to participate in the feast.17 Less hypocrisy there, than in the higher
circles of society, where they plan your destruction, while they eat
your broth.
I find that I have written a long letter, and one I fear that may intrude
matters and things upon your attention; but still I hope, not an unwelcome
messenger.
15. Richards died on M
arch 11, 1854.
16. John Smith’s health continued to deteriorate for the next few months until his death on May 23, 1854. “Death of the Patriarch, John Smith,” Deseret News, May 25, 1854.
17. Young referred to the temporary quiet in the clashes between the Latter-day Saint settlers and the Ute Indians led by Chief Walkara (Walker). The same day as his letter to Kane, Young wrote Orson Pratt that the “Indian difficulties are at an end.” Nevertheless, the Latter-day Saints continued to prepare defensive structures, in case conflicts began again in the spring.
Two months later, Young promised Walkara that the Mormons were “the very best friends that you have got.” If the Utes were willing to act peaceably, they will “always be safe and well-treated.” See Young to Pratt, January 31, 1854, BYOF; Young to Walker (Walkara), March 24, 1854, BYOF; Jared Farmer, On Zion’s Mount: Mormons, Indians, and the American Landscape (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008), 84, 85–87, 131–132.
Young to Kane, January 31, 1854
163
Numerous friends who know you as a friend in time of need, known
and unknown to you, join in friendly greeting to Col Kane.
Bros H. C. Kimball, J. M. Grant, and George A. Smith, wish to be par-
ticularly remembered, and from myself, please accept kind assurances
of unalterable respect, and esteem, in the bonds of truth.
Believe me Truly and Sincerely
Ever your Friend
Brigham Young
25
Kane to Young, April 28, 1854
On April 28, 1854, Kane responded to Young’s January 31 letter. He answered
Young’s question about the legal powers of a territorial governor in pardon-
ing a convicted criminal and told Young that he was “truly glad to see you
moving in the Pacific R. R. Matter.” However, sectional animosities aroused
by Senator Stephen A. Douglas’s proposed Kansas–Nebraska Act (which orga-
nized the territories on the basis of popular sovereignty so that local citizens
would decide the status of slavery) had doomed any legislation supporting a
Pacific Railroad during that congressional session.1
Source
Kane to Young, April 28, 1854, box 40, fd 11, BYOF.
Letter
38 Girard St. Philadelphia
April 28. 1854
My dear friend,
As I find your letter postmarked February 1. upon my table after
a fortnights absence from the City, I shall answer it at once; though
I wd. like time to answer with chosen words its cheering assurances of
friendship.
1. On the heated congressional debates over the Kansas–N
ebraska Act, see Nicole Etcheson,
Bleeding Kansas: Contested Liberty in the Civil War Era (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004).
Kane to Young, April 28, 1854
165
With all your good expressions for my opinion, I have thought fit to
consult gentlemen learned in the law, and give you theirs, in the matter
of the Pardon of May whom you write about. They concur in saying that
you have done right in reprieving the man, and that you should do so
until the President is fully informed of the
But they think that you cannot go behind the Record, nor of yourself
discover that the Judges have erred in ruling the it was an error in the
Judges to rule the case out of your power, and remedy their miscon-
duct. If the United States Court in Pennsylvania here, unlawfully taking
cognizance of a crime, shd sentence one to be hanged, the Governor
of Pennsylvania would have no right to pardon him; and, the pardon-
ing power in such a case residing with the President, shd. he refuse to
exercise it, there wd. be no remedy, and the sentence wd. have to be
carried into execution. On the other hand, they remark with me, that,
upon your exhibit of the facts, there must be small likelihood [p. 2] of
any real difficulty in the matter. It would be prima facie a strong case
for the impeachment of a President, that, except under very special and
peculiar circumstances, he refused his pardon upon the recommenda-
tion of a territorial Governor.—I shall write to day to Dr. Bernhisel, and
offer my services, if needed, to prevent difficulty.2
I am truly glad to see you moving in the Pacific R. R. matter. I had
hoped for some good news for you on it before this. But the miser-
able Nebraska-Kansas Measure has spoiled this—probably the best
Business Congress—otherwise—that has met in our time.
I am not given to such notions, but cannot help thinking that I must
have some ill wisher engaged in the carriage of mails and transportation of
merchandize—perhaps between Council Bluffs and the Salt Lake. I will
ask you therefore to be good enough to write me word if you receive, at
farthest within one fortnight after this, a copy of Dr. Kane’s Book which
I shall by that time have bound and forwarded to you.3—Your Wolf Skin
2. On M
ay, see Young to Kane, January 31, 1854; and Kane to Young, June 29, 1854.
3. Following his voyage to the Arctic in search of the lost British explorer Sir John Franklin, Elisha Kane began to write a book of his travels and scientific observations. In May 1853, when he left on a second Arctic voyage, he left the unfinished manuscript with his father John and brother Thomas, who completed the writing and editing. Published by Harper Brothers in March 1854, Elisha’s The United States Grinnell Expedition in Search of Sir John Franklin proved very popular. Kane also sent a copy for the Salt Lake Library. Grow, Liberty to the Downtrodden, chapter 8; Kane to Bernhisel, June 25, 1854, Utah Territory Library Papers, CHL. Young acknowledged receipt of the book in his October 30, 1854 letter to Kane.
166
the prOphet And the refOrmer
robe that you will find the Doctor speaks of, he insisted on borrowing
again (though this time he had abundant leisure to procure other furs)
on account of his associations of good fortune with it.4 So it must now be
some forty degrees nearer the pole than we are.
I trust this Spring will bring many wayfarers from Deseret to my
doors, to try their welcome.5 Assure my Brothers Kimball, Grant, and
Smith, and all who have been sure of my affection for them, that it
has not known—and hardly can know change. For you, I think I shall
be ever
Your friend sincerely
Thomas L. Kane
4. On the wolf
-skin robe, see Kane to Young, February 19, 1851. In his memoir, Elisha Kane
described the provisions he brought with him, including a “Mormon wolf-skin.” Elisha wrote, “Excellent is this Mormon fur! Leaving the entire poll bare to the elements, it guards the ears and forehead effectually: in any ordinary state of the wind above −15°, I am not troubled with the cold.” See Kane, Grinnell Expedition, 26, 264.
5. “Wayfarers from Deseret” often found their way to the Kanes’ home. In June 1854, for instance, three Mormon missionaries on their way to England visited the Kane household.
Believing that Kane had invited “in
timate friends” to dinner, Elizabeth ordered oysters, but soon saw that the “oysters were wasted on them, that they were labouring men—dinnerless.”
While one of the missionaries (James Ferguson) confidently and politely interacted with the Kanes, the other two (Cyrus H. Wheelock and W. C. Dunbar) were lost in the upper-class mores of the Kane home. They “were of the lower classes,” Elizabeth noted, and “I would not be inclined to disbelieve the stories of Mormon evils, were they the only ones among the Mormons whom I had ever seen. Dr Bernhisel and Ferguson are of another class entirely.”
The following year, Elizabeth noted a visit by Apostle John Taylor and another Saint, who
“spent the greater part of the day.” Taylor visited again in March 1856 along with William Kimball. She commented, “How nice it is to see people so different from oneself.” Elizabeth W. Kane, June 20, 1854; August 14, 1855; and March 8, 1856, Kane Collection, BYU.
26
Young to Kane, June 29, 1854
On June 29, 1854, Young responded to Kane’s April 28 letter, briefly discuss-
ing topics ranging from a transcontinental railroad to slavery in the territories
to relations with American Indians. He argued that Congress would “better
employ their time” on plans for a transcontinental railroad, rather than debate
slavery.
In this letter, Young, who served as both territorial governor and territorial
superintendent of Indian affairs, also reported to Kane the end to the so-called
Walker (named for Ute leader Walkara) War. Walkara had initially been
friendly to the Latter-day Saints and had been baptized a Mormon in 1850.
However, the rapid growth of settlements south of the Salt Lake Valley, such
as Provo, increasingly led to conflict. Several factors—disease, the disruption
of the Indian food supply, and a territorial law banning the Indian slave trade
practiced by the Utes—led to further tensions. Beginning in July 1853, clashes
between Utes and Mormons in central Utah led to the temporary abandon-
ment of smaller settlements and retaliatory violence on both sides, resulting
in the deaths of twelve whites and many more Indians. Young placed much of
the blame for the turmoil on the Saints for reacting too harshly against minor
depredations committed by the Indians; Young also believed that Walkara
himself had not been guilty in starting the conflict.1 In early 1854, Walkara sig-
naled to a federal Indian agent that the Indians would agree to end hostilities
and, on May 1, he sent Young a letter offering peace in exchange for gifts and
the end of restrictions on Native American trade. A conference between Young
and other Mormon officials and Walkara and other Indian leaders on May 11
and 12 at Chicken Creek (near present-day Nephi, Utah) led to a peace agree-
ment. Though the Indian leaders accepted the Mormons’ peace proposal, the
1.Brigham Y
oung, remarks, April 6, 1854, Journal of Discourses, 6:327.
168
the prOphet And the refOrmer
underlying issues—Mormon possession of American Indian land and inter-
ference with traditional trade (including Indian slavery)—remained unre-
solved. Although the federal government never formally approved the treaty,
both sides respected the peace.2
Source
Young to Kane, June 29, 1854, MS 7260, CHL.
Letter
Great Salt Lake City June 29th 1854
Col. Thomas L. Kane
My dear friend,
Your favor of the 28th April arrived pr last mail, and without waiting
for the Book you mention, of which I shall be truly gratified,3 I endeavor
to answer in truth and friendship, even as I ever cherish you in my
memory: in this spirit I formed your acquaintance, when I found you
a ready sympathizer with the distressed, since when you have given
ample assurances by acts more than words, of the deep impression then
received. You then for the first time learned us as we were, and found a
people, few in number it is true, yet a people full of faith, of good works,
struggling for an existence upon this earth, of whom you previously had
comparatively little knowledge. Pardon me for alluding to these times
now happily past, but fraught with important consequences to us as a
people, our course has been onward, and our associations then formed,
may they ever, even as now continue to strengthen, and be reciprocal.
I thank you for your trouble in relation to the May case, the formality
of Law in some places may hang the innocent, and no remedy be found.
It is a sorry time for a prisoner to be hanged, and then impeach, or oth-
erwise punish those, who through malfeasance in office have caused his
death, it is not my way of doing business; it is no remedy at all, to put
2. F
armer, On Zion’s Mount, 86; Arrington, American Moses, 210–222; Kenney, Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, May 11, 1854, 4:272.
3. Kane had promised to send a copy of his brother Elisha’s book, The United States Grinnell Expedition in Search of Sir John Franklin. Kane to Young, April 28, 1854.
Young to Kane, June 29, 1854
169
a man to death unjustly, and then punish his executioners, but actually
makes matters worse.
The President has declined acting in the matter, consequently left
the prisoner to his fate; I am very much of the opinion [p. 2] that he will
not be hanged.4
As regards the Rail Road, you well remarked “the best business
Congress has met upon in our time.”5 A subject truly worthy of the
enterprize of the nation, upon which I myself think Congress could
much better employ their time, than discussing the merits or demerits
of a question, which, however it may be determined upon will assur-
edly only set afloat existing Compromises, and leave the question of
Slavery upon the same basis, which existed previously to their adoption.
Whether the principle be right or wrong it seems a very inopportune
The Prophet and the Reformer Page 25