On 4 November 1843, Willard Richards inscribed a series of letters on behalf of JS to presumptive presidential candidates Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, Lewis Cass, Richard M. Johnson, and Martin Van Buren inquiring about their policies toward the Latter-day Saints should they be elected president in the 1844 election. The letters were prompted by the Latter-day Saints’ frustration over the federal government’s refusal to provide redress for the persecutions and property losses they suffered in Missouri in the 1830s. Though church leaders and individuals sympathetic to the Latter-day Saints’ plight petitioned President Andrew Jackson in 1834, President Martin Van Buren in 1839, and members of the United States Congress in 1840 and 1842, government officials took no meaningful action to help the Saints obtain redress.

During late fall and early winter 1843, church leaders renewed their efforts to petition the federal government for reparation by writing two additional memorials to Congress. As part of a broader strategy of redress, they also published appeals addressed to selected citizens and wrote letters to candidates seeking the presidency in 1844. Church leaders also encouraged members to exercise their voting rights. On 1 October, apostle and editor John Taylor published an article in the Times and Seasons titled “Who Shall Be Our Next President?” that summarized the church’s unsuccessful attempts to obtain redress and encouraged Latter-day Saints to vote for a presidential candidate “who will be the most likely to render us assistance in obtaining redress for our grievances.” Several weeks later, church leaders received an unexpected offer of help. On 23 October, church member Joseph L. Heywood informed JS that Quincy, Illinois, resident John Frierson had expressed “sympathy for the wrongs yourself & Bretheren suffered in Missouri” and an interest in writing a petition to Congress on behalf of the Latter-day Saints. Heywood enclosed a copy of a letter that Frierson had written to former South Carolina representative Franklin H. Elmore, in which he stated his sympathy for the Latter-day Saints’ plight and suggested that current South Carolina congressman Robert Rhett introduce a petition in Congress.

As JS and other church leaders discussed petitioning Congress, they also composed direct appeals to the citizens of several eastern states and wrote letters to presidential candidates vying for the Whig Party’s and Democratic Party’s nominations. On 2 November, JS, Taylor, Hyrum Smith, Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, and William Clayton met in council to talk over “political matters.” In addition to discussing the Heywood and Frierson letters, the council determined to “write a letter to the 5 candidats for the Presiden[c]y to enquire what their feelig [feelings] were or what their course would be towards the sai[n]ts if they were elected.”

Though the Democratic and Whig national nominating conventions did not take place until May 1844, several candidates had emerged as frontrunners by this time. President John Tyler, who ascended to the office when President William Henry Harrison died thirty-two days into his term, had been effectively expelled from the Whig Party in 1842 for vetoing key pieces of legislation favored by his party. With the incumbent president ostracized from his own party, Clay emerged as the favorite to win the Whig nomination. The Democratic favorite was former president Van Buren, with Cass, Johnson, James Buchanan, and Calhoun all gaining some regional support.

On 4 November, Richards drafted a form letter to five presidential aspirants—Clay, Calhoun, Cass, Johnson, and Van Buren. The letter briefly recounted the Latter-day Saints’ sufferings at the hands of Missourians and previous attempts to obtain redress and asked each candidate about his policy toward church members should he be elected president. Later that evening, Richards met with JS and Times and Seasons editor Taylor and read the letter aloud. JS apparently instructed Richards to make some slight corrections to the draft before he approved it. Richards then inscribed five clean copies of the text and addressed one to each candidate.

The letter to South Carolina senator Calhoun is apparently the only sent copy of the five letters that is extant; it is featured here as a representative sample of the set. That letter was mailed from Nauvoo, Illinois, to Pickens Court House, South Carolina, on 5 November 1843. The Pickens Court House postmaster apparently forwarded the letter to Calhoun’s Fort Hill plantation, located approximately ten miles southeast of the settlement, on 23 November. A docket in Calhoun’s handwriting and a letter of reply indicate that he received the letter. In his 2 December 1843 response, Calhoun informed JS of his position that the Latter-day Saints’ case “does not come within the Jurisdiction of the Federal government.”

Copies of the letter to Calhoun, as well as Calhoun’s reply, were printed in several publications in January 1844, including the Times and Seasons, the Nauvoo Neighbor, and the New York Herald.