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Supremely Scarce -
Never Bound - Not in Flake
Illinois. Governor, 1842-1846
(Ford). Mormon
Difficulties. Report of
the Governor in relation to the difficulties in Hancock county.
In House, Dec.
10, 1846. Read, laid on the table and ――
copies ordered to be printed. Executive Department,
Springfield, December 7, 1846. To the Honorable the House of Representatives:
. . . [at head: "Illinois Legis.
} H. R. {15th
Assem. 1st Session."]
N.p., n.d. (but Springfield: George R. Weber, Public Printers, 1846?)
24½ X 15¾ cm. at greatest extremities.
7 pages. Some modest wear & soil, but a very good, desirable copy. Uncut.
Preserved in a handsome
custom leather-backed folding archival box.
Never
bound, but simply cut open for reading, secured with a straight pin
(still present), then folded in thirds for filing. Never trimmed, with generous
margins (top margins somewhat ragged from careless opening). A
delightfully unsophisticated example of a significant rarity,
obtained by the previous owner many years ago from an Illinois historian.
NOT IN
FLAKE. House of Representatives' issue. Compare
to Flake 4198, locating three copies of the Senate version. The only example
I have ever seen listed for sale was an unspecified issue offered by Benchmark
Books in 1990 (Catalog 2, item 36; "Very rare.")
Flake notes that the Senate issue was . .
.
Also in: Reports made to the Senate and House of Representatives of the State
of Illinois at their Session begun . . . December 7, 1846. V.1, p. [5]-11.
P.137 corrects an error in the report. [Flake entry 4198, note]
It is intriguing to note that when the example
preserved here was typeset, the number of copies to be printed had not yet
been determined, as seen in the title (above, "Read, laid on the table
and ―― copies ordered to be printed.")
This was evidently an original Illinois legislator's copy, bearing a manuscript
docket written horizontally on the final, blank page . . .
Dec. 10 - Laid on table
- 500 to be printed
AS
THOMAS FORD'S GOVERNORSHIP
OF ILLINOIS DREW TO AN
END, he appears to have become increasingly disgusted
with the Mormons and the anti-Mormons alike. The "Mormon War" of
1845-6 was a travesty which - according to Ford - grew out of the character
of the people involved. "I had a good opportunity to know the early
settlers of Hancock county.," wrote Ford at the end of his life. . .
.
I
had attended the circuit courts there as States-attorney, from 1830, when
the county was first organized, up to the year 1834; and to my certain knowledge
the early settlers, with some honorable exceptions, were, in popular language,
hard cases. . . . From this time down to the settlement of the Mormons there,
and for four years afterwards, I had no means of knowing about the future
increase of the Hancock people. But having passed my whole life on the frontiers,
on the outer edge of the settlements, I have frequently seen that a few first
settlers would fix the character of a settlement for good or for bad, for
many years after its commencement. If bad men began the settlement, bad men
would be attracted to them, upon the well-known principle that "birds
of a feather will flock together." Rogues will find each other out, and
so will honest men.
. . . . .If the people will have anarchy,
there is no power short of despotism capable of forcing them to submission;
and the despotism which naturally grows out of anarchy, can never be established
by those who are elected to administer regular government. If the mob spirit
is to continue, it must necessarily lead to despotism; but this despotism
will be erected upon the ruins of government, and not spring out of it. .
. . Where the people are unfit for liberty; where they will not be free without
violence, license and injustice to others; where they do not deserve to be
free, nature itself will give them a master. No form of constitution can make
them free and keep them so. [Thomas Ford, A History of Illinois . . .
(Chicago, 1854), pp. 406-7, 435-6]
Latter-day Saints traditionally
reproach Thomas Ford as the governor who failed
to protect their interests. Such readers may discover this rare report
of the 1845-6 Mormon Difficulties to be a revelation. Clearly,
Ford believed that he had done all that was possible, legally, in a hopeless
conflict between two impossible sets of people. His language is less
guarded than in his 1844 MESSAGE to the Illinois Legislature [see Flake
4195-6], and offers colorful insights, here first published to the world.
The conflicts of the Mormon War were
so absurd and convoluted on both sides as to excuse all but the most technical
historian from a minute examination. It is practically summed up, however,
in one tragi-comical paragraph at the middle of the pamphlet, pages 4-5 .
. .
It is important to realize that Ford in no
sense favored one party above the other. He acknowledged both the impossibility
of the Mormons remaining in Hancock County, and the unfair pressures which
were placed upon them during their preparations to leave. The future owner
of this valuable remnant can enjoy the many fascinating details which Ford
relates first-hand. A few examples must suffice here.
On the trials of those accused of crimes
on both sides, page 1 . . .
. . . on the mobs' unfair treatment of Mormons,
page 6:
. . . and on questionable behavior by the
Mormons themselves:
Far from neglecting the Mormons, Governor
Ford proclaimed that no expense should be spared to protect their rights,
as well as the rights of anti-Mormons who might be wronged in the conflict.
The next time one is tempted to take the intellectually easy road and decry
"big government" and taxes, one might remember the Mormon War, and
the admonition of Governor Ford, page 7:
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