That, of course, is the Mormon version. I believe theirs is a little bit different.
The
Nauvoo Expositor was a
newspaper in
Nauvoo, Illinois,
that published only one issue, on June 7, 1844. Its publication set off a chain of events that led to the
death of Joseph Smith.
The
Expositor was founded by several seceders from the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and some non-Mormons in the Nauvoo area. The single edition of the newspaper was critical of Smith and other church leaders. Specifically, Smith was criticized for teaching doctrines such as
plural marriage and
exaltation.
[1]
In response to the newspaper's publication, Smith and the
Nauvoo City Council declared the paper a
public nuisance, and ordered the press destroyed.
[2] The town
marshal carried out the order during the evening of June 10.
[3]
The destruction of the press led to charges of riot against Smith and other members of the Council. After Smith surrendered on the charges, he was also charged with treason against Illinois.
Smith was killed by a mob while awaiting a trial in
Carthage Jail.
Nauvoo Expositor - Wikipedia
The
Expositor was intended from the beginning as a means of expressing dissent—perhaps the ultimate form of adherence to an ideal, for the dissenters feel it so important that they are willing to endure all forms of censure for it—and through it the publishers hoped to arouse the community against the secret practice of polygamy, raise concerns about other doctrines, and curb Joseph Smith’s theocratic control of the community.
The above the fold front page of the only issue of Expositor ever published.
When its only issue appeared on June 7, 1844, the
Expositor excited the city’s leadership. It condemned the taking of plural wives and denounced the practice as a villainy by depicting the psychological pressure that was brought to bear on the selected women. It also deplored Joseph Smith’s attempts to gain and wield political power and called for greater separation of church and state at Nauvoo. The publishers listed a whole series of resolutions designed to bring religious, moral, and political reform to the community. Among other things, they opposed Smith’s efforts to hold himself above the law.
The
Expositor not only opposed Smith’s control of Nauvoo, it held his behavior up to precisely the kind of critical examination that he had always managed to avoid within the church. And the publishers were very well informed. They addressed their fellow Mormons with authority—as men “thoroughly acquainted with [the church’s] rise, its organization and its history.” If the Mormon community of Nauvoo had serious shortcomings, as the publishers asserted, then the church membership had to question the virtues claimed for it by Joseph Smith. Rather than a bastion of virtue in a corrupt nation as Smith insisted, the Law brothers asserted that Nauvoo was a place where moral, social, and political corruption reigned.
The Nauvoo “Expositor” Affair
