In Missouri , once the gathering place of the Latter Day Saints , Mormons tended to vote as a bloc , wielding " considerable political and economic influence , " often unseating local political leadership and earning long-lasting enmity in the sometimes hard-drinking , hard-living frontier communities . These differences culminated in hostilities and the eventual issuing of an executive order ( since called the Extermination Order ) by Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs declaring " the Mormons must be treated as enemies , and must be exterminated or driven from the State . " Three days later , a renegade militia unit attacked a Mormon settlement at Haun 's Mill , resulting in the death of 18 Mormons and no militiamen . The Extermination Order was not formally rescinded until 1976
Haun 's Mill
Haun's Mill massacre
Anti-Mormonism