Nauvoo Expositor

The Nauvoo Expositor was a local newspaper in Nauvoo, Illinois that issued only one publication in June 1844 before the paper and its press were declared a nuisance[?] by the city council, and the second mayor of Nauvoo, (then Joseph Smith, Jr.), ordered the city marshall to destroy it. Opponents of Joseph Smith published this paper which was criticial of him and other leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and which Mormon leaders viewed as incendiary to the mobs that they had become familiar with in New York, Ohio, and Missouri. Under Nauvoo's city-state charter (granting Nauvoo's city council powers equal to the Illinois legislature within the jurisdiction of Nauvoo), power was granted to the city council to determine what was a nuisance and to prevent and remove such. After turning to William Blackstone's legal canon that included a libellous press as a nuisance and some discussion, the council passed an ordinance declaring the press a nuisance. Under the council's new ordinance, Joseph Smith as mayor ordered the city marshall to destroy the paper and the press. Critics of the Church have questioned whether the city council's ordinance and the mayor's order were constitutional. One legal scholar Dallin H. Oaks has addressed the issue and concluded that although the actions may not have been wise they were in keeping with accepted legal practices of the time. Generally critics' own centristic view have led them to misjudge Nauvoo officials actions of the mid 19th century by legal standards of the late 20th century. For example, the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution was twenty four years away from being enacted. Thus, the issue falls primarily on the constitution and laws of the state of Illinois, not the federal law of the United States. Regardless of the legality, the actions of the city council and the mayor precipitated the imprisonment of Joseph Smith in Carthage, Illinios[?], where he was murdered by a mob. (See Martydom of Joseph Smith[?].)