They were innocent of any crime, as they had often been proved before, and were only confined in jail by the conspiracy of traitors and wicked men.

Doctrine and Covenants section 135, verse 7.

Hey listeners, this is Nick from Book of Mormon Central, and today's podcast addresses the question,

why did the Navu City Council order the

destruction of the Navu Expositor Press? On June 7, 1844, dissenters from the Church of Jesus

Christ of Latter-day Saints published the first and sole issue of the Navu Expooter, making

several inflammatory charges against the city of Navu and the issue of the Navu Expositor, making several inflammatory charges against

the city of Navu and the leaders of the church. After two days of investigation and deliberation,

the Navu City Council, led by Mayor Joseph Smith, ordered the destruction of the paper's printing press.

Twenty days later, Joseph and Hiram Smith were assassinated in Carthage Jail. Although many other

factors were planned and brought into play by various people who opposed the church, the publication

of the expositor was the most explosive and premeditated factor leading to the arrest and murder

of Joseph and Hiram. Here is a closer look at what happened in the opening stage of the

expositor's role in this sordid affair. The expositor had its origins in the turbulent

spring of 1844, when William Law, a counselor in the first presidency, his brother Wilson, a general

in the Navu Legion, Francis M. Higby and other dissenters in the church were excommunicated.

These men sought to remove Joseph Smith as the president of the church, and when that failed,

they formed their own church. One of their first actions was acquiring a press to publish the

Navu Expositor. It proposed to give a full, candid, and succinct statement of facts

as they really exist in the city of Navu. Most of its substance, however, was devoted to

inflammatory attacks on Joseph and Hiram Smith and other leaders of the church in Navu. The

expositor's attacks came primarily on three different fronts, religion, politics, and morality.

...