, for the
 protection of injured innocence; and if I lose my life in a good cause I
am willing to be sacrificed on the altar of virtue, righteousness and
truth, in maintaining the laws and Constitution of the United States, if
need be, for the general good of mankind.

I was followed by Elders Hyde an Taylor, and a unanimous vote was taken
to maintain my political views.

Friday, 9—Held Mayor's court in my dining-room on the case, "Nauvoo

versus William Withers," for assault. Case withdrawn on my
recommendation.

This evening a public meeting was held. I extract from the Neighbor:—

PUBLIC MEETING.

On Friday, the 9th instant, a public meeting was held in the assembly
room, at which a public address of General Joseph Smith's to the
citizens of the United States was read by Judge Phelps. The address is
certainly an able document, big with meaning and interest, clearly
pointing out the way for the temporal salvation of this Union, showing
what would be our best policy, pointing out the rocks and quick-sand
where the political bark is in danger of being wrecked, an the way to
escape it, and evincing a knowledge and foresight of our political
economy worthy of the writer.

Appropriate remarks were made by several gentlemen after the reading

of the address.

Saturday, 10.—I instructed the marshal to inform Mr. Cole, who kept a
select school in the assembly room, that I must for the future have that room
for my own use.

Prayer-meeting in the assembly room. Prayed for Sister Richards and

others, who were sick.

A conference was held at Tuscaloosa County, Alabama: Elder John Brown,

president; and George W. Stewart, clerk. Three branches were represented,
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