The Prophet and the Reformer
Page 30
fering which those unhappy females are compelled to submit to.” In
addition, “the manner in which the local government is conducted, the
vulgarity of the public documents, and the occasional proclamations of
3.J
ohn W. Willis, “The Twin Relics of Barbarism,” Publications of the Historical Society of South California 1 (1890), 41–42
4.Edward W. Tullidge, History of Salt Lake City (Salt Lake City: By the Author, 1886), 140.
5. Chicago Tribune, July 15, 1856, in the New York Times, July 21, 1856.
6. Congressional Globe, 33rd Congress, 1st session, appendix, 154.
200
the prOphet And the refOrmer
the Governor of this benighted Territory, afford the most complete evi-
dence of bigotry, misrule and tyranny.”7 Some Democrats tried to protect
themselves by joining the attack. Thomas Hart Benton, Missouri’s for-
mer Democratic senator and still a leading voice in the party, claimed
that Utah represented a “state of things at which morality, decency, and
shame revolts.”8
When the campaign ended, Buchanan won the presidency, and the
Democrats enjoyed majorities in the new Thirty-Fifth Congress. But the party
had not done well in the north. Frémont carried all but five of the “free states.”
The Republicans might have the Executive Mansion in the next election if they
carried a few more northern states. The American Party captured only the
border state of Maryland.
The Mormon question had little effect on the election’s outcome. However,
the politics of 1856 put the Mormons once again on the national agenda—and
in the very worst way. Smith and Taylor hoped that once the ballots had been
counted, the anti-Mormon uproar might recede. But the nation’s newspapers
continued to agitate. “There does seem . . . to be gaining ground a deep settled
prejudice against Utah and her interests,” Taylor wrote Young. “Some of our
[news]papers here have hinted at extermination &c. A general feeling of hatred is being engendered.”9
In January 1857, Bernhisel, Smith, and Taylor again asked Senator
Stephen A. Douglas for advice. His words were grave: Any move to request
statehood—the slightest tremor—might bring “hostile action” from Congress.
When the Mormon delegates asked for more information, Douglas repeated
his advice but with an alarming emphasis. If the Mormons insisted on going
before Congress, they should expect a reaction “of the most hostile character.”10
Shortly after the election, John Bernhisel reported to Young that he had
recently met with Kane, “who appears to be in the enjoyment of good health,
and who desires me to say that his feelings toward the people of Utah remained
unchanged.”11 In January, Bernhisel further told Young that the increasingly
7 . New York Herald, August 20, 1856, in Historian’s Office, Historical Scrapbooks, 1840–1904, CHL.
8. Extract of Thomas H. Benton’s Speech at St. Louis, June 21, 1856, from unnamed newspaper, Historian’s Office, Historical Scrapbooks, 1840–1904, CHL.
9. John Taylor to Young, December 20, 1856, BYOF.
10.“Report of Taylor and Smith to the Utah Legislative Assembly,” printed in Everett L. Cooley, comp. “Journal of the Legislative Assembly Territory of Utah Seventh Annual Session, 1857–1858,” Utah Historical Quarterly 24 (October 1956), 348; emphasis in original.
11. John Bernhisel to Young, November 19, 1856, BYOF.
Young to Kane, January 7, 1857
201
charged sectional atmosphere made Utah’s admission unthinkable at the pres-
ent; “the ‘peculiar institution’ would be violently opposed by members from
the north & south, east & west; and beside this the Republican party would go against it en mass, independent of plurality, because our Constitution does not
prohibit slavery,” as the Republicans had vowed “there shall be no more slave
States.” In addition, Bernhisel informed Young that Representative Morrill’s
bill would “in all probability pass the House” soon, but “I think I can arrest it
in the Senate.”12
As Kane and the Mormon representatives in the east saw the potential for
Utah statehood dwindle, tensions in Utah between Mormon officials and the
territorial officers mounted. Following the deaths of two of the three federal
territorial justices in 1855, both of whom had sought amicable relations with
the Mormons, President Franklin Pierce appointed a new slate of officials.
Associate Justice William W. Drummond particularly rankled the Saints.
A native of Illinois, Drummond arrived in Utah territory in summer 1855
and became convinced that justice had not been done at the Gunnison mur-
der trial held in Nephi City in March 1855. During this proceeding, federal
prosecutors had accused about a half-dozen Pahvant Indians of killing U.S.
Captain John W. Gunnison and seven members of his mapping and survey-
ing crew in autumn 1853. However, an all-Mormon jury refused to convict
the Indians of first-degree murder, returning instead a second-degree verdict.
The jury believed that there had been extenuating reasons (the killings had
taken place during an Indian war and after California-bound immigrants had
provoked the Indians) and that the indicted Indians were only minor players
in the incident.13
Determined to prosecute the guilty and thinking that Young might have
influenced jurors and perhaps the massacre itself, Drummond was soon issu-
ing warrants in every direction from his court in central Utah.14 He reportedly
declared that he intended to keep his court open until all the Pahvant killers
could be found and “if the Mormons cannot find them it will be a great stigma
upon them & if they can’t do it he will send to the states for U.S. troops.”15
12. J
ohn Bernhisel to Young, January 17, 1857, BYOF.
13. For Young’s account, see Ronald W. Walker, “President Young Writes Jefferson Davis about the Gunnison Massacre Affair,” Brigham Young University Studies (1995, number 1) 35:146–170.
14. For example, see [Drummond] to Joseph L. Heywood, U.S. Marshal, “or any of his Deputies,” February 20, 1856, Utah Territory Militia and Nauvoo Legion Correspondence, 1850 to 1874, Utah State Archives.
15.. Dimick B. Huntington to Young, November 12, 1855, BYOF.
202
the prOphet And the refOrmer
Drummond further angered the local people by denouncing their probate
courts and threatening to indict probate judges, probate jurors, and all law
enforcement officers who might act upon a probate court order. The Utah terri-
torial legislature had granted the locally controlled probate courts wide author-
ity over both criminal and civil matters, thus keeping many cases in front of
local Mormon judges rather than the federal justices.16 Tensions between local
probate courts and federal district courts also occurred in many other western
territories. By January 1856, Drummond’s second district court in Fillmore,
Utah, and the Mormons’ local probate court were dueling with rival court
orders that produced a dramatic showdown that for a moment threatened
to flare into violence.17 During these scenes, Drummond openly flaunted his
mistress and used his black manservant, Cato, to deliver some of his orders.
“The Mormons thoroughly despised” Drummond
, wrote nineteenth-century
Mormon historian Orson F. Whitney. Even many local non-Mormons “looked
upon him with contempt,” Whitney claimed.18
Drummond believed that Young—who in addition to serving as governor
held the office of territorial superintendent of Indian affairs—was too lenient
with the Indians and pursued a policy that served Mormon interests more than
those of the U.S. government. In February 1856, after some Timpanogas Indians
in Utah County stole several of the Mormons’ animals, Drummond saw a chance
to assert federal power and show that Washington and not Salt Lake City was in
charge. Working with chief justice John F. Kinney and Indian agent Garland
Hurt, Drummond issued warrants for the arrest of several Indians and sum-
moned many more to serve as witnesses. He also ordered several dozen local
men to serve these writs.19 The Indians, already upset because the settlers were
encroaching upon their lands and hungry because of famine and a hard winter,
resisted. The result was the Tintic Indian War, which claimed the lives of more
than a half-dozen settlers and a fewer number of Indians. The loss of the settlers’
cattle ran into the hundreds. Moreover, the Mormons complained about the cost
of the single term of Drummond’s second district court. They claimed that the cost 16.. Brooks,
On the Mormon Frontier, November 12, 1855, 2:565.
17.. Brooks, On the Mormon Frontier, January 8–9, 1855, 2:584. For an exaggerated account of these events, see William A. [Bill] Hickman, Brigham’s Destroying Angel, ed. John Hanson Beadle (New York: George A. Crofutt, 1872), 110–112.
18.. Orson F. Whitney, History of Utah, 4 vols. (Salt Lake City, Utah: George Q. Cannon & Sons, 1892), 1:578–579.
19. Thomas Smith Johnson to Editor of the Deseret News, March 10, 1856, Utah Territory Militia—Nauvoo Legion, Correspondence, Orders, Reports, Courts Martial, 1849 through 1863, Utah State Archives.
Young to Kane, January 7, 1857
203
of serving Drummond’s writs and paying for the posses amounted to four times
the taxable revenue of the entire territory.20 Drummond left the main Mormon
settlements in the summer of 1856, first traveling to Carson County in present-day Nevada and then, taking the Panama route, returning to the United States.
In addition, Brigham Young faced a series of crises in late 1856. The late depar-
ture of a large company of handcart pioneers across the plains led to a disaster
when the company encountered winter snowstorms in Wyoming during October
and November. The episode left many of the pioneers dead and some Mormons
questioning Young’s leadership. At the same time, Jedediah M. Grant—Young’s
counselor in the First Presidency and Kane’s former co-author—ignited a reli-
gious revival in Utah known as the Reformation which sought to deepen the
commitment of the Latter-day Saints to their religion and urged further sepa-
ration between the Mormons and the outside world. The fiery rhetoric of the
Reformation heightened the millennialism and the mindset of persecution of the
Mormons. On December 1, Grant died after catching pneumonia while perform-
ing rebaptisms, delivering a sharp blow to Young’s psyche.21
The growing tensions with federal officials and the events of the
Reformation created a cauldron of suspicion, fear, and distrust in Utah
between the Mormons and the officials. The Mormons feared that the fed-
eral officers and their friends were plotting to remove Young as governor and
overturn Mormon influence. In late 1856, Young received an anonymous letter
supposedly revealing such a conspiracy. In New York, Taylor said that he had
heard of “certain indications and expressions” that men in Utah were trying to
bring “a new dynasty” to the church and possibly murder Young.22 Young gave
the report enough weight that for several months he retired from public view.
The Mormons knew that some of the newspaper articles published against
them in 1856 and early 1857 had been written in Utah. One of the most damn-
ing of these was published under a pseudonym, but was almost certainly Judge
Drummond.23 Drummond’s wildly inaccurate letter charged the Mormons
with debauchery and murder and insisted that the admission of Utah into
the Union would be a moral blight.24 In addition to the public letters, a dozen
20. R
oberts, Comprehensive History, 4:481.
21. Grow, Liberty to the Downtrodden, 154; MacKinnon, At Sword’s Point, 62.
22. Young to George A. Smith, July 30, 1856, BYOF; John Taylor to Young, December 20, 1856, BYOF.
23. Walker, “Election of 1856,” 123–124.
24.“The Political Secrets of Mormonism,” May 30, 1856, published in New York Tribune, August 7, 1856.
204
the prOphet And the refOrmer
additional letters are known to have been written by Utah’s territorial officers
to their superiors in Washington, and the actual number was undoubtedly
more.25 While the Mormons knew that some negative letters were going to
Washington, they probably did not realize the half of it.
The officers and their friends charged that Utah was lawless. In one let-
ter, Utah’s Surveyor General David H. Burr told his superiors that one of his
men had been brutally attacked, and a full recovery was in doubt. Burr hinted
that Young had been behind the event.26 William M. F. Magraw, who earlier
had lost to the Mormons both the U.S. mail contact and a costly lawsuit, com-
plained that “there is left no vestige of law and order, no protection for life and property” in Utah, as the local priesthood was “as despotic, dangerous and
damnable as has ever been know to exist in any country.”27
While many of the letters were overdrawn, there was some truth in them.
On December 29, 1856, Mormons raided the office of George P. Stiles, a terri-
torial associate justice, and destroyed more than a hundred of his law books.28
The charge was made that the Mormon raiders also burned Stiles’ judicial
records and some of the books in the territorial library. However, a later inven-
tory showed that these allegations were false.29 The action against Stiles, as
well as other threats, prompted an exodus of the federal officers, similar to the
1851–1852 “runaway” crisis. By April 1857, all but one of the key non-Mormon
officials had left the territory and returned to Washington with allegations of
Mormon violence, obstruction, and disloyalty.30
Young vented his frustrations with the federal officials in a letter to his rep-
resentatives in the east (Smith, Taylor, and Bernhisel) on January 3 and in two
letters to Kane on January 7 and January 31. To the Mormon emissaries, Young
complained about the officials, “whose chief delight and business is and has
been to stir up strife between us and the General Government by their foul
25. M
acKinnon, At Sword’s Point, 56–60.
26. David H. Burr to Thomas A. Hendricks, August 30 and September 20, 1856, The Utah Expedition. Message from the President of the United States, Transmitting Reports from the Secretaries of State, of War, of the Interior, and of the Attorney General, relative to the military expedition ordered into the Territory of Utah, 35th Congress, House of Representatives, 1st Session, Ex. Doc. 71 (Washington, D.C.: James B. Steedman, 1858), 115–118.
> 27. W. M. F. Magraw to Mr. President [Franklin Pierce], October 3, 1856, Utah Expedition.
Message from the President of the United States, 2–3.
28. Brooks, On the Frontier, December 30, 1856, 2:613.
29. Brooks, On the Frontier, April 19, 1858, 2:657; Thomas Kane, Memorandum Diary, April 16, 1858, 60, Stanford.
30. Grow, Liberty to the Downtrodden, 154
Young to Kane, January 7, 1857
205
and false statements.” Calling the officials “dogs and skunks,” Young railed
that they had hoped “to rule over men as far above them, as they are above the
low and vicious animals they so faithfully represent.” Young warned that if
Buchanan “sends us another batch of . . . Political Demagogues, rest assured
they will be sent back as fast as they come, for we are determined not to endure
it any longer.”31 With this letter, Young also sent a “Memorial and Resolutions
to the President of the United States” which had been passed by the territorial
legislature. The resolutions recounted Mormon patriotism amid persecution,
denounced the federal officials (“false hearted men, office seekers and cor-
rupt demagogues”), appealed to the principle of self-government, and urged
Buchanan to appoint locals or “other good citizens of this great Republic” to
the positions. The legislature included a list of acceptable local appointees.
Nevertheless, the combative tone of the resolutions—which stated that the
Saints would “maintain the Constitution and laws of the United States . . . but
we will not tamely submit to being abused by the Government Officials, here
in this Territory”—would prove crucial to Buchanan’s decision to intervene in
Utah.32
In his letters to Kane, Young repeated his complaints about the officials
and expressed hope that Buchanan—to whom he presumed Kane, as a fellow
Pennsylvania Democrat, had close ties—would prove friendly to the Saints.
Young, who remained in his gubernatorial post but without an official reap-
pointment, recognized that Buchanan would come under pressure to replace
him. As such, he hoped that Kane might convince the incoming president to
retain him in his post. Unbeknownst to Young, however, Kane’s father John