by both political parties.
As a result of the controversy, other papers also sided with the Saints; the
abolitionist National Era argued that Mormonism “has something to do in the world; and, if it escapes the blight of political snobbery, it may accomplish it,
against even greater faults than it is charged with.”6 Kane expressed pleasure
with Fillmore’s actions, telling Pennsylvania Congressman David Wilmot, a
political ally, that Fillmore “ordered the Republic to apologize; and has sent me
an exceedingly handsome letter expressing his regret at its publication, and
assuring me ‘of the best of motives &c.’”7
Source
Kane to Young, Heber C. Kimball, and Willard Richards, July 29,
1851, box 40, fd 10, BYOF. A draft of the letter is in box 15, fd 2, Kane
Collection, BYU.
Letter
I
My dear friends,
More of the Neutrality!—hard attitude to maintain between bel-
ligerents angry and eager—hardest of all where so many knaves are on
each side with fools on the other. Heretofore the difficulty lay in defeating
a sell to the Democrats. It is at least a variety to have to baffle the other
6.“The M
ormons Vindicated by ‘Authority,’ ” National Era, July 31, 1851.
7. Kane to Wilmot, undated draft, Kane Collection, BYU.
Kane to Young, Kimball, and Richards, July 29, 1851
115
disinterested wooers—the Whigs.—Save my time by reading carefully the
enclosed Republic of this week.
The President you will observe, immediately upon his return
from his late Southern excursion,8 wrote me (Letter: (2)) for a per-
sonal contradiction of charges against him by the Buffalo Courier.9
It happened that when I went on to Washington last fall to help the
appointments, the President did not ask of me any written voucher
for his files; but, after I think not more than a couple of interviews,
in which he made me speak not as a politician but as a gentleman,
expressed himself fully satisfied, and made your nominations [p. 2]
accordingly. Not long before, I had heard there was silly talk about
disturbing the Utah nominations, I was not disposed therefore to
neglect an opposite chance of re enlisting the President’s good
wishes, through fear of giving his Administration headway. Nor had
I been ever so apprehensive, was it less my duty, politically speaking,
to sustain the nomination of a Mormon and to whose confirmation in
Senate I was known to have contributed, or less my place as a man
of honor to respond generously to one who had reposed his confi-
dence in me. Besides, Mr. Fillmore called upon me as a Democrat—a
political opponent;—an appeal that of itself I could not handsomely
disregard.10
My formal Reply therefore (No. 3.) was “a repetition of my oral state-
ments” “in a responsible form and over my signature” as strait out and
unflinching as I knew how to make it. But I went further and in order
to supply the President with the points upon which to base his defence
against your assailants, gave him my letter headed Personal, written in
8. F
illmore visited Virginia from June 22 to June 28, 1851. Robert J. Scarry, Millard Fillmore (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2001), 223–224.
9. Kane enclosed a copy of the letter from Fillmore with his letter to Young. The letter states,
“I have just received a copy of the Pennsylvanian, containing your letter to the Editors of the 18th from which I infer that you did not intend that the Mormon address of the 9th of August 1846 should have been published. I read the papers hastily & handed them to the Editor of the Republic, that he might indicate the character of Gov. Young and the Mormons generally from what I deemed unjust aspersions; and if he published too much I regret it: I am sure it was done from the best of motives: I was too busy to read the publication after it came out; but I will send him your article. I should have before returned my thanks for your prompt attention to this matter.” Fillmore to Kane, July 20, 1851, BYOF.
10. Kane was deeply immersed in the “culture of honor.” See Matthew J. Grow, “ ‘I Have Given Myself to the Devil’: Thomas L. Kane and the Culture of Honor” Utah Historical Quarterly 73.4 (Fall 2005): 345–364.
116
the prOphet and the refOrmer
a tone of the fullest and freest personal confidence. I was so satisfied
that I had not misjudged my man, and that this was the right way with
him.11 [p. 3]
Judge then of my surprise to find in the Republic of the 15th a vul-
gar and ill written article manufactured in the mere intention of making
Whig capital and for this purpose pub not only publishing my open let-
ter to the President but, in a garbled and miserable form, every leading
statement of my personal one that was available for party ends. Its tone
too, was in the highest degree weak and mischievous, as you may judge
from the fact that, in the face of my direct contradiction, it as much as
admitted by implication the spiritual wife slander and that of leaguing
with the Indians.
This was bad enough of itself; but besides, as you see, it played
the very devil with the Neutrality. The necessity of guarding against
Mr. Babbitt’s improper conduct and disavowing his improper asso-
ciations though these were, so called, Democratic; a natural shade
of politeness perhaps to the Administration not dispelled by polite-
ness reciprocal; the known disgraceful behavior towards Mormons
of more than one Western Democrat most properly and wisely
publicly resented;12 the Whig vote of the Pottawatamie Precinct
denounced and not explained by Democratic editors;13—all these
unavoidable circumstances had before gone to countenance [p. 4]
the assumption of Mormon Union with Whigs. When therefore, the
Courier, a Lake City Paper came out with the announcement that
you Brigham Young were appointed as a Whig, and, appealing to the
credulous prejudice excited along the Lakes’ Shore by conduct of
11. F
illmore to Kane, July 4, 1851; Kane to Fillmore, July 11, 1851. Kane’s correspondence with Fillmore was also published as part of a Mormon pamphlet: Joseph Richards and William Willes, eds., What is Mormonism?: Compiled from the Writings of Elders Parley P. Pratt and Orson Pratt, John Taylor, Orson Spencer, Samuel Brannan, and others of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Calcutta, India: Agra Cantonments for the East India Mission, 1853).
12. A likely reference to Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton.
13. Pottawattamie County, Iowa, the location of Kanesville (Council Bluffs), was organized in 1848. Democrats and Whigs competed for the Mormon vote, which went overwhelmingly to the Whigs, in part because the Mormons blamed several prominent Democratic politicians for either contributing to their persecutions or refusing to aid their plight. Charges of voting irregularities, a result of Democratic fear of Whig control, excluded the Mormon vote and delayed the official organization of the county government until 1851. Bennett, Mormons on the Missouri, 220–221; Lawrence H. Larsen, Harl A. Dalstrom, Kay Calame Dalstrom, and Barbara J. Cottrell Larson, Upstream Metropolis: An Urban Biography of Omaha & Council Bluffs (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2007), 34–35.
Kane to Young, Kimball, and Richards, July 29, 1851
117
Strang and Co. on Beaver Island,14 deno
unced you by reiterating the
old Mormons calumnies, it needed but this wretched Editorial of
the Republic, defending you a very little and the Whig administra-
tion a great deal more, to bring out all the petty Democratic papers
glad to cater to the bigotry, political and religious, of their readers,
and adopt the issue thus seemingly tendered and accepted. I saw it
beyond retrieval. The next thing was to be of course the enlistment
of the superior journals, dragged into the fray by a force beyond my
control, and after this, your own ultimate committal, complete and
beyond redemption.—Your position then, that of Whigs perforce;
and because perforce therefore ensured the smallest degree of prac-
tical kindness from allies knowing you could not desert them, with
the utmost enmity of their—become your—irreconcileable oppo-
nents. Good bye, in short, to all the [p. 5] advantages of the Neutral
Position.15
There was small qualification to be gained on the other hand from
the fact of my name appearing on the side of your defence; for the
John Jones of the unscrupulous Republic had so mixed me up with
the affair, in and out over under and thorough, in the double capac-
ity of champion of the Mormons and correspondent (insimul) of Mr.
Fillmore; that it was anything but plain as far as the text went, that
I was not a mere sham Democrat guilty of premeditate collusion with
him and his party. My past course too, has been such that, though I do
believe the Democrats want bad enough just now to have me, I am so
14. F
ollowing the death of Joseph Smith, James J. Strang (1813–1856), a recent convert to Mormonism, claimed that Smith had secretly appointed him successor and directed him to establish a settlement at Voree, Wisconsin. Strang emerged as the principal opponent to the leadership of Young and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles; he denounced polygamy and the emigration west and attracted many followers. Strang subsequently moved his followers to Beaver Island in Lake Michigan and began practicing polygamy. In May and June 1851, immediately prior to Kane’s letter, conflicts between Strang and his followers and local non-Mormons led to a series of lawsuits against Strang. Strang was killed by a dissident in 1856. See “Great Excitement—‘King Strang,’ ” Kalamazoo Gazette [Michigan], May 30, 1851, 2; “The Mormon Trials,” Jackson Citizen [Michigan], July 9, 1851, 2; “In Detroit,” Northern Islander [Michigan], July 24, 1851, 2; Roger Van Noord, King of Beaver Island: The Life and Assassination of James Jesse Strang (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1988).
15. Following the exodus of the outside officials, Richards wrote Kane, “ ‘Good bye to the Neutral Position’, Yes Sir, good bye, a man may as well undertake to dance in a hot skillet, without burning his feet, as to live in the midst of a political reign, and be a man without being a politician, a political man. Neutrality can only be exercised, above the head or below the feet of nobility, while politics rule over might.” Richards to Kane, September 30, 1851, BYU.
118
the prOphet and the refOrmer
far from living inside their tents that my political chastity is far enough
from self approbant.
I should have been seriously embarrassed how to act had not the breach
of confidence toward me personally so prettily indicated my course. There
had been impropriety in the use made of my Letter (4); yet as I had in words
added at the close a permission to make (discreet) “use” of its contents; it
was only apparent from the general tone of the letter, which I could not
seem [p. 6] anxious to publish. Luckily however, the Republic man, in his
over greediness to figure pompously and make a swashing party leader, had
printed a lie, assuming personal acquaintance with me, and laid unblushing
hands on a copy of your Omaha letter to President Polk.16
So I—molliter manus17—laid hands on him in the manner you see.—
I wish almost you were here to relish at the laughing on my side. Let
him laugh indeed that wins! The fact was, I imagine, that poor Sargent,
and Company of Lacqueys,18 had no notion I would quite so promptly
accept an open quarrel with their President, and hence were outma-
noeuvred without the least expecting it.
The thing now stands thus. The better to put my negative on the
appearance of collusion, I sent my communication to the Pennsylvanian,
the leading organ since Mr. Ritchies withdrawal from the Union,19 of the
Hunker wing of the Democratic
evidently seeing how his hand lay better than unfortunate Mr. Sargent,
prefaced it by the commendatory article you see, about the best toned
squib we have yet had for Mormons, as it vindicates and sustains Salt
Lake upon “one of the fundamental [p. 7] articles of the Democratic
faith.”21 Then just in time (by a remarkable coincidence!) the Buffalo
16. Y
oung to James K. Polk, August 1846, Kane Collection, BYU.
17. Molliter manus imposuit is a Latin legal term meaning “He gently laid his hands upon.” It referred to a defendant’s justification of “laying hands upon the plaintiff, as where it was done to keep the peace, &c.” See Alexander Burrill, A New Law Dictionary, vol. 2 (New York: John S. Voorhies, 1851), 725.
18. John O. Sargent was the editor of the Washington Republic, a Whig newspaper begun to be the voice of the Zachary Taylor administration. Holt, Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party, 415.
19. Thomas Ritchie (1778–1854), a leading Democratic Party editor, edited the Washington Union between 1845 and 1851. Joel H. Silbey, “Thomas Ritchie,” in Garraty and Carnes, American National Biography, 18:549–550.
20. The “Hunker wing” referred to the proslavery faction within the Democratic Party.
21. The Pennsylvanian stated, “It is one of the fundamental articles of the Democratic faith to advocate the freest toleration in regard to every religious belief; and we are sure there is no
Kane to Young, Kimball, and Richards, July 29, 1851
119
Courier upon which I had had the screws put, came out with a retrac-
tion I had written for it:—just two days before the Pennsylvanian’s, the
second day only after the Republic’s Article; and therefore just in time
to escape the charge of being influenced by either. The publication of
the old Polk letter showing you once had Democratic tendencies; the
publication of the Fillmore ones showing the chance of making you
Whigs now; Old Guardsmen around looking out for a lark and expecting
to have to back up my father’s son;—thereupon the little Democratic
pack of country editors that was ready to open on the wrong scent, sees
that something is in the wind and bays out Mormon praises as good as
if they were sincere. And thereupon the Republic, put in a tight place,
convicted of a trick that failure makes more shameful, doubles outright
and makes its ill mouthed but explicit apology. This I send you: It says
you see:
In regard to the publication of the message of the Mormons to
President Polk we have to say that it was a paper covered by the enclo-
sure of Colonel Kane and placed at our disposal”—placed at our dis-
posal,22 by the President, of course; since immediately after, follows my
polite announcement that I am not acquainted with the Editor, and
have never communicated with him directly or indirectly. [p. 8]
“Nor was it sup
posed” &c.”23—Oh yes!—but I am offended
I am—furious mad in fact. But between ourselves, it was about the best
thing for the right side that has turned
It was a perfect God send to get out such a well timed disproof of the
Old War Dept. charges along with an assertion of your integrity. But I
could not publish it. And any Democratic paper or friendly one such as
the Tribune for instance,24 publishing it with your consent, lost it half its
general example in reference to the M
ormons in which Democrats have ever departed from
it.” See Frontier Guardian, September 5, 1851.
22. Kane is quoting this sentence up to this point from the Republic. Frontier Guardian, September 5, 1851.
23. Regarding the publication of portions of Young’s letter to Polk, the Republic stated, “Nor was it supposed that the publication of a document addressed to the President of the United States could give any offence, especially when portions of the address were introduced and made use of, by quotations in the letter of Colonel Kane, to disprove charges against the authors of the address, and when the address contained the best evidences of the prompt and patriotic assistance of its authors to the flag of their country, their respect for its Constitution, and contradicts (inferentially) the charge that Governor Young was an open abuser of the Democracy.” Frontier Guardian, September 5, 1851.
24. A reference to Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune.
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the prOphet and the refOrmer
pertinency. But to have it forced out, pulled out by a Democratic charge,
published all bleeding like a tooth let go hard, nothing but the luck of
lucks—which is the luck of Church of J. C. of L. D. S. S.—could have
brought such a windfall.
“How far the fact &c. may have had the effect &c”25 Well now, I do
wonder!
This palinodic pathos26 is substantially valuable in the Republic.
Its milk and water defense of Mormonism—so easily outdone by the
Pennsylvanian and Democratic papers, and even the Courier’s recan-
tation, invites the whole of that side to hang their hats a peg higher.
The Prophet and the Reformer Page 18