Copyright 1913, by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY

CHAPTER 22

THE STATE OF "DESERET"

"HOW quiet, how still, how free from excitement we live!" wrote Parley P. Pratt in a private letter of September, 1848. "The legislature of our high council, the decision of some judge of court of the church, a meeting, a dance, a visit, an exploring tour, the arrival of a party of trappers and traders, a Mexican caravan, a party arrived from the Pacific, from the States, from Fort Bridger, a visit of Indians, or perhaps a mail from the distant world, once or twice a year, is all that breaks the monotony of our busy and peaceful life . . . Here, too, we are all rich -- there is no real poverty; all men have access to the soil, the pasture, the timber, the water-power, and all the elements of wealth, without money and without price."

Parley was trying to be poetic when he penned these lines; and such efforts on his part always were disastrous to language or to facts. In this case, both suffer a little; but the author manages to convey one important bit of information. The church authorities were courts, legislatures, and executive council in the early days of the colony; and they were these things without disguise; that is, they did not put on civil titles when they assumed to perform civil functions. At first those functions were not very important. A few persons who violated the rather hazy church code of decorum were "severely reprimanded," and two or three more serious offenders were publicly whipped. "President Young," says George Q. Cannon, "was decidedly opposed to whipping, but matters arose which we considered required punishment at the time." There being no jail, the most natural substitute for this emblem of civilization was the whipping post.

In March, 1849, the church began to put on the disguise of civil government. A convention was held, a constitution adopted, and a governor and judges of the "state of Deseret" were elected by unanimous vote of all "citizens" of the alleged commonwealth. The omission of a legislature is significant. The Mormons were seeking, not a government, which they had, but a means of getting that government recognized by the republic they had tried to escape. Somewhat later in the spring, a legislature was chosen. It met July 2, 1849, and adopted a memorial to Congress. The interval between March and July had not been wholly barren of reflection, and the church leaders appreciated the fact that their population was a bit small to aspire to the dignity of statehood. Therefore, the memorial asked Congress either to admit "Deseret" as a state, or to grant "such other form of civil government as your wisdom and magnanimity may award." Almon W. Babbitt was chosen to carry this message to Washington, and to represent the new commonwealth so far as he might be allowed to do.

Nothing more is heard of the "Deseret legislature" until January, 1850; but if one may be permitted to paraphrase, "had it stayed for weeks away, the people ne'er had missed it." The gold rush that passed through the Salt Lake valley in 1849, found a fully organized government, and one which was keenly alive to its new opportunities. Without troubling to call any sort of legislative assembly, and taking no account of the provision of the federal constitution which forbids the levying of tariffs inside the national boundary line, Brigham and his church associates imposed a two per cent duty on all property sold in Salt Lake City by gold-seekers, and on all property which remained in the valley during the winter. Evidence is pretty strong that they imposed this tax likewise on the property of many emigrants who were merely passing through; but this the Mormons deny. The point need not be pressed. No trifle like that would add anything to Brigham's calm assumption of independent and imperial authority.

The memorial to Congress was presented in the Senate December 27, 1849, by no less a person than Stephen A. Douglas, who had befriended the Mormons on several occasions during their experiences in Illinois. He had no leaning toward their religious principles or political habits; but he was too intelligent a man, in most ways too just a man, not to resent the injustice of the mob that attacked them. It is natural, however, to feel a vested right in one who has done us a kindness; and to this day, Mormon writers cannot forgive Stephen A. Douglas for refusing to link his political fortunes absolutely and unhesitatingly with their own.

Four days later, on the last day of the year, a counter-memorial was presented in the House of Representatives by Mr. Underwood, a Whig from Kentucky. This document was signed by William Smith, brother of the murdered prophet, and thirteen others. It protested against the admission of "Deseret." alleging that not only were the Mormons of the Salt Lake valley practicing polygamy, but that they were actively disloyal to the Union. Going into particulars, this second memorial stated that before leaving Nauvoo, 1,500 exiles took the following oath in the great temple:

"You do solemnly swear, in the presence of Almighty God, His holy angels, and these witnesses, that you will avenge the blood of Joseph Smith upon this nation, and so teach your children; and that you will from this day henceforth begin and carry out hostility against this nation, and keep the same a profound secret, now and ever. So help you God!"

This is the first appearance of the famous oath of blood vengeance which has troubled the Mormon hierarchy from that day to this. It has been denied, denounced, explained, ridiculed; cursed by bell, book, and candle; but it still persists. It persists, because, in substance, it is true. The present writers do not vouch for the exact language of this vow of vengeance, nor for the number who repeated it in the temple at Nauvoo. But that some such vendetta has been handed down from 1844 even unto this day does not admit of reasonable doubt. In 1905, the committee on privileges and elections of the United States Senate declared it proven that Apostle Reed Smoot, then and now senator from Utah, had taken a similar oath.

Indeed, such an oath would be no more than a formal and emphatic statement of the attitude and teachings of the Mormon hierarchy ever since the emigration to Utah. Brigham Young thought he had found a place where, in ten years, he need "ask no odds of the Gentiles." Parley P. Pratt summoned the powers of his awful muse to bear witness that,

"Lo! The Gentile chain is broken,
Freedom's banner waves on high!"

Heber C. Kimball made boasting prophecy in the heat of the Civil War that the men of the North and the South would kill each other, and that the Saints could then go down from their holy mountains, gather to their bosoms the war-widowed women of the Gentiles, and breed up a new nation. Joseph F. Smith, present president of the church, still speaks of the American people as his "enemies," and he means enemies in a literal, physical sense. From the beginning, all church leaders have claimed that the theocracy established by Joseph Smith and continued by Brigham Young and his successors, is the only just and legitimate government on earth; and that all other governments are illegal usurpations which the Lord will overthrow to make room for the spread of His Saints and their dominion.

It would be all but impossible for a hierarchy to cherish and proclaim such sentiments through seventy eventful years without putting them in some such form as the often quoted vow of vengeance. Such a vow might be deduced from events without any direct evidence -- and the direct evidence is abundant.

At that time, however, nothing but the slavery issue had any real or lasting importance at Washington. After divers parliamentary moves and delays, the Mormons got a part of what they wanted. A bill creating the territory of Utah was signed September 9, 1850. The boundaries of the new commonwealth, while somewhat more modest than those proposed for "Deseret," were still sufficiently liberal. Utah as organized included everything from Oregon to New Mexico, and from the crest of the Rockies to the crest of the Sierra Nevadas. More important than the extent of the new territory was the personnel of its government. Here the Mormons were favored by fortune to a degree which they may be pardoned for believing miraculous. If there be a miracle in the matter, however, it is the oft-recurring miracle of duplicity which a naturally honest man can display in behalf of a chosen creed.

Colonel Thomas L. Kane belonged to one of the oldest and most upright families of Philadelphia. He was a man of independent means, chivalrous temper, enthusiastic mind. He was a born champion of the under-dog; and he was quite unable to see that the under-dog sometimes deserves his position. He had been a friend of the Mormons for years. He had denounced, and justly, the brutality with which they were driven from Nauvoo. He had shared their tents at Winter Quarters, suffered there from the fever which was decimating their ranks, acted as their confidential friend and adviser. There is reason to believe that he joined the Mormon church during his stay on the Missouri; but if so, his conversion was not made public. Doubtless it was seen that he could be more useful to the Saints in the character of a sympathetic friend than in that of an adherent. He came forward now as a friend, and succeeded in convincing President Fillmore that the Mormons were a patriotic and much-maligned people, who could be trusted with absolute control of the territory they had settled. He denounced as false the stories of Mormon polygamy, vouched personally for the character, attainments, and "patriotism and devotion to the Union" of Brigham Young. As an amazing result of Kane's skill in diplomacy, four of the seven territorial officers appointed by President Fillmore were Mormons; and at their head was Brigham Young as governor, commander of the militia, and superintendent of Indian affairs!

These appointments caused some pleasure when reported in Utah, but no gratitude -- save perhaps to Colonel Kane. The Mormons held themselves a peculiar and exalted people; they believed in their sole and perpetual right to rule as Mormons over the region they had been first to settle; and instead of being thankful that so many of their people had received the recognition of federal appointment, they rather resented the notion that any Gentiles should be sent into their happy valley. Also, there were some matters which Brigham wished to get settled and out of the way before an unsympathetic judge, or secretary, should arrive to scan with hostile eye the perquisites of the Lord's anointed. In December, 1850, the still existing "legislature of the state of Deseret" passed an ordinance "providing that Brigham Young had sole control of City creek and canon; and that he pay into the public treasury the sum of five hundred dollars therefor." The Dutchmen who bought Manhattan Island of the Indians for $14 did not get a much better bargain in their generation than Brigham did in thus gaining this creek and gorge.

This ordinance was signed December 9 -- by Brigham, of course. The same day he signed a grant conveying to Apostle Ezra T. Benson the waters of some springs in the Tooele valley. Three weeks later, Heber C. Kimball got the waters of a couple of canons, though his grant was limited to the use of water for power purposes. Willard Richards got North Cottonwood canon. George A. Smith and Ezra T. Benson got sizable grants of timber in the mountains. The Lord's chosen were setting their house in order against the coming of the Philistine; and the equal access to natural resources which Parley P. Pratt had boasted was becoming a "dim remembered story of the old-time entombed." When the territorial legislature met in the early fall of 1851, it needed only to pass an innocent-seeming act validating the "ordinances" of its predecessors. We have heard much these latter days about dummy entrymen, but a dummy legislature makes entrymen needless.

Brigham was sworn in as territorial governor February 3, 1851; the oath being witnessed by Daniel H. Wells, "Chief Justice, Deseret." On March 28, the "Deseret legislature" passed a resolution accepting the territorial government created by Congress, and fixing April 5 as the date of their final adjournment. A few days before this legislature was dissolved, a census was completed, which credited Utah with possessing 11,354 inhabitants. It is an eloquent commentary on arguments about the necessity and righteousness of polygamy that even the Mormon census-taker found nearly 700 more males than females in the territory.

The census being finished, Governor Young called an election to choose a legislature and a delegate to Congress. The fact that only 1,259 votes were cast at this election seems to show that the census-taker had not overlooked any citizens. Dr. John M. Bernhisel, a native of Pennsylvania, was elected delegate to Congress by a unanimous vote, and twenty-four of the twenty-five members of the legislature were selected by the same sweet accord. Truly, the bickering and strife which characterize political contests in less favored lands were far removed from the happy valley of Salt Lake.

A teapot tempest was on the way toward that valley, however, that was destined to upset the tempers and perhaps the digestions of many good Saints. The president had appointed only three Gentiles to territorial office. One of these was territorial secretary, and the other two were justices of the supreme court. The chief justice and secretary arrived in Utah the early part of July. The Gentile associate justice, Perry E. Brocchus, did not arrive till some time in August. None of the three officials found Utah to their liking. This, perhaps, was natural enough; but it is idle and unfair to lay all the blame for the ensuing difficulty on Brigham and the Mormons.

Judge Brocchus was invited to speak at the general conference held September 7. He had been in the territory where he was expected to administer justice rather less than a month. He could have only the most superficial knowledge of its population and its problems. He was justly offended and indignant at the theocratic despotism which even that short sojourn enabled him to see, and at the open disloyalty of many of the church leaders. Probably he was honestly indignant, likewise, at the practice of polygamy. But he had not hesitated to accept the services of these disloyal and polygamous men in an effort to get an increase of salary; and the most common courtesy would seem to demand that such censures as he felt it necessary to pass on the people among whom he moved as a judge should be made at a meeting assembled for that specific purpose, and should be guarded in the most careful manner from needless offensiveness.

Even in that cheap time, however, it was not easy to employ courtesy, cool-headedness, and ability to meet a crisis for $1,900 per year -- the salary of a territorial judge. Certainly no such bargain had been secured in Perry E. Brocchus. The reports of speeches at that notable meeting are not very reliable, since the best of them were committed to paper some days or weeks after the event. But it is fairly certain that after criticising Young sharply for uncomplimentary remarks about General Zachary Taylor, Judge Brocchus used words substantially as follows:

"I have a commission from the Washington Monument Association to ask of you a block of marble, as a test of your citizenship and loyalty to the government of the United States. But in order for you 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 bitterest opponent of polygamy today would not -- if he retained any sense of propriety -- imply that women who entered polygamy from sincere conviction that it was a direct command of God, were a whit less virtuous than those in monogamous homes. If Brocchus used these words -- and it seems certain that they do not greatly misrepresent him -- he had no right to be surprised at the hisses of his audience. But the bad taste of Brocchus' remarks was quite overshadowed by the violence of Brigham's reply.

"Are you a judge," he roared at Brocchus, "and can't even talk like a lawyer or a politician, and haven't read an American school history? Be ashamed, you illiterate ranter, not to know your Washington better than to praise him for being a mere brutal warrior. George Washington was called first in war; but he was first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen . . . . Of course he could fight. But Lord! what man can't ? . . . I can handle a sword as well as George Washington. I would be ashamed to say I couldn't. But you, standing there, white and shaking now at the hornet's nest you have stirred up yourself -- you are a coward, and that is why you have cause to praise men that are not (cowards), and why you praise old Zachary Taylor . . . . If you or any one else is such a baby-calf, we must sugar your soap to coax you to wash yourself Saturday nights! Go home to your mammy straight away, and the sooner the better!"

The literature of abuse will be searched a long time for a mate to this tirade, especially when we bear in mind that it was said in a church assemblage by the governor of the territory to his fellow appointee, as associate justice of the same commonwealth. A correspondence followed between the two men, marked by a stubborn boldness, which one cannot help but admire, on Brocchus' part; and by intentional gasconading on Brigham's. Brocchus in a private letter expressed doubts of ever coming out of the Salt Lake valley alive. There was better ground for his apprehensions than he realized; but on September 28, 1851 -- only three weeks after the conference address -- Brocchus and his two fellow Gentile teritorial officers left for Washington. They took with them $24,000 which congress had appropriated for the pay and mileage of the utah legislature.