years in that county. During this period, they tried many times to regain
their homes by asking the governor and even the president of the United
States to enforce the laws and see that their lands and homes were given
back to them. Governor Dunklin talked very pleasantly about the rights of
the Saints, but in the end he did nothing to protect the people or help
them to gain possession of their property.

At a large meeting held in Liberty, the county seat of Clay county, on the
16th of June, 1834, in order to try to settle the trouble between the
Saints and the Jackson county people, the following offer was made by the
Jackson men to the Saints:

The Jackson people offered to buy all the land of the "Mormons" in Jackson
county, paying them a high price for it within thirty days, or the people
of Jackson offered to sell all their lands to the "Mormons" at the same
high price to be paid for in thirty days. This offer may seem to be fair,
but when it is remembered that the Lord had revealed to them that the city
of Zion should be built in Jackson county, and had told the Saints to buy
and not sell, it will be seen that this offer was not meant in good faith.
Again, the Saints could not buy out all the mobbers' land in Jackson, much
as they would have liked so to do, as there was so much of it, and they had
no money to pay for it in thirty days. The Saints therefore could not agree
to this, but they made an offer to buy out the lands of those who could not
live in peace with them, and pay them in one year.

Nothing came of these offers.

And now the people of Clay county asked the Saints to remove from their
midst. The country was again getting excited about the "Mormons," and the
Clay county people were afraid that the mobs would come to disturb them; so