The Story of the Mormons:

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* Millennial Star, VOL XII, p, 273.

When the site of the Temple was consecrated, in 1853, there were
many inquiries whether a revelation had been given about its
construction. Young said, "If the Lord and all the people want a
revelation, I can give one concerning this Temple"; but he did
not do so, declaring that a revelation was no more necessary
concerning the building of a temple than it was concerning a
kitchen or a bedroom.* We must certainly concede to this man a
dictator's daring.

* Ibid., Vol. XV, p. 391.

An early illustration of Young's policy toward all Mormon
offenders was given in the case of the so-called "Gladdenites."
There were members of the church even in Utah who were ready to
revolt when the open announcement of the "revelation" regarding
polygamy was made in 1852, and they found a leader in Gladden
Bishop, who had had much experience in apostasy, repentance, and
readmission.* These men held meetings and made considerable
headway, but when the time came for Brigham to exercise his
authority he did it.

* "This Gladden gave Joseph much trouble; was cut off from the
church and taken back and rebaptized nine times."--Ferris, "Utah
and the Mormons," p. 326.

On Sunday, March 20, 1853, a meeting, orderly in every respect,
which the Gladdenites were holding in front of the Council House,
was dispersed by the city marshal, and another, called for the
next Sunday, was prohibited entirely. Then Alfred Smith, a
leading Gladdenite, who had accused Young of robbing him of his
property, was arrested and locked up until he gave a promise to
discontinue his rebellion. On the 27th of March Young made the
Gladdenites the subject of a large part of his discourse in the
Tabernacle. What he said is thus stated in the church report of
the address:--

"I say to those persons: You must not court persecution here,
lest you get so much of it you will not know what to do with it.
Do not court persecution. We have known Gladden Bishop for more
than twenty years, and know him to be a poor, dirty curse . . . .
I say again, you Gladdenites, do not court persecution, or you
will get more than you want, and it will come quicker than you
want it. I say to you Bishops, do not allow them to preach in
your wards." (After telling of a dream he had had, in which he
saw two men creep into the bed where one of his wives was lying,
whereupon he took a large bowie knife and cut one of their
throats from ear to ear, saying, "Go to hell across lots," he
continued:) "I say, rather than that apostates should flourish
here I will unsheath my bowie knife and conquer or die." (Great
commotion in the congregation, and a simultaneous burst of
feeling, assenting to the declaration.) "Now, you nasty
apostates, clear out, or judgment will be put to the line and
righteousness to the plummet." (Voices generally, "Go it," "go
it.") "If you say it is all right, raise your hand." (All hands
up.) "Let us call upon the Lord to assist us in this and every
good work." *

*Journal of Discourses, Vol. I, p. 82.

This was the practical end of Gladdenism.

Young's dictatorship was quite as broad and determined in things
temporal as in things spiritual. He made no concealment of the
fact that he was a moneygetter, only insisting on his readiness
to contribute to the support of church enterprises. The canons
through the mountains which shut in the valley were the source of
wood supply for the city, and their control was very valuable.
Young brought this matter before the Conference of October 9,
1852, speaking on it at length, and finally putting his own view
in the form of a resolution that the canons be placed in the
hands of individuals, who should make good roads through them,
and obtain their pay by taking toll at the entrance. After
getting the usual unanimous vote on his proposition, he said:
"Let the Judges of the County of Great Salt Lake take due notice
and govern themselves accordingly . . . . This is my order for
the judges to take due notice of. It does not come from the
Governor, but from the President of the church. You will not see
any proclamation in the paper to this effect, but it is a mere
declaration of the President of the Conference."* The
"declaration," of course, had all the effect of a law, and Young
got one of the best canons.

* Journal of Discourses, Vol. I, pp. 217, 218.

Very early in his rule Young defined his views about the property
rights of the Saints. "A man," he declared in the Tabernacle on
June 5, 1853, "has no right with property which, according to the
laws of the land, legally belongs to him, if he does not want to
use it . . . . When we first came into the valley, the question
was asked me if men would ever be allowed to come into this
church, and remain in it, and hoard up their property. I say,
no." *

* Ibid., Vol. I, pp. 252-253

Another view of property rights was thus set forth in his
discourse of December 5, 1853:--

"If an Elder has borrowed [a hundred or a thousand dollars from
you], and you find he is going to apostatize, then you may
tighten the screws on him. But if he is willing to preach the
Gospel without purse or scrip, it is none of your business what
he does with the money he has borrowed from you." *

* Ibid, Vol. I, p. 340.

Addressing the people in the trying business year of 1856, when
his own creditors were pushing him hard, Young said:

"I wish to give you one text to preach upon, 'From this time
henceforth do not fret thy gizzard.' I will pay you when I can
and not before. Now I hope you will apostatize if you would
rather do it."*

* Ibid., Vol. III, p. 4.

Kimball, in giving Young's order to some seventy men, who had
displeased him, to leave the territory, used these words: "When a
man is appointed to take a mission, unless he has a just and
honorable reason for not going, if he does not go he will be
severed from the church. Why? Because you said you were willing
to be passive, and, if you are not passive, that lump of clay
must be cut off from the church and laid aside, and a lump put on
that will be passive." *

* Journal of Discourses, Vol. III, p. 242.

With this testimony of men inside the church may be placed that
of Captain Howard Stansbury, of the United Stated Topographical
Engineers, who arrived in the valley in August, 1849, under
instructions from the government to make a survey of the lakes of
that region. The Mormons thought that it was the intention of the
government to divide the land into townships and sections, and to
ignore their claim to title by occupation. In his official
report, after mentioning his haste to disabuse Young's mind on
this point, Captain Stansbury says, "I was induced to pursue this
conciliatory course, not only in justice to the government, but
also because I knew, from the peculiar organization of this
singular community, that, unless the 'President' was fully
satisfied that no evil was intended to his people, it would be
useless for me to attempt to carry out my instructions." The
choice between abject conciliation or open conflict was that
which Brigham Young extended to nearly every federal officer who
entered Utah during his reign.

The Mormons of Utah started in to assert their independence of
the government of the United States in every way. The rejection
of the constitution of Deseret by Congress did not hinder the
elected legislature from meeting and passing laws. The ninth
chapter of the "ordinances," as they were called, passed by this
legislature (on January 19, 1851) was a charter for Great Salt
Lake City. This charter provided for the election of a mayor,
four aldermen, nine councillors, and three judges, the first
judges to be chosen viva voce, and their successors by the City
Council. The appointment of eleven subordinate officers was
placed in the Council's hands. The mayor and aldermen were to be
the justices of the peace, with a right of appeal to the
municipal court, consisting of the same persons sitting together,
and from that to the probate court. The first mayor, aldermen,
and councillors were appointed by the governor of the State of
Deseret. Similar charters were provided for Ogden, Provo City,
and other settlements.

As soon as Salt Lake City was laid off into wards, Young had a
Bishop placed over each of these, and, always under his
direction, these Bishops practically controlled local affairs to
the date of the city charter. Each Bishop came to be a magistrate
of his ward,* and under them in all the settlements all public
work was carried on and all revenue collected. The High Council
of ten is defined by Tullidge as "a quorum of judges, in equity
for the people, at the head of which is the President of the
state."

* Brigham Young testified in the Tabernacle as to the kind of
justice that was meted out in the Bishops' courts. In his sermon
of March 6, 1856, he said: "There are men here by the score who
do not know their right hands from their left, so far as the
principles of justice are concerned. Does our High Council? No,
for they will let men throw dirt in their eyes until you cannot
find the one hundred millionth part of an ounce of common sense
in them. You may go to the Bishops' courts, and what are they? A
set of old grannies. They cannot judge a case pending between two
old women, to say nothing of a case between man and man:' Journal
of Discourses, Vol. III, p. 225.

These men did not hesitate to attempt a currency of their own. On
the arrival of the Mormons in the valley, they first made their
exchanges through barter. Paper currency was issued in 1849 and
some years later. When gold dust from California appeared in
1849, some of it was coined in Salt Lake City by means of
homemade dies and crucibles. The denominations were $2.50, $5,
$10, and $20. Some of these coins, made without alloy, were
stamped with a bee-hive and eagle on one side, and on the reverse
with the motto, "Holiness to the Lord" in the so-called Deseret
alphabet. This alphabet was invented after their arrival in Salt
Lake Valley, to assist in separating the Mormons from the rest of
the nation, its preparation having been intrusted to a committee
of the board of regents in 1853. It contained thirty-two
characters. A primer and two books of the Mormon Bible were
printed in the new characters, the legislature in 1855 having
voted $2500 to meet the expense; but the alphabet was never
practically used, and no attempt is any longer made to remember
it. Early in 1849 the High Council voted that the Kirtland
bank-bills (of which a supply must have remained unissued) be put
out on a par with gold, and in this they saw a fulfilment of the
prophet's declaration that these notes would some day be as good
as gold.

Another early ordinance passed by the Deseret legislature
incorporated "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints,"
authorizing the appointment of a trustee in trust to hold and
manage all the property of the church, which should be free from
tax, and giving the church complete authority to make its own
regulations, "provided, however, that each and every act or
practice so established, or adopted for law or custom, shall
relate to solemnities, sacraments, ceremonies, consecrations,
endowments, tithing, marriages, fellowship, or the religious
duties of man to his Maker, inasmuch as the doctrines,
principles, practices, or performances support virtue and
increase morality, and are not inconsistent with or repugnant to
the constitution of the United States or of this State, and are
founded on the revelations of the Lord." Thus early was the
ground taken that the practice of polygamy was a constitutional
right. Brigham Young was chosen as the trustee.

The second ordinance passed by this legislature incorporated the
University of the State of Deseret, at Salt Lake City, to be
governed by a chancellor and twelve regents.

The earliest non-Mormons to experience the effect of that
absolute Mormon rule, the consequences of which the Missourians
had feared, were the emigrants who passed through Salt Lake
Valley on their way to California after the discovery of gold, or
on their way to Oregon. The complaints of the Californians were
set forth in a little book, written by one of them, Nelson
Slater, and printed in Colona, California, in 1851, under the
title, "Fruits of Mormonism." The general complaints were set
forth briefly in a petition to Congress containing nearly two
hundred and fifty signatures, dated Colona, June 1, 1851, which
asked that the territorial government be abrogated, and a
military government be established in its place. This petition
charged that many emigrants had been murdered by the Mormons when
there was a suspicion that they had taken part in the earlier
persecutions; that when any members of the Mormon community,
becoming dissatisfied, tried to leave, they were pursued and
killed; that the Mormons levied a tax of two per cent on the
property of emigrants who were compelled to pass a winter among
them; that it was nearly impossible for emigrants to obtain
justice in the Mormon courts; that the Mormons, high and low,
openly expressed treasonable sentiments against the United States
government; and that letters of emigrants mailed at Salt Lake
City were opened, and in many instances destroyed.

Mr. Slater's book furnishes the specifications of these general
charges.

CHAPTER VII. The "Reformation"

Young soon had occasion to make practical use of the dictatorial
power that he had assumed. The character which those members of
the flock who had migrated from Missouri and Illinois had
established among their neighbors in those states was not changed
simply by their removal to a wilderness all by themselves. They
had no longer the old excuse that their misdeeds were reprisals
on persecuting enemies, but this did not save them from the
temptation to exercise their natural propensities. Again we shall
take only the highest Mormon testimony on this subject.

One of the first sins for which Young openly reproved his
congregation was profane swearing. He brought this matter
pointedly to their attention in an address to the Conference of
October 9, 1852, when he said: "You Elders of Israel will go into
the canons, and curse and swear--damn and curse your oxen, and
swear by Him who created you. I am telling the truth. Yes, you
rip and curse and swear as bad as any pirates ever did."*

* Journal of Discourses, Vol. I, p. 211.

Possibly the church authorities could have overlooked the
swearing, but a matter which gave them more distress was the
insecurity of property. This became so great an annoyance that
Young spoke out plainly on the subject, and he did not attempt to
place the responsibility outside of his own people. A few
citations will illustrate this.

In an address in the Tabernacle on June 5, 1853, noticing
complaints about the stealing and rebranding of cattle, he said:
"I will propose a plan to stop the stealing of cattle in coming
time, and it is this--let those who have cattle on hand join in a
company, and fence in about fifty thousand acres of land, and so
keep on fencing until all the vacant land is substantially
enclosed. Some persons will perhaps say, 'I do not know how good
or how high a fence it will be necessary to build to keep thieves
out.' I do not know either, except you build one that will keep
out the devil."* On another occasion, with a personal grievance
to air, he said in the Tabernacle: "I have gone to work and made
roads to get wood, and have not been able to get it. I have cut
it down and piled it up, and still have not got it. I wonder if
anybody else can say so. Have any of you piled up your wood, and,
when you have gone back, could not find it? Some stories could be
told of this kind that would make professional thieves
ashamed."**

* Journal of Discourses, Vol. I, p. 252.

** Ibid., Vol. I, p. 213.

Young made no concealment of the fact that men high in the
councils of the church were among the peculators. In his
discourse of June 15, 1856, he said: "I have proof ready to show
that Bishops have taken in thousands of pounds in weight of
tithing which they have never reported to the General Tithing
Office. We have documents to show that Bishops have taken in
hundreds of bushels of wheat, and only a small portion of it has
come into the General Tithing Office. They stole it to let their
friends speculate upon."*

* Ibid., Vol. III, p. 342.

The new-comers from Europe also received his attention. Referring
to unkept promises of speedy repayment by assisted immigrants of
advances made to them, Young said, in 1855: "And what will they
do when they get here? Steal our wagons, and go off with them to
Canada, and try to steal the bake-kettles, fryingpans, tents, and
wagon-covers; and will borrow the oxen and run away with them, if
you do not watch them closely. Do they all do this? No, but many
of them will try to do it."* And again, a month later: "What
previous characters some of you had in Wales, in England, in
Scotland, and perhaps in Ireland. Do not be scared if it is
proven against some one in the Bishop's court that you did steal
the poles from your neighbor's garden fence. If it is proven that
you have been to some person's wood pile and stolen wood, don't
be frightened, for if you will steal it must be made manifest."
** J. M. Grant was quite as plain spoken. In an address in the
bowery in Salt Lake City in September, 1856, he declared that
"you can scarcely find a place in this city that is not full of
filth and abominations."***

* Ibid., Vol. III, p. 3.

** Ibid., Vol. III, p. 49.

*** Ibid., Vol. IV, p. 51.

Young's denunciations were not quietly accepted, but protests and
threats were alike wasted upon him. Referring to complaints of
some of the flock that his denunciation was more than they could
bear, he replied, "But you have got to bear it, and, if you will
not, make up your minds to go to hell at once and have done with
it." * On another occasion he said, "You need, figuratively, to
have it rain pitchforks, tines downward, from this pulpit, Sunday
after Sunday." On another occasion, alluding to letters he had
received, warning him against attacking men's characters, he
said, "When such epistles come to me, I feel like saying, I ask
no advice of you nor of all your clan this side of hell."**

* Journal of Discourses, Vol. III, p. 49.

** Ibid, p. 50.

When mere denunciation did not reform his followers, Young became
still plainer in his language, and began to explain to them the
latitude which the church proposed to take in applying
punishment. In a remarkable sermon on October 6, 1855, on the
"stealing, lying, deceiving, wickedness, and covetousness" of the
elders in Israel, he spoke as follows:--

"Live on here, then, you poor miserable curses, until the time of
retribution, when your heads will have to be severed from your
bodies. Just let the Lord Almighty say, Lay judgment to the line
and righteousness to the plummet,* and the time of thieves is
short in this community. What do you suppose they would say in
old Massachusetts should they hear that the Latter-day Saints had
received a revelation or commandment to 'lay judgment to the line
and righteousness to the plummet'? What would they say in old
Connecticut? They would raise a universal howl of, 'How wicked
the Mormons are. They are killing the evil doers who are among
them. Why, I hear that they kill the wicked away up yonder in
Utah.' . . . What do I care for the wrath of man? No more than I
do for the chickens that run in my door yard. I am here to teach
the ways of the Lord, and lead men to life everlasting; but if
they have not a mind to go there, I wish them to keep out of my
path."**

* These words, from Isaiah xxviii. 17, are constantly used by
Young to denote the extreme punishment which the church might
inflict on any offender.

** Journal of Discourses, Vol. III, p. 50.

From this time Young and his closest associates seemed to make
no concealment of their intention to take the lives of any
persons whom they considered offenders. One or two more citations
from his discourses may be made to sustain this statement. On
February 24, 1856, he declared, "I am not afraid of all hell, nor
of all the world, in laying judgment to the line when the Lord
says so."* In the following month he told his congregation: "The
time is coming when justice will be laid to the line and
righteousness to the plummet; when we shall take the old
broadsword and ask, Are you for God? And if you are not heartily
on the Lord's side, you will be hewn down."** Heber C. Kimball
was equally plain spoken. A year earlier he had said in the
Tabernacle: "If a man rebels, I will tell him of it, and if he
resents a timely warning, HE IS UNWISE . . . . I have never yet
shed man's blood, and I pray to God that I never may, unless it
is actually necessary."*** Sultans and doges have freely used
assassination as a weapon, but it seems to have remained for the
Mormon church under Brigham Young to declare openly its intention
to make whatever it might call church apostasy subject to capital
punishment.

*Journal of Discourses, Vol. III, p. 241.

** Ibid., p. 266.

*** Ibid., pp, 163-164.

Out of the lawless condition of the Mormon flock, as we have thus
seen it pictured, and out of this radical view of the proper
punishment of offenders, resulted, in 1856, that remarkable
movement still known in Mormondon as "The Reformation "--a
movement that has been characterized by one writer as "a reign of
lust and fanatical fury unequalled since the Dark Ages," and by
another as "a fanaticism at once blind, dangerous, and terrible."
During its continuance the religious zealot, the amorous priest,
the jealous lover, the man covetous of worldly goods, and the
framers of the church policy, from acknowledged Apostle to secret
Danite, all had their own way. " Were I counsel for a Mormon on
trial for a crime committed at the time under consideration, I
should plead wholesale insanity," said J. H. Beadle. It was
during this period that that system was perfected under which the
life of no man,--or company of men,--against whom the wrath of
the church was directed, was of any value; no household was safe
from the lust of any aged elder; no person once in the valley
could leave it alive against the church's consent.

The active agent in starting "The Reformation" was the inventor
of "blood atonement," Jedediah M. Grant.* That his censure of a
Bishop and his counsellors at Kayesville was the actual origin of
the movement, as has been stated,** cannot be accepted as proven,
in view of the preparation made for the era of blood, as
indicated in the church discourses. Lieutenant Gunnison, for whom
the Mormons in later years always asserted their friendship,
writing concerning his observations as early as 1852, said:--

* A correspondent of the. New York Times at this date described
Grant as "a tall, thin, repulsive-looking man, of acute, vigorous
intellect, a thorough-paced scoundrel, and the most essential
blackguard in the pulpit. He was sometimes called Brigham's
sledge hammer."

** "Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 293.

"Witnesses are seldom put on oath in the lower courts, and there
is nothing known of the 'law's delay,' and the quibbles whereby
the ends of truth and justice may be defeated. But they have a
criminal code called 'The Laws of the Lord,' which has been given
by revelation and not promulgated, the people not being able
quite to bear it, or the organization still too imperfect. It is
to be put in force, however, before long, and when in vogue, all
grave crimes will be punished and atoned for by cutting off the
head of the offender. This regulation arises from the fact that
without shedding of blood there is no remission."*

* "History of the Mormons," Book 1, Chapter X.

Gunnison's statement furnishes indisputable proof that this legal
system was so generally talked of some four years before it was
put in force that it came to the ears of a non-Mormon temporary
resident.

After the condemnation of the Kayesville offenders and their
rebaptism, the next move was the appointment of missionaries to
hold services in every ward, and the sending out of what were
really confessors, appointed for every block, to inquire of
all--young and old--concerning the most intimate details of their
lives. The printed catechism given to these confessors was so
indelicate that it was suppressed in later years. These prying
inquisitors found opportunity to gain information for their
superiors about any persons suspected of disloyalty, and one use
they made of their visitations was to urge the younger sisters to
be married to the older men, as a readier means of salvation than
union with men of their own age. That there was opposition to
this espionage is shown by some remarks of H. C. Kimball in the
Tabernacle, in March, 1856, when he said: "I have heard some
individuals saying that, if the Bishops came into their houses
and opened their cupboards, they would split their heads open.
THAT WOULD NOT BE A WISE OR SAFE OPERATION." *