CHAPTER X.
The Territorial Government--Judge Brocchus's Experience
Brigham Young the First Governor--Colonel Kane's Part in his Appointment--Kane's False Statements to President Fillmore--Welcome to the Non-Mormon Officers--Their Early Information about Young's Influence--Pioneer Anniversary Speeches--Judge Brocchus's Offence to the Mormons-- Young's Threatening and Abusive Reply--The Judge's Alarm about his Personal Safety--Return of the Non-Mormon Federal Officers to Washington--Young's Defence
IN March, 1851, the two houses of the legislature of Deseret, sitting together, adopted resolutions "cheerfully and cordially" accepting the law providing a territorial government for Utah, and tendering Union Square in Salt Lake City as a site for the government buildings. The first territorial election was held on August 4, and the legislative assembly then elected held its first meeting on September 22. An act was at once passed continuing in force the laws passed by the legislature of Deseret (an unauthorized body) not in conflict with the territorial law, and locating the capital in the Pauvan Valley, where the town was afterward named Fillmore1 and the county Millard, in honor of the President.
1 Only one session of the legislature was held at Fillmore (December, 1855). The lawmakers afterward met there, but only to adjourn to Salt Lake City.
The federal law, establishing the territory,
provided that the governor, secretary, chief justice and two associate justices
of the Supreme Court, the attorney general, or state's attorney, and marshal
should be appointed by the President of the United States. President Fillmore
on September 22, 1850, filled these places as follows: governor, Brigham Young;
secretary, B. D. Harris of Vermont; chief justice, Joseph Buffington of
Pennsylvania; associate justices, Perry E. Brocchus and Zerubbabel Snow;
attorney general, Seth M. Blair of Utah; marshal, J. L. Heywood of Utah, Young,
Snow, Blair, and Heywood being Mormons. L. G. Brandebury was later appointed
chief justice, Mr. Buffington declining that office.
The selection of Brigham Young as governor made him, in
addition to his church offices, ex-officio commander-in-chief of the militia
and superintendent of Indian affairs, the latter giving him a salary of $1000 a
year in addition to his salary of $1500 as governor. Had the character of the
Mormon church government been understood by President Fillmore, it does not
seem possible that he would, by Young's appointment, have so completely united
the civil and religious authority of the territory in one man; or, if he had
had any comprehension of Young's personal characteristics, it is fair to
conclude that the appointment would not have been made.
The voice which the President listened to in the
matter was that of that adroit Mormon agent, Colonel Thomas L. Kane. Kane's
part in the business came out after these appointments were announced, and
after the Buffalo (New York) Courier had printed a communication
attacking Young's character on the ground of his record both in Illinois and
Utah. President Fillmore sent these charges to Kane (on July 4, 1851) with a
letter in which he said, "You will recollect that I relied much upon you
for the moral character of Mr. Young," and asking him to "truly state
whether these charges against the moral character of Governor Young are
true." Kane sent two letters in reply, dated July 11. In a short open one
he said: "I reiterate without reserve the statement of his excellent
capacity, energy, and integrity, which I made you prior to the appointment. I
am willing to say that I volunteered to communicate to you the facts by
which I was convinced of his patriotism and devotio n to the Union. I made no
qualification when I assured you of his irreproachable moral character, because
I was able to speak of this from my own intimate personal knowledge."
The second letter, marked "personal," went
into these matters much more in detail. It declared that the tax levied by
Young on non-Mormons who sold goods in Salt Lake City was a liquor tax,
creditable to Mormon temperance principles. Had the President consulted the
report of the debate on Babbitt's admission as a Delegate, he would have
discovered that this was falsehood number one. The charges against Young while
in Illinois, including counterfeiting, Kane swept aside as "a mere rehash
of old libels," and he cited the Battalion as an illustration of Mormon
patriotism. The extent to which he could go in falsifying in Young's behalf is
illustrated, however, most pointedly in what he had to say regarding the charge
of polygamy: "The remaining charge connects itself with that unmixed
outrage, the spiritual wife story; which was fastened on the Mormons by a poor
ribald scamp whom, though the sole surviving brother and representative of
their Jo. Smith, they were literally forced to excommunicate for
licentiousness, and who therefore revenged himself by editing confessions and
disclosures of savor to please the public that peruses novels in yellow paper
covers."2 In regard to William Smith, the fact was that he
opposed polygamy both before and after his expulsion from the church. Kane's
stay among the Mormons on the Missouri must have acquainted him with the
practically open practice of polygamy at that time. His entire correspondence
with Fillmore stamps him as a man whose word could be accepted on no subject.
It would have been well if President Buchanan had availed himself of the
existence of these letters. Fillmore stated in later years that at that time
neither he nor the Senate knew that polygamy was an accepted Mormon doctr ine
2 For correspondence in full, see Millennial Star, Vol. XIII, pp. 341-344.
Young took the oath of office as governor in
February, 1851. The non-Mormon federal officers arrived in June and July
following, and with them came Babbitt, bringing $20,000 which had been
appropriated by Congress for a state-house, and J. M. Bernhisel, the first
territorial Delegate to Congress, with a library purchased by him in the East
for which Congress had provided. The arrival of the Gentile officers gave a
speedy opportunity to test the temper of the church in regard to any
interference with, or even discussion of, their "peculiar"
institutions or Young's authority.
Their first welcome was cordial, with balls and dinners
at the Bath House at the Hot Springs at which, for their special benefit, says
a local historian, was served "champagne wine from the grocery," with
home-brewed porter and ale for the rest. When Judge Brocchus reached Salt Lake
City, his two non-Mormon associates had been there long enough to form an
opinion of the Mormon population and of the aims of the leading church
officers. They soon concluded that "no man else could govern them against
Brigham Young's influence, without a military force,"3 and they
heard many expressions, public and private, indicating the contempt in which
the federal government was held. The anniversary of the arrival of the
pioneers, July 24, was always celebrated with much ceremony, and that year the
principal addresses were made by "General" D. H. Wells and Brigham
Young. Some of the new officers occupied seats on the platform. Wells attacked
the government for "requiring" the Battalion to enlist. Young paid
especial attention to President Taylor, who had recently died, and whose course
toward the Mormons did not please them, closing this part of his remarks with
the declaration, "but Zachary Taylor is dead and in hell, and I am glad of
it," adding, "and I prophesy in the name of Jesus Christ, by the
power of the priesthood that's upon me, that any President of the United States
who lifts his finger against this people, shall die an untimely death, and go
to hell."
3 Report of the three officers to President Fillmore, Ex. Doc. No. 25, 1st Session, 32d Congress.
Judge Brocchus had been commissioned by the
Washington Monument Association to ask the people of the territory for a block
of stone for that structure, and, on signifying a desire to make known his
commission, he was invited to do so at the General Conference to be held on
September 7 and 8. The judge thought that, with the life of Washington as a
text, he could read these people a lesson on their duty toward the government,
and could correct some of the impressions under which they rested. The idea
itself only showed how little he understood anything pertaining to Mormonism.
There was no newspaper in Salt Lake City in that time,
and for a report of the judge's address and of Brigham Young's reply, we must
rely on the report of the three federal officers to President Fillmore, on a
letter from Judge Brocchus printed in the East, and on three letters on the
subject addressed to the New York Herald (one of which that journal
printed, and all of which the author published in a pamphlet entitled "The
Truth for the Mormons",) by J. M. Grant, first mayor of Salt Lake City,
major general of the Legion, and Speaker of the house in the Deseret
legislature.
Judge Brocchus spoke for two hours. He began with
expressions of sympathy for the sufferings of the Mormons in Missouri and
Illinois, and then referred to the unfriendliness of the people toward the
federal government, pointing out what he considered its injustice, and alluding
pointedly to Brigham Young's remarks about President Taylor. He defended the
President's memory, and told his audience that, "if they could not offer a
block of marble for the Washington Monument in a feeling of full fellowship
with the people of the United States, as brethren and fellow citizens, they had
better not offer it at all, but leave it unquarried in the bosom of its native
mountain." The officers' report to President Fillmore says that the
address "was entirely free from any allusions, even the most remote, to
the peculiar religion of the community, or to any of their domestic or social
customs." Even if the Mormons had so construed it, the rebuke of their
lack of patriotism would have aroused their resentment, and Bernhisel, in a
letter to President Fillmore, characterized it as "a wanton insult."
But the judge did make, according to other reports,
what was construed as an uncomplimentary reference to polygamy, and this
stirred the church into a tumult of anger and indignation. According to Mormon
accounts,4 the judge, addressing the ladies, said: "I have a
commission from the Washington Monument Association, to ask of you a block of
marble, as a test of your citizenship and loyalty to the government of the
United States. But in order to do it acceptably you must become virtuous, and
teach your daughters to become virtuous, or your offering had better remain in
the bosom of your native mountains."
4 The report of what follows, including Young's address, is taken from Grant's pamphlet.
Mild as this language may seem, no Mormon audience,
since the marrying of more wives than one had been sanctioned by the church,
had ever listened to anything like it. To permit even this interference with
their "religious belief" was entirely foreign to Young's purpose, and
he took the floor in a towering rage to reply. "Are you a judge," he
asked, "and can't even talk like a lawyer or a politician?" George
Washington was first in war, but he was first in peace, too, and Young could
handle a sword as well as Washington. "But you {addressing the judge}
standing there, white and shaking now at the howls which you have stirred up
yourself -- you are a coward.... Old General Taylor, what was he?5 A
mere soldier with regular army buttons on; no better to go at the head of brave
troops than a dozen I could pick out between here and Laramie." He
concluded thus: --
"What you have been afraid to intimate
about our morals I will not stoop to notice, except to make my particular
personal request to every brother and husband present not to give you back what
such impudence deserves. You talk of things you have on hearsay since your
coming among us. I'll talk of hearsay then -- the hearsay that you are
discontented, and will go home, because we cannot make it worth your while to
stay. What it would satisfy you to get out of us I think it would be hard to
tell; but I am sure that it is more than you'll get. If you or any one else is
such a baby-calf, we must sugar your soap to coax you to wash yourself of
Saturday nights. Go home to your mammy straight away, and the sooner the
better."
5 In a discourse on June 19, 1853, Young said that he never heard of his alleged expression about General Taylor until Judge Brocchus made use of it, but he added: "When he made the statement there, I surely bore testimony to the truth of it. But until then I do not know that it ever came into my mind whether Taylor was in hell or not, any more than it did that any other wicked man was there," etc. -- Journal of Discourses, Vol. 1, p.185."
This was the language addressed by the governor of
the territory and the head of the church, to one of the Supreme Court judges
appointed by the President of the United States!
Young alluded to his reference to the judge's personal
safety in a discourse on June 19, 1853, in which, speaking of the judge's
remarks, he said: "They {the Mormons} bore the insult like saints of God.
It is true, as it was said in the report of these affairs, if I had crooked my
little finger, he would have been used up, but I did not bend it. If I had, the
sisters alone felt indignant enough to have chopped him in pieces." A
little later, in the same discourse, he added: "Every man that comes to
impose on this people, no matter by whom they are sent, or who they are that
are sent, lay the axe at the root of the tree to kill themselves. I will do as
I said I would last conference. Apostates, or men who never made any profession
of religion, had better be careful how they come here, lest I should bend my
little finger."6
6 Journal of Discourses, Vol. I, p. 187.
If the records of the Mormon church had included
acts as well a words, how many times would we find that Young's little finger
was bent to a purpose?
Bold as he was, Young seems to have felt that he had
gone too far in his abuse of Judge Brocchus, and on September 19 he addressed a
note to him, inviting him to attend a public meeting in the bowery the next
Sunday morning, "to explain, satisfy, or apologize to the satisfaction of
the ladies who heard your address on the 8th," a postscript assuring the
judge that "no gentleman will be permitted to make any reply." The
judge in polite terms declined this offer, saying that he had been, at the
proper time, denied a chance to explain, "at the peril of having my hair
pulled or my throat cut." He added that his speech was deliberately
prepared, that his sole design was "to vindicate the government of the
United States from those feelings of prejudice and that spirit of defection
which seemed to pervade the public sentiment," and that he had had no
intention to offer insult or disrespect to his audience. This called out, the
next day, a very long reply from Young, of which the following is a paragraph:
--
"With a war of words on party politics, factions,
religious schisms, current controversy of creeds, policy of clans or state
clipper cliques, I have nothing to do; but when the eternal principles of truth
are falsified, and light is turned into darkness by mystification of language
or a false delineation of facts, so that the just indignation of the true,
virtuous, upright citizens of the commonwealth is aroused into vigilance for
the dear-bought liberties of themselves and fathers, and that spirit of
intolerance and persecution which has driven this people time and time again
from their peaceful homes, manifests itself in the flippancy of rhetoric for
female insult and desecration, it is time that I forbear to hold my peace, lest
the thundering anathemas of nations, born and unborn, should rest upon my head,
when the marrow of my bones shall be ill prepared to sustain the threatened
blow."7
7 For correspondence in full, see Tullidge's "History of Salt Lake City," pp. 86 -- 91.
Judge Brocchus wrote to a friend in the East, on
September 20: "How it will end, I do not know. I have just learned that I
have been denounced, together with the government and officers, in the bowery
again to-day by Governor Young. I hope I shall get off safely. God only knows.
I am in the power of a desperate and murderous sect."
The non-Mormon federal officers now announced their
determination to abandon their places and return to the East. Young foresaw
that so radical a course would give his conduct a wide advertisement, and
attract to him an unpleasant notoriety. He, therefore, called on the offended
judges personally, and urged them to remain.8 Being assured that
they would not reconsider their determination, and that Secretary Harris would
take with him the $24,000 appropriated for the pay and mileage of the
territorial legislature, Young, on September 18, issued a proclamation
declaring the result of the election of August 4, which he had neglected to do,
and convening the legislature in session on September 22. "So solicitous
was the governor that the secretary and other non-Mormon officers should be
kept in ignorance of this step," says the report of the latter to
President Fillmore, "that on the 19th, two days after the date of a
personal notice sent to members, he most positively and emphatically denied, as
communicated to the secretary, that any such notice had been issued."
8 Young to the President, House Doc. No. 25, 1st Session, 32d Congress.
As soon as the legislature met, it passed
resolutions directing the United States marshal to take possession of all
papers and property (including money) in the hands of Secretary Harris, and to
arrest him and lock him up if he offered any resistance. On receipt of a copy
of this resolution, Secretary Harris sent a reply, giving several reasons for
refusing to hand over the money appropriated for the legislature, among them
the failure of the governor to have a census taken before the election, as
provided by the territorial act, the defective character of the governor's
proclamation ordering the election, allowing aliens to vote, and the governor's
failure to declare the result of the election, his delayed proclamation being
pronounced "worthless for all legal purposes."
On September 28 the three non-Mormon officers took
their departure, carrying with them to Washington the disputed money, which was
turned over to the proper officer.9
9 Tullidge, in his "History of Salt Lake City," says: "Under the censure of the great statesman, Daniel Webster, and with ex-Vice President Dallas and Colonel Kane using their potent influence against them, and also Stephen A. Douglas, Brandebury, Brocchus, and Harris were forced to retire." As these officers left the territory of their own accord, and contrary to Brigham Young's urgent protest, this statement only furnishes another instance of the Mormon plan to attack the reputation of any one whom they could not control. The three officers were criticized by some Eastern newspapers for leaving their post through fear of bodily injury, but Congress voted to pay their salaries.
All the correspondence concerning the failure of this first attempt to establish non-Mormon federal officers in Utah was given to Congress in a message from President Fillmore, dated January 9, 1852. The returned officers made a report which set forth the autocratic attitude of the Mormon church, the open practice of polygamy,10 and the non-enforcement of the laws, not even murderers being punished. Of one of the allegations of murder set forth, -- that a man from Ithaca, New York, named James Munroe, was murdered on his way to Salt Lake City by a member of the church, his body brought to the city and buried without an inquest, the murderer walking the streets undisturbed, H. H. Bancroft says, "There is no proof of this statement."11 On the contrary, Mayor Grant in his "Truth for the Mormons" acknowledges it, and gives the details of the murder, justifying it on the ground of provocation, alleging that while Egan, the murderer, was absent in California, Munroe, "from his youth up a member of the church, Egan's friend too, therefore a traitor," seduced Egan's wife.
10 J. D. Grant, following the
example of Colonel Kane, had the affrontery to say of the charge of polygamy,
in one of his letters to the New York Herald: "I pronounce it
false.... Suppose I should admit it at once? Whose business is it? Does the
constitution forbid it?"
11 "History of Utah," p. 460,
note.
Young, in a statement to the President, defended
his acts and the acts of the territorial legislature, and attacked the
character and motives of the federal officers. The legislature soon after
petitioned President Fillmore to fill the vacancies by appointing men "who
are, indeed, residents amongst us."