The end and object of this whole system of hostile measures against
Utah seems to be the destruction of the popular rule in that Territory.
I may be wrong--for I can only reason from the fact that is known to
the fact that is not known--but I do not think that the promoters of
this legislation care a straw how much or how little the Mormons are
married. It is not their wives, but their property; not beauty, but
booty, that they are after. I have not much faith in political piety,
but I do most devoutly believe in the hunger of political adventurers
for spoils of every kind. How else can you account for the struggles
they are now making to get possession of all the local offices in the
Territory, including the treasurer, auditor, and all depositories of
public money? If they do not want to rob the people, why do they reach
out their hands for such a grab as this?
{336} Coming back to the original and fundamental proposition that
you have no authority to legislate about marriage in a Territory, you
will ask what then are we to do with polygamy? It is a bad thing and
a false religion that allows it. But the people of Utah have as good
a right to their false religion as you have to your true one. Then
you add that it is not a religious error merely, but a crime which
ought to be extirpated by the sword of the civil magistrate. That is
also conceded. But those people have a civil government of their own,
which is as wrong-headed as their Church. Both are free to do evil on
this and kindred subjects if they please, and they are neither of them
answerable to you. That brings you to the end of your string. You are
compelled to treat this offense as you treat others in the States and
in the Territories--that is, leave it to be dealt with by the powers
that are ordained of God or by God Himself, who will in due time become
the minister of His own justice.
* * * * *
In regard to the unholy crusade periodically waged against the
"Mormons" by godless men, and specially revived at every recurring
Congressional session for the purpose of provoking proscriptive
anti-Mormon legislation, the following forcible and faithful
word-picture (which is as true as photography, and to which over
150,000 Utonians can make oath), drawn by the Honorable Thomas Fitch,
ex-United States Senator, unmistakably illustrates the motives which
inspire every such wicked _ringocratic_ movement.
At the constitutional convention held in Salt Lake City, February,
1872, Mr. Fitch, United States Senator from Nevada, said;
There is no safety for the people of Utah without a State government;
for under the present condition of affairs, their property, their
liberties, and their very lives are in constant and increasing
jeopardy. James B. McKean (United States Chief Justice in Utah) is
morally and hopelessly deaf to the most common demands of the opponents
of his policy, and in a case where a Mormon or a Mormon sympathizer,
or a conservative Gentile, be concerned, there may be found rulings
unparalleled in all the jurisprudence of England or America. The
mineral deposits have attracted here a large number of restless,
unscrupulous and reckless men, the hereditary foes of {337} industry,
order and law. Finding the courts and federal officers arrayed against
the Mormons, with pleased lacrity this class have placed themselves on
the side of courts and officers. Elements ordinarily discordant blend
together in the same seething cauldron. The bagnios and hells shout
hosannas to the courts; the altars of religion are infested with the
paraphernalia and the presence of vice; the drunkard espouses the cause
of temperance; the companion of harlots preaches the beauties of virtue
and continence. All believe that license will be granted by the leaders
in order to advance their sacred cause, and the result is an immense
support from those friends of immorality and architects of disorder
who care nothing for the cause, but everything for the license. These
constitute a nucleus of reformers and a mass of ruffians, a centre
of zealots and a circumference of plunderers. The dramshop interest
hopes to escape the Mormon tax of $300 per month by sustaining a judge
who will enjoin a collection of the tax, and the prostitutes persuade
their patrons to support judges who will interfere by _habeas corpus_
with any practical enforcement of municipal ordinances. Every interest
of industry is disastrously affected by this unholy alliance, every
right of the citizen is threatened, if not assailed, by this ungodly
combination.
Your local magistrates are successfully defied, your local laws are
disregarded, your municipal ordinances are trampled into the mire,
theft and murder walk through your streets without detection, drunkards
howl their orgies in the shadow of your altar; the glare and tumult
of drinking saloons, the glitter of gambling hells, and the painting
flaunt of the bawd plying her trade, now vex the repose of streets,
which beforetime heard no sound to disturb their quiet save the busy
hum of industry, the clatter of trade, and the musical tingle of
mountains streams. In prosecuting Mormons the prosecution have tried
their cases beforehand on the streets, in the newspapers, by public
meetings, by petitions, and over the telegraph wires, by means of their
leading adviser, the Salt Lake agent of the Associated Press. There
is no evidence so base or worthless but is sufficient to indict a
Mormon; there is no evidence sufficiently damning to indict a man who
would swear against a Mormon. In support of these statements a volume
of details of acts of injustice and tyranny might be compiled from
the _official records_. One instance will suffice. Brigham Young, an
American citizen of character, of wealth, of enterprise; an old man who
justly possesses the love and confidence of his people, and the respect
of those who know and comprehend {338} him, has been sent to prison
upon the uncorroborated oath of one of the most remarkable scoundrels
that any age has produced, a man known to infamy as William A. Hickman,
a human butcher, by the side of whom all malefactors of history are
angels; a creature who, according to his own published statement, is a
camp follower without enthusiasm, a bravo without passion, a murderer
without motive, an assassin without hatred.
The religious and secular leaders of Utah, men who are respected by
many honest, earnest people who are not of their faith, men who are
believed to be innocent by many influential and independent journals
not of their way of thinking, men who are held fast in the embrace of a
hundred thousand hearts, men who have filled the land with monuments of
industry and progress and human happiness, are likely to be sacrificed
because a manufactured and unjust public sentiment demands their
conviction.
I say deliberately, that with the history of the past behind me, with
the signs of the present before me; I say with sorrow and humiliation
that the Mormon charged with crime who now walks into the courts of
his country goes not to his deliverance, but to his doom; that the
Mormon who in a civil action seeks his rights in the courts of his
country goes not to his redress, but his spoliation. The Mormons
have been joined each year by a few desperate outcasts, men who were
outlawed for crime as the Mormons were outlawed for religion. Such men
followed the tide of Mormon immigration; they attached themselves to
Mormon trains; they professed belief in the Mormon faith and devotion
to the Mormon leaders. It was impossible to know their histories, it
was impossible to fathom their motives. They were given food, given
shelter, given employment, although seldom trusted. Let such men be
tempted by assured promises and they will swear their crimes upon
others whose lives and hearts contrast with theirs as the white snow
contrasts with the mire it covers. How many such men are there in Utah?
Convicted liars, professional thieves, confessed assassins, trembling
perjurers, who have hung for years upon the outskirts of the little
societies which gathered together and built themselves up amid these
mountain fastnesses. One such man has served to accuse and caused to be
imprisoned several of your most honored citizens. Half a dozen such,
instigated by cowardice and avarice, with savage hearts filled with a
lust of rapine, would crowd every jail in the Territory.
{339} The Mormons are judged abroad, not by their thousands of deeds of
charity and kindness, but by a few deeds of blood unjustly accredited
to their leaders. You will never hear how tens of thousands of people
have been brought from famine and hopeless toil to lives of peace and
plenty, of the thousands of passing emigrants who have been fed and
sheltered and succored.
Your antagonist is hydra-headed and hundred-armed. Whether by
bigoted judges, by packed juries, by partisan officers, by Puritan
missionaries, by iron-limbed laws, by armies from abroad, or by foes
and defections at home, the assault is continuous and unrelenting,
though unprovoked.
Now, in order to preserve the thrift, the industry, the wealth, the
progress, the temperate life, the virtues of Utah from spoliation and
devastation and ruin; in order to save a hundred noble pioneer citizens
and this honest, earnest, calumniated people from outlawry, or the
gibbet, or incarceration, you must have a State government. Every other
refuge of good men, every other protection of innocent men is closed
in your faces. A State government means juries impartially selected
from all citizens, and judges chosen by a majority of the people, and
officers of your own selection; it means honest, economical government;
it means peace and security, and exemption from persecution.