Yes resounded from every quarter of the room," the clerk, Willard Richards, wrote. "Are we offering ... to take away the right[s] of anyone [by] this [action] [to]day?" one of the city councilmen, William Phelps, shouted. "No!!!" was the answer "from every quarter." Should they also tear down the barn of newspaper editor Robert Foster? Yes! they said. By the time the meeting was over, the Nauvoo police, assisted by 100 soldiers of the Nauvoo Legion, had "tumbled the press and materials into the street and set fire to them, and demolished the machinery with a sledge-hammer.

Another gripping event occurred on September 8, 1844, when the high council gathered outdoors to accommodate large crowds for the trial of Sidney Rigdon of the First Presidency. A behind-the-scenes power struggle became evident as Brigham Young stepped forward to take control of the meeting, culminating in a request for a vote from the audience. Young asked everyone to "place themselves so that [he] could see them, so he would "know who goes for Sidney." There followed a flurry of denunciations of various Church members who were summarily excommunicated by acclimation rather than by trial in a meeting lasting six hours.