home in Kane, Pennsylvania, during this summer.”6 Kane saw Grant’s travel
to the Alleghenies as a way to mediate an agreement on the contentious topic
of Reconstruction policy within the Republican Party. He thus invited leading
participants in the debates over Reconstruction—including Horace Greeley,
Pennsylvania Senator Simon Cameron, and Maryland editor and party elder
Francis P. Blair—to his home. However, Greeley and Blair declined, leading
Kane to see the meeting as an opportunity to repair the relationship between
Cameron and Grant.7 Intriguingly, in the following letter, Kane also invited
Young to his home in Kane to meet with Grant and indicated that Young could
travel with Grant on a specially arranged railroad car from Harrisburg to the
town of Kane.
In this letter, Kane also referred to the possibility that he might seek the gov-
ernorship of Utah at the expiration of Durkee’s term in August 1869. In July,
however, Elizabeth recorded in her journal, “Governor Durkee of Utah assures
Tom that he will willingly resign in his favour: and, I suppose there is no doubt
that Tom can obtain the position. But Tom and I are, as usual, changing places.”
While the idea of leaving the Alleghenies was initially “horrible” to Elizabeth, she now felt “perfectly willing to go” and was excited about the prospects of developing her talents, as Thomas had suggested, “as a writer upon the great question of
Woman’s Rights.” Thomas, however, hoped to be appointed as a commissioner
of the Pennsylvania Board of State Charities, a recently created government
4. Elizabeth W
. Kane, journal, April 14, 1869.
5. Elizabeth W. Kane, journal, April 18, 1869. In April, Eli Price, a friend of Kane’s and fellow reformer, lobbied for Kane’s appointment with Jacob D. Cox, the Secretary of the Interior.
See Price to Cox, April 1869, Kane Collection, BYU.
6. Elizabeth W. Kane, account of Grant’s visit, 1869, Kane Collection, BYU.
7. Grow, Liberty to the Downtrodden, 249.
394
the prophet and the reformer
committee designed to increase oversight over a wide variety of institutions such
as prisons, orphanages, mental hospitals, and homes for disabled soldiers and
sailors.8 He soon obtained the position as the board’s first president and thus
ended the possibility that he might become Utah’s territorial governor.9
Source
Kane to “My dear Sir” [Brigham Young], May 4, 1869, box 16, fd 31,
Kane Collection, BYU.
Letter
Kane, May 4. 1869
My dear Sir:
A day in Washington showed me that I was better known to the pow-
ers that be than I supposed; and I think I would have easily arranged
matters to my satisfaction, had I not yielded to Colonel Forney’s solici-
tation to accompany him with a Southern excursion party who waited
upon President Grant.10
Recognising me in the crowd, the President asked if I would give
him an invitation to visit me this summer, and entering into conversa-
tion on the subject, committed me on the impulse of the moment to
receive him!
I thought over the matter anxiously before I could determine that
I would not press for the Governorship of Utah until the expiration of
the term of the present incumbent—at the close of August, [p. 2] Mr.
Fish says.)11 I find that he was one of our old time abolitionists.12
8. Elizabeth W
. Kane, journal, July 11, 1869, BYU.
9. Grow, Liberty to the Downtrodden, 246–247.
10. For information on Forney, see footnotes, Kane to Young, April 7, 1851.
11. Hamilton Fish (1808–1893) was Grant’s Secretary of State from 1869 to 1877.
12. The “old time” abolitionist was Governor Charles Durkee (1807–1870). Born in Vermont, Durkee moved to Wisconsin, where he became involved in the Liberty Party and then the Free Soil Party. Durkee was elected a U.S. Congressman in 1848 and 1850 as a Free Soiler and then a Senator in 1855 and 1861 as a Republican, before his appointment by President Andrew Johnson as Utah governor. Reinhard O. Johnson, The Liberty Party, 1840–1848: Antislavery Third-Party Politics in the United States (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2009).
Young to Kane, May 4, 1869
395
As this defers the pleasure of my meeting you in Utah, may I not
press you meanwhile to visit Kane, in case the President should put his
threat into execution? He would have a special to Kane from Harrisburg,
at which point you could probably join him and thus make the journey
with less fatigue than it usually imposes.13
Ever with great respect
Your friend and servant
Thomas L. Kane
13. S
ee Elizabeth W. Kane, account of Grant’s visit, July 1869, Kane Collection, BYU.
71
Kane to Young, October 13, 1869
durInG the fall of 1869, Thomas Kane saw an opportunity for Utah state-
hood in the heated political atmosphere of Reconstruction. In the following
letter, he suggested that the Senate might admit Utah in exchange for its rati-
fication of the Fifteenth Amendment (which banned voting restrictions based
on race) and support for a protective tariff. The Fifteenth Amendment, passed
by Congress in February 1869, became the most hotly contested of the three
Reconstruction constitutional amendments. Republicans were forced to rely
on the uncertain vote of fickle states such as Ohio and nominally Republican
southern states such as Alabama or Georgia.1 By October, ratification by only
20 of the required 28 states had occurred and the fate of the amendment was
unclear.2 Kane believed that state elections, held the day before he penned this
letter, further imperiled the amendment and made a possible deal between
Radical Republicans—many of whom were the most determined foes of
Mormonism—and the Latter-day Saints possible.
In his letter, Kane also indicated that some Republican Senators might
resist Utah statehood because they feared that the Mormons would oppose
a protective tariff. Civil War tariffs had propped up several industries; once
the war was over, businessmen warned policymakers of the implications of
a reduction or removal of the tariff. Some reports suggested that the western
1. F
or the breakdown of states’ voting at this point, see “The Fifteenth Amendment,”
Richmond Whig, October 1, 1869, 1, and “The XVth Amendment,” Mobile Register [Alabama], October 22, 1869, 2; “The Fifteenth Amendment,” Times-Picayune, October 28, 1869, 4.
2. “The Late Elections—The Fifteenth Amendment—Pendleton,” Evening Telegraph
[Philadelphia], reprint from the New York Herald, October 16, 1869, p. 2; “XVth Amendment to the Constitution,” Fayetteville Observer [Fayetteville, Tennessee], October 14, 1869; Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1787 (New York: Harper & Row, 1988), 446–449.
Kane to Young, October 13, 1869
397
states and territories objected to the protective tariff; with the completion of
the transcontinental railroad, some believed that western consumers would be
seeking access to cheaper, foreign markets.3
Source
Kane to Young, October 13, 1869, box 40, fd 14, BYOF.
Letter
Kane October 13th. 1
869.
My dear Friend;
My conversation with your son on the 11th ult.4 (which he has doubt-
less, as I requested communicated to you) will have acquainted you
with the state of your affairs here at that date.5
The “personal movements’ of the public men who have participated
in the recent election canvass have given me desirable opportunities to
confer with them. On Wednesday last I visited the President.
I regard the results of yesterday as favorable to the interests of Utah.6
3. C
ynthia Clark Northrup, “Civil War,” in Northrup and Elaine C. Prange Turney, eds., Encyclopedia of Tariffs and Trade in U.S. History (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2003), 69–70; “The West and the South,” Macon Weekly Telegraph, October 22, 1869, 4.
4. An abbreviation for “ultimo,” or the previous month.
5. This likely referred to a visit by Joseph A. Young. Whereas Brigham Jr. had clearly not met him by October, Joseph A.Young had been in and around several Eastern cities for several months, including Philadelphia. For Joseph’s presence in Eastern states, see Joseph A. Young to Brigham Young, April 3, 1869, August 12, 1869, and September 1, 1869, BYOF.
6. Kane referred to state elections held in Ohio, New York, and Pennsylvania. When he wrote this letter, it was not yet clear which political party had gained the most in these elections.
The New York Herald reported that “The late elections have been very close in Pennsylvania and Ohio” (“The Late Elections—The Fifteenth Amendment—Pendleton,” Evening Telegraph
[Philadelphia], October 16, 1869, p. 2). In Pennsylvania, there was talk that Democratic gains might lead to withdrawing ratification for the Fifteenth Amendment, passed nearly six months earlier (see “A Constitutional Muddle,” Patriot [Pennsylvania], October 26, 1869, 2, and “Withdrawing the Vote,” Patriot, October 11, 1869, 2). The Ohio legislature had rejected the amendment earlier, though new Republican victories promised to change its vote. The New York legislature had just become majority Democratic, which threatened to undermine its adoption of the amendment some months prior (see “The Fifteenth Amendment in
New York and Ohio,” Plain Dealer, November 15, 1869, 2).
398
the prophet and the reformer
I have proposed to our party leaders, as your son informed you, to
carry the Fifteenth Amendment by the admission of a number of new
States including Utah. They ought to see now more plainly that they
need her. [p. 2]
Again, I must not omit to mention as a point of importance, that
the admission of Utah encounters most honest opposition from our
Eastern men—the senators from Massachusetts and Pennsylvania for
instance,—who fear that she will be hostile to a Protective Tariff.7
I have never inquired into your views upon these subjects. I would
like you to inform me of them. Do so confidentially. It will not be expe-
dient to divulge them publicly, but I wish to have the best authority for
the truth of that which I may desire to assert upon my own responsibil-
ity.—No matter whether your opinions agree with those which I hold,
or which you may believe that I hold. I would have your’s, my friend’s,
imparted to me confidentially.
I write, as you see, the day after our Election, in some haste, and
in not a little distress of mind,—having received a telegram calling me
to [p. 3] Philadelphia, where my only sister lies at the point of death.8
Else, be assured that I should use this, the first letter I have written you
for so many years, to assure you and my many friends around you of my
unperishing respect and affection.
Always yours faithfully
Thomas L. Kane
Governor Young.
7 . The Massachusetts Senators were Charles Sumner and Henry Wilson, while the
Pennsylvania Senators were John Scott and Simon Cameron, all of whom were Republican.
8. Kane’s sister, Elizabeth Kane Shields, died the following day (October 14, 1869).
72
Young to Kane, October 15, 1869
In oCtober 1869, Brigham Young Jr. traveled to the eastern states, carrying
this letter from his father to Kane. Brigham Jr.’s journey had several purposes
besides visiting with Kane, including meeting with business contacts to help
“roll on the good cause which of course includes building the Utah Central
Railroad.”1 His time in Philadelphia attracted the attention of the local press;
one reporter observed that Brigham, Jr. was a “plain, blunt man . . . in no way
dissimilar from the majority of human beings.”2
During December, Brigham Jr. traveled from Philadelphia to Harrisburg to
meet with Kane. Brigham Jr. wrote his father,
I found him miserable in health but exceedingly glad to see me. The
wound which he received in the breast—a blow with the butt of a
musket—during the war, is still very painfull and if he talks much he
is troubled with a flow of blood from the lungs, therefore I done most
of the talking.
Brigham Jr. further commented on Kane’s appearance:
The Gen. has changed much since I saw him in 1862. I would not have
recognised him had we met in the street. He wears a full beard which
1. S
ee Brigham Young Jr., to Brigham Young, November 20, 1869, BYOF; Brigham Young
to Brigham Young Jr., November 11, 1869, BYOF; “Local and Other Matters,” Deseret News, December 15, 1869, 1.
2. See “Elder Brigham Young, Jr., Interviewed,” Post [Philadelphia], reprinted in Deseret News, November 10, 1869, 6, and “Second Interview with Brigham Young, Jun.,” Deseret News, November 24, 1869, 6.
400
the prophet and the reformer
is quite gray and his features are pinched and drawn as if he endured
constant pain; he is even much thinner than usual and I assure you
it made me feel sad to see this physical change in one of our best
friends.3
Kane told Brigham Jr. that he still hoped that Utah might be admitted
in exchange for its support of the Fifteenth Amendment, as the “Senate are
bound to make the 15th Amendment a success, that they are prepared to go
all lengths to accomplish this end, even to the admission of Utah as a state.”
Kane’s “faith is firm and unshaken,” wrote Brigham Jr. to his father, “that
your policy will triumph over all hell and the Government . . . He urged that
we put forth our power and exert ourselves to accomplish our emancipa-
tion, and was anxious that Hooper should be at work in Washington as early
as possible.” Kane also discussed with Brigham Jr. the recent visit of Vice
President Schulyer Colfax to Salt Lake City; while there, Colfax declared
that Utah would never be admitted as a state while polygamy continued.
Kane questioned Colfax’s judgment, stating that “the president was not
very deeply in love with [the] vice president nor his aspirations.” When they
parted, Kane took Brigham Jr. “in his arms and blessed me, and said when
your Territory is made a state than I am ready to die but first I must come
and see you.”4
Brigham Jr. returned to Utah in late December 1869 and stated that
“there never was a more bitter spirit in the United States than exists at
the present time.” Describing his visit with Kane, he reported that he
“expressed his full faith in the final triumph of Mormonism, and adverted
to t
he corrupt Men who constitute the present Senate of the United
States.”5
Source
Young to Kane, October 15, 1869, Brigham Young Letterbooks, box 8,
vol. 11, 833.
3. Brigham Y
oung Jr. to Brigham Young Sr., December 18, 1869, BYOF.
4. Brigham Young Jr. to Brigham Young Sr., December 18, 1869; “Colfax at Salt Lake,” Deseret News, November 3, 1869, 12.
5. Salt Lake City School of the Prophets, January 1, 1870, CHL.
Young to Kane, October 15, 1869
401
Letter
Salt Lake City, U. T.
October 15th. 1869.
Genl Thomas L. Kane.
Kane Co.
Penn.
Dear Friend:—
This will introduce to you my son, Brigham Young, Jr, who is visiting
the east on family business.
He intends making you a passing call, and will express to you the
high esteem in which you are held here by almost an entire community.6
We hope that at an early day you will avail yourself of the facilities
for traveling & renew accquaintance with us.7
It will be superfluous perhaps to write local news, since the bearer of
this can give you all the detail.
Yours with respect
Brigham Young
6. Brigham Jr
. assured Brigham that he would “not fail to write [him] the first opportunity
the result of his visit” with Kane. See Brigham Young Jr. to Brigham Young, November 20, 1869, BYOF.
7. Young referred to the completion of the transcontinental railroad at Promontory, Utah, on May 10, 1869.
73
Young to Kane, October 26, 1869
In thIs letter, Young responded to Kane’s letter of October 13, assuring
him that the Saints would embrace the Fifteenth Amendment in exchange for
statehood. Indeed, the residents of Utah already lived under similar laws. Two
years earlier, in January 1867, Congress had passed the Territorial Suffrage
Act, granting all men, regardless of race, the vote living in the territories.1 The following month, citizens of Utah Territory approved a constitution for a proposed State of Deseret, which included universal male suffrage.2
The Prophet and the Reformer Page 57