why me wrote:Kishkumen wrote:It has long been my contention that ordering the destruction of the Expositor was one of the worst decisions Joseph Smith ever made. It ignited people's fears that the Mormons would not integrate well into a democratic society, by effecting the very kind of thing they dreaded from them.
It wasn't just up to him. There was also the town council and the will of the people.
The city council was under Joseph Smith's control, and in their determining that the
Expositor was printing false statements, both Joseph Smith and Hyrum Smith lied about polygamy really being practiced. We've already been over that in this thread. Remember? Remember how the guy who introduced the idea of destroying the press had a wife who was in a polyandrous relationship with Joseph Smith?
And Why Me, this is just a suggestion, but try to finesse it a little more when you make things up on the spot. There was no "will of the people." There was no public referendum about the
Expositor. Not that any such referendum would have been legal, since it would have violated state and local law about ex post facto laws, freedom of the press, and depriving persons of property without just compensation.
Also, the first issue was printed and so, the cat was already out of the bag. I see it as silencing a public menance. And a menance it was.
And the stillborn brainchild issued from the uneasy shotgun marriage between circular reasoning and argument by assertion still cannot be put to rest.
Why Me: we can read what the anti-Mormon press said in reaction to all this. They were not calling for violence because of polyamory. They were angry because of the destruction of the press. The only public menace was one that Joseph Smith and the city council created by destroying the
Expositor. The
Expositor specifically denounced violence. The
Warsaw Signal explicitly did call for violence, but it was not because of what the Expositor said. It was because of what Joseph Smith and those under him did to the
Expositor press.
Also, Mormon presses were destroyed by mobs but you seem to be silent about that.
The mobs were not acting under the aegis of a municipal government. Other than that, though, the mobs who destroyed Mormon presses were not acting any more lawfully than the government in Nauvoo did. They were both unlawful.
It is also my understanding that there was not a federal case but a civil one.
Your understanding needs a lot of help. "Federal" and "civil" are not contrasting terms. "Federal" means that it is a case over which federal courts have subject matter jurisdiction. "Civil" means a party seeking a remedy from a private harm. Whether a civil case (or any case) would be heard in federal court depends on the jurisdiction given to the federal judiciary under Article III of the U.S. Constitution. The contrast with "civil" is "criminal," not "federal."
Also, your attempt to make everything better by calling this a civil wrong is misplaced. In order for a private cause of action to exist, the Nauvoo city government would have had to unlawfully exceed its powers in violating the rights of the
Expositor publishers. You know how I mentioned before your penchant for unwittingly proving what you are arguing against? You're doing it again. By admitting that there was a civil case,
you are conceding that the city council's actions were illegal.
Joseph Smith should have never been sent to prison or murdered over the press. And of course he wasn't sent to prison for that. You should be outraged that the american judicial system failed miserably to protect Joseph Smith and give him the due fine and not prison.
Remember, kids: when what you are attempting to pass off as argument is thoroughly refuted, you can always lay down that persecution card.
Did anyone here say that Joseph Smith deserved death by mob?
Anyone?I'm also not quite clear on what you mean by "of course" Joseph Smith did not go to prison for "that." For one thing, the arrest warrant was not for the destruction of the press. It was on a charge of treason based on the allegation that he illegally declared martial law (after he created the situation that he claimed justified declaring martial law). Notwithstanding Thomas Ford's after-the-fact speculation, there is no way to know how a trial would have come out because Joseph was brutally murdered before that trial happened. However, arguing from ignorance is not equivalent to an acquittal, which you seem to be implying.
Arguing from ignorance is not equivalent to a conviction, either. What is knowable, though, is that
a judge found probable cause for Joseph Smith to be charged with treason. That is a sufficient legal basis---it is
the legal basis---for arresting someone.
Also, Why Me, treason is a felony. A court is not obligated to let a person charged with a felony just pay a fine and be on his merry way.
By the way, it is not the job of "the American judicial system" to protect anyone from violence. That job falls to the executive branch, not the judicial branch. And I don't know of anyone arguing anything other than the executive branch failed to do its job protecting the prisoners at Carthage.