Utah Territory

“ All who are acquainted with the administration of affairs in Utah, know that the affairs of government, both territorial and county, and also municipal, are the most economically administered of any other Territory or State in the Union ”

“ Utah Territory was organized by act of Congress in the year 1850, and Young received the United States appointment of territorial governor for Utah. Large accessions of emigrants, sent forward by missionaries, rapidly increased the Mormon numbers in Salt Lake; and in the year 1853, the corner-stone of the temple at Salt Lake City was laid. ”

“ The nearest approach to truth will probably be met by assuming the two opposite extremes, and by “splitting the difference.”
POPULATION OF UTAH TERRITORY.In 1849 Mr. Kelly estimated the Mormons to be “about 5000 inhabitants in the town, and 7000 more in the settlements.” In 1850 the seventh official census of the United States numbered the inhabitants of Utah Territory at 11,354 free + 26 slaves = 11,380 souls. In 1853 the Saints were reckoned at 25,000 by the Gentiles, and 30,000 to 35,000 by Mr. O. Pratt, in the “Seer.” ”

“ If thorough measures are adopted, it is believed that within a few years the evils which now afflict Utah will be eradicated, and that this Territory will in good time become one of the most prosperous and attractive of the new States of the Union. ”

“ The foundations are laid with long ceremonies. The fort or block-house is first built, and when the people are lodged the work of agriculture begins. The cities of Utah Territory are somewhat like the “towns” of Cornwall. At present there are three long lines of these juvenile settlements established as caravanserais in the several oases. The first is along the Humboldt River to Carson Valley; the second is by the southern route, viâ Fillmore; and the third is betwixt the two, along “Egan’s Route,” the present mail line. ”

“ Army of Utah encamped near Green River.
Nov. 21. Proclamation of Mr. Cumming, the new governor.
Dec. 15. Mr. Brigham Young's message to the Legislature of Utah.
1858. Jan. 16. Address of citizens of Great Salt Lake City sent to President Buchanan.
February. Colonel Kane reached Great Salt Lake City.
April 5. Governor A. Cumming appointed to Utah Territory after the thankless offer had been refused by sixteen or seventeen political persons; left Camp Scott, near Fort Bridger, and on the 12th of April entered Great Salt Lake City. The "rebellion in Utah" found to be a pure invention. ”

“ Why, at the last general conference in Liverpool, the president had instructions from Salt Lake to propose Brigham Young as ‘prophet, seer, revelator, and King!’”
“King?” I said. “How can President Young ever be ‘king’? Utah is part of the territory of the States, and under their jurisdiction; it is not even a State itself yet, and Congress has refused to sanction the name of Deseret. This country will never suffer a kingdom to be set up in Utah; you must be misinformed, Sister Mary.” ”

“ The history of this subject in Utah is very instructive. The greater number of people in the territory who engage in agriculture are organized into ecclesiastical bodies, trying the experiment of communal institutions. In this way the communal towns are mobile. This mobility is increased by the fact that the towns are usually laid out on Government lands, and for a long time titles to the land in severalty are not obtained by the people. ”

“ The effect of this concentrated and regulated labor is told in the stupendous results already hinted—all danger of famine is warded off, and a sufficient store provided for the saints who should obey the bugle-call of their chieftain, bidding them from afar to this land of promise. A chain of settlements is marked out, and cities founded, as stepping-stones to the Pacific coast; a Provisional government is constituted, and Utah distinctly recognised as a territory in the halls of Congress. ”

“ They are increasing faster since this last catastrophe than ever; and are daily receiving large accessions of new members from Europe, especially from Great Britain. They form the nucleus of the new State of Utah, this year erected into a Territory of the United States, and likely, in the next session of Congress, to be elevated to the dignity of an independent State. ”

“ In this last Congress no less than eight bills were introduced, having for their object the subjugation of the people of Utah to the ring of men who have sought their destruction, and yet the population of this entire Territory does not number as much as a second class city in the United States. ”

“ Utah is not an exception: she is governed, in all respects, by the civil power, and not by the ecclesiastical: the latter is confined wholly to the Churches of the different religious societies who have settled or may settle in the Territory, while the former regulates all by the civil laws. The Latter-day Saints in the capacity of a Church have no more voice in the government of Utah, than the Methodists, or any other religious denomination. They, as well as all other societies, are obliged to submit to the civil powers. ”

“ They settled in the new Territory of Utah in 1847, calling their capital Salt Lake City, and spreading thence through the neighbouring Territories. There they have become a menace to the American system; their numbers are so great that it is against American instincts to deprive them of self-government and keep them under a Congressional despotism; while their polygamy and submission to their hierarchy make it impossible to erect them into a State which shall have complete control of marriage and divorce. ”

“ Not the slightest allusion was made to the declarations of independence that had been reiterated throughout the summer and autumn, but the relations of Utah to the United States were discussed as those of a Territory to the Union. The President was himself charged with treason in his action towards the Mormons, the Governor and Judges whom he had appointed were reviled as depraved and abandoned men, and the army was again proclaimed a mob,—while Utah was lauded as the "most loyal Territory known since the days of the Revolution." ”

“ Utah has a population of some fifty-two or fifty-three thousand—more or less—rascals. Governor Cumming has informed the President exactly how matters stand in respect to them. Neither life nor property is safe, he says, and bands of depredators roam unpunished through the territory. The United States judges have abandoned their offices, and the law is boldly defied every where. ”

“ Nevada, moreover, lies under the disadvantage of having on one side of it the finest portion of California, on the other the finest portion of Utah, and sandwiched between two such Beauties, such a Beast naturally looks its worst. For the northern angle of Utah is by far the most fertile part of the territory, possessing, in patches, some incomparable meadows, and corn-lands of wondrous fertility. As compared with the prodigious agricultural and pastoral wealth of such states as Missouri, Illinois, or Ohio, the Cache Valleys and Bear Valleys of Utah seem of course insignificant enough ”

“ I have endeavored to urge men of national standing, men who hold high positions in the Government, to visit Utah. And I may say that some of the warmest friends we have, while they do not sympathize particularly with our religious views, but are tolerant and desirous that we should have our rights in common with other people, are those who have visited this Territory and have seen us in our homes, and have had opportunities of witnessing the changes that [have] been effected in this desert land by our residence and labors. ”

“ Peace with all the tribes was preserved during the whole term of administration. Stringent legislation against polygamy in Utah was recommended, and under the law enacted March 22, 1882, many polygamists were indicted, convicted, and punished. The Utah commission, to aid in the better government of the territory, was appointed under the same act. The final recommendation of the president in his messages of 1883 and 1884 was that congress should assume the entire political control of the territory, and govern it through commissioners. ”

“ The Mormon Utah settlement by 1850 had a population of 11,000. The number of converts brought from abroad during the first ten years is put at 17,000, mostly from England. By 1887 the Mormons are said to have brought more than 85,000 of the working classes from England and northern Europe to the Great Basin of the Rocky Mountains.
Brigham Young in 1849 organized his territory as "The Provisional State of Deseret," including [Pg 205] what is now Utah and Nevada, and parts of Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. ”

“ The district court of the third judicial district decided that the act of 1852, which vested the appointment of the auditor of public accounts in the legislature by a joint vote of its two branches, and the act of 1878, which transferred the power to fill this office to an election by the people of the territory at a general election, were void, as being in conflict with the seventh section of the organic act of September 9, 1850, creating the territory of Utah. ”

“ That arbitrary line left within the Louisiana acquisition a little valley in the midst of rocky mountains, where several branches of the Grand river, one of the affluents of the Colorado, take their rise. Hero is the map. Here spreads out the vast territory of Utah, more than one hundred and eighty-seven thousand square miles. Here is the little spot, hardly a pin's point upon the map, which I cover with the tip of my little finger, which, according to the boundary fixed by the territorial bill, was cut off from the Louisiana acquisition and included in Utah. ”

“ If they could get an appointment in any other Territory, or a magistracy in the District of Columbia, or a clerkship in a Department, or the appointment of a weigher or gauger in the Custom House, they would never come to Utah. Coming to Utah was the last thing and the last place for a man perfectly desperate for the want of an office. ”

“ The Uintah Utes, numbering 800, are now residing upon a reservation of 2,039,040 acres in Uintah Valley, in the north-eastern corner of the Territory, set apart for the occupancy of the Indians in Utah by Executive order of October 3d, 1861, and by Act of Congress of May 5th, 1864. This reservation comprises some of the best farming land in Utah, and is of sufficient extent to maintain all the Indians in the Territory. Some of the Indians located here show a disposition to engage in agriculture, though most of them still prefer the chase to labor. ”

“ There was something compulsory about all phases of life in Utah during Brigham Young's regime—the form of employment for the men, the domestic regulations of the women, the church duties each should perform, and even the location in the territory which they should call their home. ”

“ Having read the above statement of Judge Crane, delegate from the proposed Territory of Nevada, I will state from my own observation, having resided in the Territory of Utah for over three years, for a portion of which time I was in Carson Valley, that I heartily concur with him, and fully indorse his statement in relation to the condition of things in Western Utah, and seriously believe that the wants and necessities of the people of that portion of the Territory demand its immediate organization. ”

“ What dreams of empire held their thoughts as they trekked across the plains can only be conjectured. [17]
Outposts, forts, and settlements were scattered throughout the vast area they hoped to dominate. Western Colorado, southwestern Wyoming, southern Idaho, Utah, Nevada, northern Arizona and southern California were all included in their colonization plans. Strategic points throughout this whole vast empire were to be occupied and controlled. The intervening territory would be filled in later with the great number of converts to the faith pouring in from Europe. ”

“ In 1849 the Mormons organized a "free and independent" government and erected the "State of Deseret," with Brigham Young as its head. But the very next year Congress deliberately snubbed it and created the "Territory of Utah" out of the same accumulation of mountains, sage-brush, alkali and general desolation,—but made Brigham Governor of it. ”

“ We are just beginning to learn that we are all children of one Father and members of one family; and when one member suffers or is benefited, all the members suffer or rejoice. So when Utah comes into the Union with every one free, it is not only that State which is benefited, but we and all the world. As the stars at night come out one by one, so will they come out one by one on our flag, till the whole blue field is a blaze of glory. We expected it of the men of Utah. ”

“ Up to 1849, Utah had no political history. Settling in a Mexican province, the contest to determine its future ownership by the United States then in progress, the people in common with most pioneer communities established their own form of government. ”

“ In a few generations to come, if this characteristic continues to manifest itself proportionately, there will be a continual necessity for spreading forth, Utah will become too small for her spreading population, and in all the adjacent Territories and States, those who have been drawn together under her institutions, who have accepted her faith and believe in her destiny,—those will be found measurably carrying out the ideas which to-day permeate our society in a local capacity. ”

“ Utah has been made chiefly famous through the Mormons, who emigrated thither before the discovery of gold in California. Its size is about double that of the State of New York, and its chief resources are mineral and agricultural. It forms a part of the Mexican cession of 1848, and its name is derived from the Ute or Utah Indians. Salt Lake City was founded, and Utah asked for admission into the Union in 1849, but was refused. A territorial government was organized in 1860, with Brigham Young as governor. ”

“ Settlers who can go to California or to Colorado “pares” will hardly fix themselves in the Utah desert. The Mexican table-lands will be annexed before Gentile immigrants seriously trouble Brigham. Gold and New England are the most dreaded foes of Mormondom. Nothing can save polygamy if lodes and placers such as those of all the surrounding States are found in Utah ”