Mormon Publications: 19th Century - Oration delivered by Mr. S. Rigdon

RIGDON, Sidney. Oration delivered by Mr. S. Rigdon, on the 4th of July, 1838. At Far West, Caldwell Country, Missouri. Far West. [Missouri], Printed at the Journal Office, 1838. 12 pp. 19 cm.

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The Fourth of July celebration at Far West in 1838 marked the beginning of the end of the Mormon colonies in Missouri. That morning, the Far West Saints, accompanied by Dimick Huntington's band, marched in procession to the excavation for the new temple where the four corner stones were laid by the Church authorities. The crowd then moved to the speaker's stand to hear Sidney Rigdon deliver the day's oration. Subsequently Rigdon's speech was printed in pamphlet form by the Mormon print shop in Far West, and according to Ebenezer Robinson, a hand in the Far West shop, a copy was supplied to the editor and reprinted in the Liberty, Missouri newspaper Far West.

Six years later Jedediah M. Grant asserted that Sidney Rigdon's Fourth of July oration "was the main auxiliary that fanned into a flame the burning wrath of the mobocratic portion of the Missourians." Putting the speech in print amplified its effect, for this allowed it to be read and reread, galvanizing the Mormons as well as the Missourians.

While Grant lays the responsibility for the oration squarely on Rigdon, it is clear that it must be more broadly shared. Robinson writes in his reminiscences that "Rigdon was not alone responsible for the sentiment expressed in his oration, as that was a carefully prepared document, previously written, and well understood by the First Presidency, but Elder Rigdon was the mouth piece to deliver it." A notice in the August 1838 issue of the Elders' Journal announces that the oration is available in pamphlet form and commends it to the Saints in languages echoing the oration: "for to be mobbed [sic] any more without taking vengeance, we will not." This notice is signed Editor, who was Joseph Smith, but it may have been inserted by Rigdon who assisted in editing the Journal.

The bulk of the speech is inoffensive enough. Beginning with a statement of respect for and loyalty to American political institutions, it recounts the persecution endured by the Church, and it describes the temple about to be consecrated at Far West. Only in its closing moments does it become extreme. When a mob disturbs the Saints, it proclaims,

it shall be between us and them a war of extermination, for we will follow them, till the last drop of their blood is spilled, or else they have to exterminate us: for we will carry the seat of war to their own houses, and their own families, and one party or the other shall be utterly destroyed.

Excerpted and edited from Peter Crawley, A Descriptive Bibliography of the Mormon Church. Volume One, 1830-1847. (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University, Religious Studies Center, [1997]). Item 49, p. 80-[81].

Used by permission of the author and the Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University.