The Story of the Mormons, from the Date of Their Origin to the Year 1901 Part 58

The second letter, marked "personal," went into these matters much more in detail. It declared that the tax levied by Young on non-Mormons who sold goods in Salt Lake City was a liquor tax, creditable to Mormon temperance principles. Had the President consulted the report of the debate on Babbitt's admission as a Delegate, he would have discovered that this was falsehood number one. The charges against Young while in Illinois, including counterfeiting, Kane swept aside as "a mere rehash of old libels," and he cited the Battalion as an ill.u.s.tration of Mormon patriotism. The extent to which he could go in falsifying in Young's behalf is ill.u.s.trated, however, most pointedly in what he had to say regarding the charge of polygamy: "The remaining charge connects itself with that unmixed outrage, the spiritual wife story; which was fastened on the Mormons by a poor ribald scamp whom, though the sole surviving brother and representative of their Jo. Smith, they were literally forced to excommunicate for licentiousness, and who therefore revenged himself by editing confessions and disclosures of savor to please the public that peruses novels in yellow paper covers."* In regard to William Smith, the fact was that he opposed polygamy both before and after his expulsion from the church. Kane's stay among the Mormons on the Missouri must have acquainted him with the practically open practice of polygamy at that time. His entire correspondence with Fillmore stamps him as a man whose word could be accepted on no subject. It would have been well if President Buchanan had availed himself of the existence of these letters. Fillmore stated in later years that at that time neither he nor the Senate knew that polygamy was an accepted Mormon doctrine.

* For correspondence in full, see Millennial Star, Vol. XIII, pp.

341-344.

Young took the oath of office as governor in February, 1851. The non-Mormon federal officers arrived in June and July following, and with them came Babbitt, bringing $20,000 which had been appropriated by Congress for a state-house, and J. M. Bernhisel, the first territorial Delegate to Congress, with a library purchased by him in the East for which Congress had provided. The arrival of the Gentile officers gave a speedy opportunity to test the temper of the church in regard to any interference with, or even discussion of, their "peculiar" inst.i.tutions or Young's authority.

Their first welcome was cordial, with b.a.l.l.s and dinners at the Bath House at the Hot Springs at which, for their special benefit, says a local historian, was served "champagne wine from the grocery," with home-brewed porter and ale for the rest. When Judge Brocchus reached Salt Lake City, his two non-Mormon a.s.sociates had been there long enough to form an opinion of the Mormon population and of the aims of the leading church officers. They soon concluded that "no man else could govern them against Brigham Young's influence, without a military force,"* and they heard many expressions, public and private, indicating the contempt in which the federal government was held. The anniversary of the arrival of the pioneers, July 24, was always celebrated with much ceremony, and that year the princ.i.p.al addresses were made by "General"

D. H. Wells and Brigham Young. Some of the new officers occupied seats on the platform. Wells attacked the government for "requiring" the Battalion to enlist. Young paid especial attention to President Taylor, who had recently died, and whose course toward the Mormons did not please them, closing this part of his remarks with the declaration, "but Zachary Taylor is dead and in h.e.l.l, and I am glad of it," adding, "and I prophesy in the name of Jesus Christ, by the power of the priesthood that's upon me, that any President of the United States who lifts his finger against this people, shall die an untimely death, and go to h.e.l.l."

* Report of the three officers to President Fillmore, Ex. Doc.

No. 25, 1st Session, 32d Congress.

Judge Brocchus had been commissioned by the Was.h.i.+ngton Monument a.s.sociation to ask the people of the territory for a block of stone for that structure, and, on signifying a desire to make known his commission, he was invited to do so at the General Conference to be held on September 7 and 8. The judge thought that, with the life of Was.h.i.+ngton as a text, he could read these people a lesson on their duty toward the government, and could correct some of the impressions under which they rested. The idea itself only showed how little he understood anything pertaining to Mormonism.

There was no newspaper in Salt Lake City in that time, and for a report of the judge's address and of Brigham Young's reply, we must rely on the report of the three federal officers to President Fillmore, on a letter from Judge Brocchus printed in the East, and on three letters on the subject addressed to the New York Herald (one of which that journal printed, and all of which the author published in a pamphlet ent.i.tled "The Truth for the Mormons",) by J. M. Grant, first mayor of Salt Lake City, major general of the Legion, and Speaker of the house in the Deseret legislature.

Judge Brocchus spoke for two hours. He began with expressions of sympathy for the sufferings of the Mormons in Missouri and Illinois, and then referred to the unfriendliness of the people toward the federal government, pointing out what he considered its injustice, and alluding pointedly to Brigham Young's remarks about President Taylor. He defended the President's memory, and told his audience that, "if they could not offer a block of marble for the Was.h.i.+ngton Monument in a feeling of full fellows.h.i.+p with the people of the United States, as brethren and fellow citizens, they had better not offer it at all, but leave it unquarried in the bosom of its native mountain." The officers' report to President Fillmore says that the address "was entirely free from any allusions, even the most remote, to the peculiar religion of the community, or to any of their domestic or social customs." Even if the Mormons had so construed it, the rebuke of their lack of patriotism would have aroused their resentment, and Bernhisel, in a letter to President Fillmore, characterized it as "a wanton insult."

But the judge did make, according to other reports, what was construed as an uncomplimentary reference to polygamy, and this stirred the church into a tumult of anger and indignation. According to Mormon accounts,*

the judge, addressing the ladies, said: "I have a commission from the Was.h.i.+ngton Monument a.s.sociation, to ask of you a block of marble, as a test of your citizens.h.i.+p and loyalty to the government of the United States. But in order to do it acceptably you must become virtuous, and teach your daughters to become virtuous, or your offering had better remain in the bosom of your native mountains."

* The report of what follows, including Young's address, is taken from Grant's pamphlet...

Mild as this language may seem, no Mormon audience, since the marrying of more wives than one had been sanctioned by the church, had ever listened to anything like it. To permit even this interference with their "religious belief" was entirely foreign to Young's purpose, and he took the floor in a towering rage to reply. "Are you a judge," he asked, "and can't even talk like a lawyer or a politician?" George Was.h.i.+ngton was first in war, but he was first in peace, too, and Young could handle a sword as well as Was.h.i.+ngton. "But you [addressing the judge] standing there, white and shaking now at the howls which you have stirred up yourself--you are a coward.... Old General Taylor, what was he?* A mere soldier with regular army b.u.t.tons on; no better to go at the head of brave troops than a dozen I could pick out between here and Laramie." He concluded thus:--

* In a discourse on June 19, 1853, Young said that he never heard of his alleged expression about General Taylor until Judge Brocchus made use of it, but he added: "When he made the statement there, I surely bore testimony to the truth of it. But until then I do not know that it ever came into my mind whether Taylor was in h.e.l.l or not, any more than it did that any other wicked man was there," etc.--Journal of Discourses, Vol. 1, p. 185.

"What you have been afraid to intimate about our morals I will not stoop to notice, except to make my particular personal request to every brother and husband present not to give you back what such impudence deserves. You talk of things you have on hearsay since your coming among us. I'll talk of hearsay then--the hearsay that you are discontented, and will go home, because we cannot make it worth your while to stay.

What it would satisfy you to get out of us I think it would be hard to tell; but I am sure that it is more than you'll get. If you or any one else is such a baby-calf, we must sugar your soap to coax you to wash yourself of Sat.u.r.day nights. Go home to your mammy straight away, and the sooner the better."

This was the language addressed by the governor of the territory and the head of the church, to one of the Supreme Court judges appointed by the President of the United States!

Young alluded to his reference to the judge's personal safety in a discourse on June 19, 1853, in which, speaking of the judge's remarks, he said: "They [the Mormons] bore the insult like saints of G.o.d. It is true, as it was said in the report of these affairs, if I had crooked my little finger, he would have been used up, but I did not bend it. If I had, the sisters alone felt indignant enough to have chopped him in pieces." A little later, in the same discourse, he added: "Every man that comes to impose on this people, no matter by whom they are sent, or who they are that are sent, lay the axe at the root of the tree to kill themselves. I will do as I said I would last conference. Apostates, or men who never made any profession of religion, had better be careful how they come here, lest I should bend my little finger."*

* Journal of Discourses, Vol. I, p. 187.

If the records of the Mormon church had included acts as well as words, how many times would we find that Young's little finger was bent to a purpose?

Bold as he was, Young seems to have felt that he had gone too far in his abuse of Judge Brocchus, and on September 19 he addressed a note to him, inviting him to attend a public meeting in the bowery the next Sunday morning, "to explain, satisfy, or apologize to the satisfaction of the ladies who heard your address on the 8th," a postscript a.s.suring the judge that "no gentleman will be permitted to make any reply." The judge in polite terms declined this offer, saying that he had been, at the proper time, denied a chance to explain, "at the peril of having my hair pulled or my throat cut." He added that his speech was deliberately prepared, that his sole design was "to vindicate the government of the United States from those feelings of prejudice and that spirit of defection which seemed to pervade the public sentiment," and that he had had no intention to offer insult or disrespect to his audience. This called out, the next day, a very long reply from Young, of which the following is a paragraph: "With a war of words on party politics, factions, religious schisms, current controversy of creeds, policy of clans or state clipper cliques, I have nothing to do; but when the eternal principles of truth are falsified, and light is turned into darkness by mystification of language or a false delineation of facts, so that the just indignation of the true, virtuous, upright citizens of the commonwealth is aroused into vigilance for the dear-bought liberties of themselves and fathers, and that spirit of intolerance and persecution which has driven this people time and time again from their peaceful homes, manifests itself in the flippancy of rhetoric for female insult and desecration, it is time that I forbear to hold my peace, lest the thundering anathemas of nations, born and unborn, should rest upon my head, when the marrow of my bones shall be ill prepared to sustain the threatened blow."*

* For correspondence in full, see Tullidge's "History of Salt Lake City," pp. 86--91.

Judge Brocchus wrote to a friend in the East, on September 20: "How it will end, I do not know. I have just learned that I have been denounced, together with the government and officers, in the bowery again to-day by Governor Young. I hope I shall get off safely. G.o.d only knows. I am in the power of a desperate and murderous sect."

The non-Mormon federal officers now announced their determination to abandon their places and return to the East. Young foresaw that so radical a course would give his conduct a wide advertis.e.m.e.nt, and attract to him an unpleasant notoriety. He, therefore, called on the offended judges personally, and urged them to remain.* Being a.s.sured that they would not reconsider their determination, and that Secretary Harris would take with him the $24,000 appropriated for the pay and mileage of the territorial legislature, Young, on September 18, issued a proclamation declaring the result of the election of August 4, which he had neglected to do, and convening the legislature in session on September 22. "So solicitous was the governor that the secretary and other non-Mormon officers should be kept in ignorance of this step,"

says the report of the latter to President Fillmore, "that on the 19th, two days after the date of a personal notice sent to members, he most positively and emphatically denied, as communicated to the secretary, that any such notice had been issued."

* Young to the President, House Doc. No. 25, 1st Session, 32d Congress.

As soon as the legislature met, it pa.s.sed resolutions directing the United States marshal to take possession of all papers and property (including money) in the hands of Secretary Harris, and to arrest him and lock him up if he offered any resistance. On receipt of a copy of this resolution, Secretary Harris sent a reply, giving several reasons for refusing to hand over the money appropriated for the legislature, among them the failure of the governor to have a census taken before the election, as provided by the territorial act, the defective character of the governor's proclamation ordering the election, allowing aliens to vote, and the governor's failure to declare the result of the election, his delayed proclamation being p.r.o.nounced "worthless for all legal purposes."

On September 28 the three non-Mormon officers took their departure, carrying with them to Was.h.i.+ngton the disputed money, which was turned over to the proper officer.*

* Tullidge, in his "History of Salt Lake City," says: "Under the censure of the great statesman, Daniel Webster, and with ex-Vice President Dallas and Colonel Kane using their potent influence against them, and also Stephen A. Douglas, Brandebury, Brocchus, and Harris were forced to retire." As these officers left the territory of their own accord, and contrary to Brigham Young's urgent protest, this statement only furnishes another instance of the Mormon plan to attack the reputation of any one whom they could not control. The three officers were criticized by some Eastern newspapers for leaving their post through fear of bodily injury, but Congress voted to pay their salaries.

All the correspondence concerning the failure of this first attempt to establish non-Mormon federal officers in Utah was given to Congress in a message from President Fillmore, dated January 9, 1852. The returned officers made a report which set forth the autocratic att.i.tude of the Mormon church, the open practice of polygamy,* and the non-enforcement of the laws, not even murderers being punished. Of one of the allegations of murder set forth,--that a man from Ithaca, New York, named James Munroe, was murdered on his way to Salt Lake City by a member of the church, his body brought to the city and buried without an inquest, the murderer walking the streets undisturbed, H. H. Bancroft says, "There is no proof of this statement."** On the contrary, Mayor Grant in his "Truth for the Mormons" acknowledges it, and gives the details of the murder, justifying it on the ground of provocation, alleging that while Egan, the murderer, was absent in California, Munroe, "from his youth up a member of the church, Egan's friend too, therefore a traitor," seduced Egan's wife.

* J. D. Grant, following the example of Colonel Kane, had the effrontery to say of the charge of polygamy, in one of his letters to the New York Herald: "I p.r.o.nounce it false.... Suppose I should admit it at once? Whose business is it? Does the const.i.tution forbid it?"

** "History of Utah," p. 460, note.

Young, in a statement to the President, defended his acts and the acts of the territorial legislature, and attacked the character and motives of the federal officers. The legislature soon after pet.i.tioned President Fillmore to fill the vacancies by appointing men "who are, indeed, residents amongst us."

CHAPTER XI. -- MORMON TREATMENT OF FEDERAL OFFICERS

The next federal officers for Utah appointed by the President (in August, 1852) were Lazarus H. Reid of New York to be chief justice, Leonidas Shaver, a.s.sociate justice, and B. G. Ferris, secretary. Neither of these officers incurred the Mormon wrath. Both of the judges died while in office, and the next chief justice was John F. Kinney, who had occupied a seat on the Iowa Supreme Bench, with W. W. Drummond of Illinois, and George P. Stiles, one of Joseph Smith's counsel at the time of the prophet's death, as a.s.sociates. A. W. Babbitt received the appointment of secretary of the territory.*

* Some years later Babbitt was killed. Mrs. Waite, in "The Mormon Prophet" (p. 34) says: "In the summer of 1862 Brigham was referring to this affair in a tea-table conversation at which judge Waite and the writer of this were present. After making some remarks to impress upon the minds of those present the necessity of maintaining friendly relations between the federal officers and the authorities of the church, he used language substantially as follows: 'There is no need of any difficulty, and there need be none if the officers do their duty and mind their affairs. If they do not, if they undertake to interfere with affairs that do not concern them, I will not be far off. There was Almon W. Babbitt. He undertook to quarrel with me, but soon afterward was killed by Indians."

The territorial legislature had continued to meet from time to time, Young having a seat of honor in front of the Speaker at each opening joint session, and presenting his message. The most important measure pa.s.sed was an election law which practically gave the church authorities control of the ballot. It provided that each voter must hand his ballot, folded, to the judge of election, who must deposit it after numbering it, and after the clerk had recorded the name and number. This, of course, gave the church officers knowledge concerning the candidate for whom each man voted. Its purpose needs no explanation.

In August, 1854, a force of some three hundred soldiers, under command of Lieutenant Colonel E. J. Steptoe of the United States army, on their way to the Pacific coast, arrived in Salt Lake City and pa.s.sed the succeeding winter there. Young's term as governor was about to expire, and the appointment of his successor rested with President Pierce.

Public opinion in the East had become more outspoken against the Mormons since the resignation of the first federal officers sent to the territory, the "revelation" concerning polygamy having been publicly avowed meanwhile, and there was an expressed feeling that a non-Mormon should be governor. Accordingly, President Pierce, in December, 1854, offered the governors.h.i.+p to Lieutenant Colonel Steptoe.

Brigham Young, just before and after this period, openly declared that he would not surrender the actual government of the territory to any man. In a discourse in the Tabernacle, on June 19, 1853, in which he reviewed the events of 1851, he said, "We have got a territorial government, and I am and will be governor, and no power can hinder it, until the Lord Almighty says, 'Brigham, you need not be governor any longer.'"* In a defiant discourse in the Tabernacle, on February 18, 1855, Young again stated his position on this subject: "For a man to come here [as governor] and infringe upon my individual rights and privileges, and upon those of my brethren, will never meet my sanction, and I will scourge such a one until he leaves. I am after him." Defining his position further, and the independence of his people, he said: "Come on with your knives, your swords, and your f.a.ggots of fire, and destroy the whole of us rather than we will forsake our religion. Whether the doctrine of plurality of wives is true or false is none of your business. We have as good a right to adopt tenets in our religion as the Church of England, or the Methodists, or the Baptists, or any other denomination have to theirs."**