“To the Honorable the Senate and House of Representatives of the in Congress assembled— Your Petitioners Joseph Smith, and would most respectfully represent that they have been delegated, by their brethren and fellow Citizens, known as “Latter Day Saints” (commonly called Mormons) to prepare, and present to you a statement of their wrongs and a prayer for their relief which they now have the honor to submit to the consideration of your Honorable Body. In the Summer of 1831 a portion of the society above named commenced a settlement in the County of in the State of . The individuals making that settlement had emigrated from almost every State in the to that lovely Spot in the Far West, with the hope of improving their Condition, of building houses for themselves and posterity, and of erecting Temples where they, and theirs, might worship their Creator according to the dictates of their conscience

Though they had wandered far from the homes of their Childhood, still they had been taught to believe, that a Citizen born in any one State in this great , might remove to another and enjoy all the rights and immunities of Citizens of the State of his adoption, That wherever waved the American flag, beneath its Stars and Stripes an American Citizen might look for protection and justice, for liberty in person and in conscience. [HC 4:24] They bought farms, built houses, erected Churches, some tilled the Earth, others bought and sold merchandize, and others again, toiled in the Shape of the Mechanic, They were industrious and moral, and they prospered, and though often persecuted and villified for their difference in religious opinion from their fellow Citizens, they were happy, they saw their society increasing in numbers, their farms teemed with plenty and they fondly looked forward to a future big with hope. That there was prejudice against them, they knew, that slanders were propogated against them they deplored, yet they felt that these were unjust, and hoped that time and an uprightness of life would enable them to outlive them; while the summer of peace, happiness, and hope shone over the infant settlement of the Saints, the cloud was gathering unseen by them, that bore in its bosom the thunderbolt of destruction. On the 20th. July 1833 around their peaceful village, a mob gathered to the Surprise and terror of the quiet Mormons, why, they knew not; They had broken no law, they had harmed no man, in deed or thought. why they were thus threatened <​they knew not.​>— Soon a Committee from the Mob [p. 975]