Nauvoo Expositor

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The Nauvoo Expositor was a newspaper in Nauvoo, Illinois that published only one issue, which was dated June 7, 1844. The Expositor was founded by several disaffected associates of Joseph Smith, Jr., a few of whom claimed that Smith had attempted to seduce their wives in the name of plural marriage (polygamy). [citation needed]

The bulk of the Expositor's single issue was devoted to criticism of Smith [citation needed], founder of the Latter Day Saint movement and the mayor of Nauvoo. Smith and the Nauvoo city council voted to declare the paper a public nuisance, and ordered the paper's printing press destroyed. These actions generated considerable disturbance, and culminated in Smith's killing by a mob while he was in legal custody and awaiting a trial in nearby Carthage.

The criticism of Smith was focused on three main points: The opinion that Smith had once been a true prophet, but had become a fallen prophet in the last few years because of his introduction of plural marriage, exaltation and other controversial doctrines; the opinion that as church president and Nauvoo mayor, Smith held too much power; and the belief that Smith was corrupting young women by forcing, coercing or introducing them to the practice of plural marriage. (Smith was in fact actively seeking multiple wives in secret, while publicly denying such rumors and accounts (see 1835 D&C, Section CI).

Nauvoo's charter granted the city council powers equal to the Illinois legislature within the jurisdiction of Nauvoo. Power was granted to the city council to pass ordinances for the order and welfare of the city. For several days, Smith and the city council debated and discussed the matter. Ultimately, after considering William Blackstone's canon, Smith, as Nauvoo's mayor, declared the press a nuisance and ordered the city marshall to destroy the paper and the press. [citation needed]

Although the legality of the destruction of the Expositor is ambiguous, based on the laws of the time, critics regarded the press's destruction as an ethical affront to the freedom of the press. There is general agreement among historians that the press's destruction escalated the continuing conflict between the Mormon community and their critics, leading ultimately to Smith's killing.

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[edit] Origin of the paper and reasons for its destruction

The Expositor was published by William Law and six associates. Law had been a former member of the Mormon First Presidency, and a close associate to Smith. During the course of his association with Smith, Law came to believe that Smith had made several proposals to Law's wife Jane, under the premise that Jane Law would enter a polygamous marriage with Smith. [citation needed]Law claimed that when he confronted his wife, she told him that Smith had "asked her to give him half her love; she was at liberty to keep the other half for her husband." Some historians have also concluded that Smith had also planned to ask Smith's own wife, Emma, to enter a similar polygamous relationship with William Law, but was directed by revelation not to follow through. (See LDS D&C 132:51.) As a result of what William Law came to believe about Joseph Smith, Law became disaffected with Smith, and left the church. The Expositor was planned as an exposé of the church's practices which Law opposed. [citation needed]

The Expositor was declared a nuisance in part because it was deemed that if it was not immediately checked, it would inflame Nauvoo's Mormon citizens and lead to public disorder or a public disturbance. [citation needed] Assuming that the mayor's declaration and order passed the ex post facto legal hurdle, it also needed to meet the Nauvoo Charter's requirement that new ordinances must be published under certain criteria and could only become effective 30 days after the ordinance was passed. [citation needed] This requirement was not met. [citation needed]

The Nauvoo council and mayor considered that the most pertinent and inflammatory allegation presented by the paper was that Smith secretly practiced "spiritual wifery" or polygamy. [citation needed] Smith may have ordered the destruction of the press as mayor instead of suing for libel personally because he did not want the evidence of his polygamy presented before public in a court.[citation needed] (Although Church leaders at the time publicly condemned "spiritual wifery" and even excommunicated members for the practice, the doctrine of Plural Marriage was practiced discreetly among them until a few years after they arrived in Utah in 1847. The revelation on this practice, attributed to Smith, was proclaimed at a General Conference in August 1852 and first published in the Deseret News a few weeks later, but not printed as Section 132 in the Doctrine and Covenants until 1876.)

[edit] Legal Opinions and Analyses

Apart from its ethical implications, there has been some debate about whether the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor was legal. At the time, the United States Constitution did not prohibit states and localities from infringing the freedom of the press. This First Amendment protection only applied to the federal government, until the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution was enacted in 1868, and U.S. courts did not consistently enforce the First Amendment against states and localities until about 1931.

Thus, whether or not the destruction of the press was legal depends primarily on the laws of the state of Illinois, and the Nauvoo Charter. Among the rights enacted in the 1818 Constitution of Illinois were a prohibition against ex post facto laws (VIII.16) and a provision for the freedom of the press (VIII.22). It is not clear whether the city of Nauvoo's actions against the Expositor violated the Nauvoo constitution's freedom-of-press provision. This provision read as follows:

"22. The printing presses shall be free to every person, who undertakes to examine the proceedings of the general assembly or of any branch of government; and no law shall ever be made to restrain the right thereof. The free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the invaluable rights of man, and every citizen may freely speak, write, and print on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of that liberty.
"23. In prosecutions for the publication of papers investigating the official conduct of officers, or of men acting in a public capacity, or where the matter published is proper for public information, the truth thereof may be given in evidence. And in all indictments for libels, the jury shall have the right of determining both the law and the fact, under the direction of the court as in other cases." (Art. VIII, cl. 22–23).

One Mormon legal scholar Dallin H. Oaks has addressed the issue, and concluded that the destruction of the press was permissible under Illinois constitutional law, as it was applied in the 1840s, on the basis that the Expositor may have been seen at the time as committing libel, or as being a public nuisance. [citation needed]

It is also unclear whether the destruction violated Illinois' prohibition against ex post facto laws. On the one hand, the city of Nauvoo was applying a nuisance ordinance that existed before the Expositor went to press. On the other hand, it is open to debate whether the actions of the Expositor were clearly within the purview of that ordinance. Even without an ordinance, however, the city of Nauvoo could have relied upon the long-existing common law doctrines of nuisance and libel. The city might also have acted under the common law doctrine of eminent domain, which allows the government to take private property for public use. Such a taking, however, would have required, under the Illinois "Takings Clause", that the taking be approved by the Illinois general assembly, and that just compensation be given. (Art. VIII, clause 11).

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