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Letter from Elias Higbee, 24 March 1840

Source Note

, Letter, , to JS, [, Hancock Co., IL?], 24 Mar. 1840. Featured version copied [between Apr. and June 1840] in JS Letterbook 2, pp. 105–107; handwriting of ; JS Collection, CHL. For more complete source information, see the source note for JS Letterbook 2.

Historical Introduction

While in on 24 March 1840, wrote a letter to JS, the last in a series of letters apprising JS of the actions of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, which was considering the ’s memorial to Congress. In this letter, Higbee informed JS that the Senate approved the committee’s resolution to no longer consider the church’s memorial and that he had retrieved all the documents the church’s delegation had submitted along with the memorial. He also updated JS on the prospect of submitting the memorial to the House of Representatives and on his plans to travel back to the , Illinois, area.
presumably sent this letter to . The original letter is not extant. copied the version featured here into JS Letterbook 2 sometime between April and June 1840.

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    See Historical Introduction to Letter from Elias Higbee, 20 Feb. 1840–A.

  2. [2]

    Coray, Autobiographical Sketch, 17, 19.

    Coray, Howard. Autobiographical Sketch, after 1883. Howard Coray, Papers, ca. 1840–1941. Photocopy. CHL. MS 2043, fd. 1.

Asterisk (*) denotes a "featured" version, which includes an introduction and annotation. *Letter from Elias Higbee, 24 March 1840 Letterbook 2 History, 1838–1856, volume C-1 [2 November 1838–31 July 1842] “History of Joseph Smith”

Page 106

no money to get home on, and I hardly know what course to take in regard to the matter. If I do not receive a letter in two or three days, I design leaving for or the west. There is one honest, quaker, looking sort of a man by here by the name of William Green (instead of John Green as I stated in a letter to Bro. Robinson) who has two Iron printing presses, with other things necessary, that would come to , provided you could find work for him, and inform him of the same. How much work there is to do I know not, therefore merely write that if such a man & establishment are <​is​> wanted you could easily obtain them or would know where they could be obtained. He believes as much in our religion as any other but not much in any. Yours in the Lord
P.S
I would just observe, that information has reached this place, through some of the News Papers, that you have come out for Harrison; It is said that the information came by some Gentlemen who obtained it from you, whilst in your company in passing through the State of
Another Papers states that 1000 houses are to be built in this season, which I hope is the truth. I would just observe (on the subject of our business) I am sorry had not insisted on the motion to print our papers as it would have been opposed, then a speech from and Mr. [William Campbell] Preston would have been brot forth, as I have since learned; but I think it was a trick of the Senators to slide it along without making a noise, by its going to the as it did committee as it did. says he was anxious to have it brought before the Committee, but seemed disposed to let it slide along easily rather than run the risk of its being refused. If he had let those speeches been made, almost every one would have read them; which would have shamed (if there is any shame in her), and waked up the whole country, so that by another year Congress would do something for us— But there is no need of crying for spilt milk [p. 106]
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Source Note

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Page 106

Document Information

Related Case Documents
Editorial Title
Letter from Elias Higbee, 24 March 1840
ID #
530
Total Pages
3
Print Volume Location
JSP, D7:232–234
Handwriting on This Page
  • Howard Coray

Footnotes

  1. [5]

    According to a letter Senator Richard M. Young sent to Higbee, Young lent Rigdon forty dollars, presumably to help pay for the journey home. (Richard M. Young, Washington DC, to Elias Higbee, 9 Apr. 1840, in JS Letterbook 2, pp. 133–134.)

  2. [6]

    Possibly George W. Robinson, but likely Ebenezer Robinson, who was then an editor and printer of the Times and Seasons. This letter has not been located. Higbee discussed the prospect of Green’s moving to Illinois in his previous letter to JS. (Letter from Elias Higbee, 9 Mar. 1840.)

  3. [7]

    William Henry Harrison, a Whig candidate for president in 1840.

  4. [8]

    “Our papers” refers to the memorial to Congress prepared by JS, Rigdon, and Higbee and to the affidavits that they submitted with the memorial. (See Historical Introduction to Memorial to the United States Senate and House of Representatives, ca. 30 Oct. 1839–27 Jan. 1840.)

  5. [9]

    Senators Henry Clay (a Whig from Kentucky) and William Campbell Preston (a Whig from South Carolina) had apparently spoken in favor of the Senate considering the church’s memorial when others urged the Senate to table it. (Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 833, 1763–1764; Congressional Globe, 26th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 149 [1840].)

    Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774–2005, the Continental Congress, September 5, 1774, to October 21, 1788, and the Congress of the United States, from the First through the One Hundred Eighth Congresses, March 4, 1789, to January 3, 2005, inclusive. Edited by Andrew R. Dodge and Betty K. Koed. Washington DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2005.

    The Congressional Globe, Containing Sketches of the Debates and Proceedings of the Twenty-Sixth Congress. Vol. 8. Washington DC: Blair and Rives, 1840.

  6. [10]

    Senators Lewis F. Linn (Democrat) and Thomas Hart Benton (Democrat). (Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 120, 646, 1452.)

    Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774–2005, the Continental Congress, September 5, 1774, to October 21, 1788, and the Congress of the United States, from the First through the One Hundred Eighth Congresses, March 4, 1789, to January 3, 2005, inclusive. Edited by Andrew R. Dodge and Betty K. Koed. Washington DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2005.

  7. [11]

    See Journal of the Senate of the United States, 26th Cong., 1st Sess., 28 Jan. and 12 Feb. 1840, 138, 173; and Congressional Globe, 26th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 149 (1840).

    Journal of the Senate of the United States of America, Being the First Session of the Twenty-Sixth Congress, Begun and Held at the City of Washington, December 2, 1839, and in the Sixty-Fourth Year of the Independence of the Said United States. Washington DC: Blair and Rives, 1839.

    The Congressional Globe, Containing Sketches of the Debates and Proceedings of the Twenty-Sixth Congress. Vol. 8. Washington DC: Blair and Rives, 1840.

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