|
Price: $21.95
| |
A Call to Arms: The 1838 Mormon Defense of Northern Missouri
Alexander L. Baugh
This 1996 dissertation demonstrates that the expulsion of the
Latter-day Saints from Missouri in 1838–1839 was "entirely unwarranted
and illegal." Analyzing the history of the seven military episodes of
this conflict, especially in terms of the traditional roles of local
militias in the United States, Alexander L. Baugh shows that Latter-day
Saints as United States citizens "had every right to take up arms to
defend themselves, particularly when local and state officials failed
or refused to intervene in their behalf." While there was wrong-doing
especially on the part of some Mormon extremists, this study, contrary
to other recent interpretations, places the balance of the
responsibility for this antagonism heavily and decisively on the side
of the Missourians.This study demonstrates that local vigilantes,
county regulators, and a number of state officials (both civil and
military), operated illegally against the Mormons in their attempts to
force them to remove from selected regions, and finally the entire
state altogether. When the Latter-day Saints' efforts to settle the
difficulties by legal means failed, they were constrained to take
matters into their own hands. Even then, however, the Mormons made
every attempt to lawfully defend themselves by operating under the
legally constituted militia of the county. Furthermore, the majority of
the Mormon defenders who participated in the conflict did not have
criminal intentions, nor should they be characterized as being a group
of lawless miscreants. Theirs was a mission of community defense.
Therefore, the 1838 contest must be examined from the standpoint of a
defensive struggle on the part of the Mormons to maintain civil order
and to protect their constitutional rights as citizens.
Download the index for this dissertation here.
Price: $21.95
|
|