All the mischief anticipated from suppressing the _Expositor_ nuisance came to pass. "The Mormons had laid unhallowed hands upon the press!" "They opposed the freedom of speech!" "The laws were no longer a protection to life and property in Nauvoo!" "A mob at Nauvoo under a city ordinance had violated the highest privilege in the government!" Such were the sentences that flew as if on the wings of the wind to all parts of Illinois.
A mass meeting was held at Warsaw, the prevailing sentiment of which was that "to seek redress in the ordinary mode would be utterly ineffectual." The meeting therefore adopted resolutions announcing that those present were at all times ready to co-operate with their fellow citizens in Missouri and Iowa to exterminate--_utterly exterminate_--the Mormon leaders--the authors their troubles. Another mass meeting was held at Carthage at which the Warsaw resolutions were adopted.
The anti-Mormon press teemed with intemperate articles, outrageously false accusations and frantic appeals to the very worst passions of human nature. The citizens of Nauvoo were represented as a horde of lawless ruffians and brigands; anti-American and anti-republican; steeped in crime and iniquity; opposed to freedom of speech and to progress; among whom neither persons nor property were secure. They were accused also of having designs upon the citizens of Illinois and of the United States; and for these things the people were called upon to rise _en masse_ and utterly exterminate them.
While these falsehoods were being extensively circulated through Illinois and the surrounding states, it was the most difficult thing, almost impossible to get a true statement of the case before the country. True accounts of the proceedings of the city council in the _Expositor_ affair were published in the _Times and Seasons_ and also in the _Neighbor_; but it was impossible to circulate them in Hancock and surrounding counties, as they were destroyed at the post offices. To get them abroad Elder Taylor had to send them a distance of thirty or forty miles from Nauvoo before posting them. In some instances they had to be taken to St. Louis, a distance of two hundred miles, to ensure their reaching their destination.