George A. Smith

“ Under these circumstances, as big a coward as I am, I would say what I pleased; and for one thing I would say that every man that had anything to do with such a filthy, unconstitutional affair was a damned scoundrel. There is not a man, from the President of the United States to the Editors of their sanctorums, clear down to the low-bred letter-writers in this Territory, but would rob the coppers from a dead nigger's eyes, if they had a good opportunity. ”

“ But the evil which they design towards us will fall upon their own heads, and it will grind them to powder. The men that have been living in these valleys, living their religion, and serving their God. ”

“ But for a man to have good blood in his veins, and then to go and disgrace that blood, is perhaps a double responsibility.
If we descended from Abraham, or from Joseph, or from any other virtuous, good, upright man, and we do not emulate his deeds and follow his example, the greater will be our shame.
When I was about eleven years old, my grandfather received letters containing the news that Joseph, the son of uncle Joseph, had discovered, by the revelations of the Almighty, some gold plates, and that these gold plates contained a record of great worth. ”

“ My father, late Patriarch John Smith, was the sixth son of Asahel Smith, and was born in New Hampshire. Joseph Smith, the father of the Prophet, and second son of Asahel, was born in Topsfield, Massachusetts. The second Asahel Smith, the father of Elias who addressed you this forenoon, was the third son of my grandfather.
I merely name this fact because, as brother Kimball and brother Young remarked, so very few of that family have been valiant for the truth. There are but few comparatively of their numerous posterity that have been valiant for the truth. ”

“ Our enemies judge us by themselves, for they know that the best of them will renounce their religion for the sake of self interest. They treat it as a mere work of time.
A gentleman once asked another why he turned from the reformed Methodists to the Episcopalians; and he said, in reply, "A good fat living will change any of us." If we can be changed in our religious views by a few soldiers or a few threats, we certainly made a great blunder in coming out here, that we may have the privilege of turning a little, and of giving a little change into the bargain. ”

“ The result was that Prophets and High Priests were arrested and put in prison, numbers of them were murdered, women were ravished, goods and property stolen, houses burnt, and children butchered, and every possible cruelty was invented to cure men of their religion.
I told Mr. Morril, of Vermont, last winter, that it was utterly impossible by law to change men's opinions. If a man believes a thing, you may whip him, and he will believe it still. ”

“ Just look at him—view his conduct towards this people: besides his being my uncle, he has acted most shamefully mean. When I told my uncle I was afraid, he only laughed at me; but I now tell you that if I were not such a well-known coward, I would die like a man of war. The very idea that a man has been awed down by the bayonet is something that I cannot stand. It will do very well for the Emperor of France, and it may do for the Autocrat of Russia, but it don't do for freeborn men ”

“ Mr. Cannon, our minister, pointed his finger at me as I sat alone; for there was not a sinner in the gallery except myself; and he said, "O sinner, I seal you up to eternal damnation, in the name of Jesus Christ." He repeated it three times over, and concluded by saying, "O sinner, may your blood be upon your own head."
I went home that evening and scattered my friends about, leaving the girls at their respective homes; for I, like my brethren, am very fond of the ladies; therefore I carried a goodly proportion of them to meeting every day. ”

“ To this end he is sending out 2,500 troops, with ministers and schoolmasters to regulate things in Utah. Notwithstanding all this, he may possibly find some instances where people may be as determined and stern in their notions as the old lady was of whom I have been speaking.
Now, a religion that is not worth living for is not worth having. If religion is not worth living for, I am sure it is not worth dying for; and of course, if we are not willing to stand the test, our religion is of very little use. ”

“ I went to visit him, and he abused me because I had become favourable, and because uncle Joseph had a private conversation with me. I had always treated him with the greatest respect, and entertained a very high opinion of him. He was a man of good education, and had considerable display; and, being the elder of the family, he naturally elicited from us more or less respect. ”

“ It is like a man that studies the Hebrew language; he has to drink deep before he can do much with it, and I thought I could confound them. In a few days I saw my uncle and talked with him, and in about half-an-hour all my learned objections to the Book of Mormon were dispensed with, and I found myself in the same position as my neighbours; and from that day to this I have been an advocate of the Book of Mormon, and have never suffered it to be slandered nor spoken against without saying something in its favour, with one exception, and then I said something. ”

“ Why, bless you, there are young men in Israel who would suffer far more, if deprived of their tobacco, than the ladies would if their ribbons had to be stripped off right in the public meeting; and therefore I advise them to go to work and plant tobacco, for if they were deprived of it, it would take away their peace and happiness, and they could not nasty and besmear everything within a mile of them ”

“ This was the conduct of William Smith in the days of Joseph and afterwards, up to the present time. The principle that a man should stand upon in this world is simply this—He should do right himself, and thereby set an example to others. ”

“ The Government have tried, year after year, to establish garrisons, and get troops into these valleys. They have had troops at Laramie, at Fort Hall, and several other points; but circumstances so turned that they soon marched into Oregon.
The talk now is that they are going to bring 2,500 soldiers into this Territory. That is not a peace establishment; for twenty-five hundred men are not enough to obtain peace in an Indian country. ”

“ They will send men here who are ignorant of the circumstances that surround us,—men who are totally ignorant of the irrigation of the land by mountain streams; they will permit them to interfere with the rights of the people of this Territory, with fifteen hundred or two thousand bayonets to back them up. ”

“ Of my grandfather's family there is but one living—an old lady by the name of Waller, residing in the city of New York, and she is 90 years of age, and remembers all that has transpired during the last eighty years just as well as if it had all just occurred. ”

“ There are a great many men alive that were there, and lived through the operation, and who were finally driven from Missouri, not to say anything of the hundreds, and thousands, and tens of thousands who are dead, whose deaths were more or less caused by the sufferings and distress that were brought upon them by their extermination. ”

“ Men and women are as apt to be tenacious as the old lady was down in the country, where men have but one wife. She got quarrelling with her husband, and called him "crack-louse." He told her that if she called him that any more, he would drown her. ”

“ Things were so arranged that, if a considerable number came along, I was prepared to communicate it to the brethren. I have had considerable experience, and I have learned that, curious as it may appear, whenever a man becomes a Latter-day Saint, the Devil wants to kill him. ”

“ They are determined to send who they please for Governor, who they please for Judges, and who they please for our Territorial Officers, and to permit those men whom they send to place their interpretation upon the acts of our Territorial Legislature, and upon the condition of things as they surround us ”