The History of Salt Lake City and its Founders, Volume 2 – Edward Williams Tullidge
Tullidge’s monumental work on the beautiful desert metropolis, its history and growth, its evolution and its most significant troubles is obviously also a history of Mormonism and its growth and development in Utah, written by “authority of the Council and under supervision of its Committee on Revision,” and therefore giving a picture of Mormonism in the most favorable light in which it is possible to present the institution to the public. There are too many outside evidences of material prosperity and thrift everywhere to be seen in the resourceful valley where the Mormon emigrants from Illinois and Missouri began to make their home in July, 1847, and the vitality of the community has been too plainly manifested on many occasions, for any one easily to escape the conclusion that the “Mormon question,” as it is called, is still one of no insignificant importance. Why and how it has become of such material significance is probably more fully explained in thus volume than in any other one work published. This is volume two out of two.
The History of Salt Lake City and its Founders, Volume 2.
Format: eBook.
The History of Salt Lake City and its Founders, Volume 2.
ISBN: 9783849653330.
Excerpt from the first chapter:
The Cullom bill was passed in the House the same day that Hooper delivered his speech. He immediately telegraphed the fact home. Mormondom was aroused in a moment. The excitement was intense. A burning indignation against Congress possessed the men and women alike, and there was good reason for this righteous indignation, for not only did the bill contemplate its own execution, in the most summary manner, by the arbitrary will of the courts, but troops were expected to be necessary to intimidate the people.
The Mormon leaders alone were cool and self-possessed. Brigham Young was not moved from his wonted serenity by the prospect of the inevitable conflict between himself and the man who had conquered the South, and who had already boasted that he would do as much for Mormondom.
The Cullom bill had passed the House, but it had not yet passed the Senate. There was the bare chance that, if the people arose en masse, and manifested to the country that earnest apostolic spirit so becoming of them, the Cullom Bill might die in the Senate. The Gentiles of Utah, however, looked upon this as the Mormon “forlorn hope,” and decided, beyond all question, that Senator Cragin would prosecute the action through the Senate to a successful issue, as surely as had General Cullom done in the House.
But the Mormon people still trusted in the Lord. At midday of the 31st of March, according to previous notice, the people began to flock en masse towards Temple Block, to protest against the recent action of the House, of Congress, and to petition the Senate not to pass the Cullom Bill. At one o’clock every seat and window of the tabernacle was packed with spectators, the doorways were crowded, and around the building was a vast multitude that could not find entrance. Mayor D. H. Wells was chosen to preside over the meeting. Apostles Orson Pratt, John Taylor, George Q. Cannon and others addressed the people, after which the following memorial to Congress was unanimously adopted: ” To the Honorable the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States, in Congress Assembled: “Gentlemen:—It is with no ordinary concern that we have learned of the passage by the House of Representatives of the House Bill No. 1,089, entitled “A bill in aid of the execution of the laws in Utah, and for other purposes,”
commonly known as “The Cullom Bill,” against which we desire to enter our most earnest and unqualified protest, and appeal against its passage by the Senate of the United States, or beg its reconsideration by the House of Representatives.
We are sure you will bear with us while we present for your consideration some of the reasons why this bill should not become law.
“Gentlemen of the Senate and House of Representatives, of the 150,000 estimated population of the Territory of Utah, it is well known that all except from 5,000 to 10,000 are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, usually called Mormons. These are essentially the people of this Territory, they have settled it, reclaimed the desert waste, cultivated it, subdued the Indians, opened means of communication, made roads, built cities, and brought into being a new State to add luster to the national galaxy of our glorious Union.
And we, the people who have done this, are believers in the principle of plural marriage or polygamy, not simply as an elevating social relationship, and a preventive of many terrible evils which afflict our race, but as a principle revealed by God, underlying our every hope of eternal salvation and happiness in heaven.
We believe in the pre-existence of the spirits of men; that God is the author of our being; that marriage is ordained as the legitimate source by which mankind obtain an existence in this probation on the earth; that the marriage relation exists and extends throughout eternity, and that without it no man can obtain an exaltation in the celestial kingdom of God. The revelation commanding the principle of plural marriage, given by God through Joseph Smith, to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in its first paragraph has the following language: ‘Behold, I reveal unto you a new and everlasting covenant; and if ye abide no’ that covenant, then are ye damned; for none can reject this covenant and be permitted to enter into my glory.’ With this language before us, we cannot view plural marriage in any other light than as a vital principle of our religion. Let the revelation appear in the eyes of others as it may, to us it is a divine command, of equal force with any ever given by the Creator of the world to his children in the flesh.
“The Bible confessedly stands in our nation as the foundation on which all law is based. It is the fountain from which our ideas of right and wrong are drawn, and it gives shape and force to our morality; yet it sustains plural marriage, and in no instance does it condemn that institution. Not only having, therefore, a revelation from God making the belief and practice of this principle obligatory upon us, we have the warrant of the Holy Scriptures and the example of prophets and righteous men whom God loved, honored and blessed. And it should be borne in mind that when this principle was promulgated, and the people of this Territory entered upon its practice, it was not a crime. God revealed it to us. His divine word, as contained in the Bible which we have been taught to venerate and regard as holy, upheld it, and there was no law applicable to us making our belief or practice of it criminal. It is no crime in this Territory today, only as the law of 1862, passed long years after our adoption of this principle as part of our religious faith, makes it such. The law of 1862 is now a fact; one proscription gives strength to another. What yesterday was opinion is liable to-day to be law. It is for this reason that we earnestly and respectfully remonstrate and protest against the passage of the bill now before the Honorable Senate, feeling assured that, while it cannot accomplish any possible good it may result in a great amount of misery.
“It gives us no alternative but the cruel one of rejecting God’s command and abjuring our religion or disobeying the authority of a Government we desire to honor and respect.
“It is in direct violation of the first amendment of the Constitution, which declares that ‘ Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.’ “It robs our priesthood of their functions and heaven-bestowed powers, and gives them to justices of the supreme court, justices of the peace, and priests whose authority we cannot recognize, by empowering such as the only ones to celebrate marriage. As well might the law prescribe who shall baptize for the remission of sins, or lay on hands for the reception of the Holy Ghost.
“It encourages fornication and adultery, for all such marriages would be deemed invalid and without any sacred or binding force by our community, and those thus united together would, according to their own belief and religious convictions, be living in a condition of habitual adultery, which would bring the holy relation of marriage into disrepute and destroy the safeguards of chastity and virtue.
“It is unconstitutional in that it is in direct opposition to Section 9, Article I, of the Constitution, which provides that ‘no bill of attainder, or ex post facto law shall be passed.’ “It destroys the right of trial by jury, providing for the impaneling of juries composed of individuals the recognized enemies of the accused, and of foreigners to the district where a case under it is to be tried; while the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution provides that ‘in all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed.’ “It is contrary to the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, which provides that excessive fines shall not be imposed, ‘nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.’ “It violates Section 8, Article I, of the Constitution, which provides that Congress shall establish a uniform rule of naturalization throughout the United States, in that it provides, in Section 17, a new, unheard of, and special rule, applicable only to the Territory of Utah.
“It is anti-republican, in that in Section 10 it places men on unequal ground, by giving one portion of the citizens superior privileges over others, because of their belief.
“It strips us, in Sections 17 and 26, of the land we have reclaimed from barrenness, and which we have paid Government for; also of all possessory rights to which we are entitled as settlers.
“It authorizes, by Section 14, the sending of criminals into distant military camps and prisons.
“It is most unjust, unconstitutional, and proscriptive, in that it disfranchises and proscribes American citizens for no act, but simply believing in plurality of wives, which the bill styles polygamy, bigamy, or concubinage, even if they never have practiced or designed to practice it.
“It offers a premium for prostitution and corruption, in that it requires, in Sections n and 12, husbands and wives to violate the holiest vows they can make, and voluntarily bastardize their own children.
“It declares, in Section 21, marriage to be a civil contract, and names the officers who alone shall solemnize the rite, when our faith expressly holds it as a most sacred ordinance, which can only be administered by those holding the authority from heaven; thus compelling us to discriminate in favor of officers appointed by the Government and against officers authorized by the Almighty.
“It thus takes away the right of conscience and deprives us of an ordinance upon the correct administration of which our happiness and eternal salvation depend.
“It not only subverts religious liberty, but, in Sections 16 and 19, violates every principle of civil liberty and true republicanism, in that it bestows upon the Governor the sole authority to govern jails and prisons, and to remove their wardens and keepers; to appoint and remove probate judges, justices of the peace, judges of all elections, notaries public and all sheriffs; clothing one man with despotic and, in this Republic, unheard-of power.
“It thus deprives the people of all voice in the government of the Territory, reduces them to absolute vassalage, creates a dangerous, irresponsible and centralized despotism, from which there is no appeal, and leaves their lives, liberties and human rights subject to the caprice of one man, and that man selected and sent here from afar.
“It proposes, in Sections n, 12 and 17, to punish American citizens, not for wrongs, but for acts sanctioned by God, and practiced by his most favored servants, requiring them to call those bad men whom God chose for his oracles and delighted to honor, and even to cast reflections on the ancestry of the Savior himself.
“It strikes at the foundation of all republican government, in that it dictates opinions and belief, prescribes what shall and shall not be believed by citizens, and assumes to decide on the validity of revelation from Almighty God, the author of existence.
“It disorganizes and reduces to a chaotic condition every precinct, city and county in the Territory of Utah, and substitutes no adequate organization. It subverts, by summary process, nearly every law on our statute book.
“It violates the faith of the United States, in that it breaks the original compact made with the people of this Territory in the Organic Act, who were, at the time that compact was made, received as citizens from Mexican Territory, and known to be believers in the doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints.
“We also wish your honorable bodies to understand that the legislature of this Territory has never passed any law affecting the primary disposal of the soil, but only adopted regulations for the controlling of our claims and possessions, upon which improvements to the amount of millions of dollars have been made.
“This bill, in Section 36, repeals the law of the Territory containing said regulations, thereby leaving us destitute of legal protection to our hard-earned possessions, the accumulated labor of over twenty years, and exposing us to the mercy of land Speculators and vampires.
” Gentlemen of the Senate and House of Representatives, this bill would deprive us of religious liberty and every political right worth having, is not directed against the people of Utah as men and women, but against their holy religion.
Eighteen years ago, and ten years before the passage of this Anti-Polygamy Act of 1862. one of our leading men, Elder Orson Pratt, was expressly deputed and sent to the city of Washington, D. C, to publish and lecture on the principle of patriarchal or plural marriage as practiced by us.
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