FAIR
The Nauvoo Expositor
FAIR Latter-day Saints
1844 libel law was not 2026 First Amendment Twitter. City councils abated nuisance presses. Nauvoo’s council — not a midnight raid by Joseph alone — ordered the Expositor press destroyed after hearing testimony that it was inciting violence against the city. That decision was legally contestable and politically disastrous. It was not ‘Joseph Smith vs. the Bill of Rights.’ He then rode to Carthage under a promise of protection and was murdered.
Destroying the press was a civic act by a city council using a tool other American towns had used. It was unwise. It was not the same thing as the mob that shot him.
- The Expositor named plural marriage and called for the city’s charter to be broken. In 1844 Illinois that was an existential threat, not a Yelp review.
- Joseph submitted to arrest. Martyrdom is not canceled because the legal prelude was messy.
- Critics who skip the promised state protection and the painted faces at the jail are not telling the Carthage story. They are telling a civics lecture.