Part 60 (1/2)
Further answers were in the shape of an argument that the federal government was responsible for the losses of the Saints in Missouri and Illinois.
CHAPTER XII. -- THE MORMON ”WAR”
The government at Was.h.i.+ngton and the people of the Eastern states knew a good deal more about Mormonism in 1856 than they did when Fillmore gave the appointment of governor to Young in 1850. The return of one federal officer after another from Utah with a report that his office was untenable, even if his life was not in danger, the practical nullification of federal law, and the light that was beginning to be shed on Mormon social life by correspondents of Eastern newspapers had aroused enough public interest in the matter to lead the politicians to deem it worthy of their attention. Accordingly, the Republican National Convention, in June, 1856, inserted in its platform a plank declaring that the const.i.tution gave Congress sovereign power over the territories, and that ”it is both the right and the duty of Congress to prohibit in the territories those twin relics of barbarism--polygamy and slavery.”
A still more striking proof of the growing political importance of the Mormon question was afforded by the attention paid to it by Stephen A.
Douglas in a speech in Springfield, Illinois, on June 12, 1856, when he was hoping to secure the Democratic nomination for President.
This former friend of the Mormons, their spokesman in the Senate, now declared that reports from the territory seemed to justify the belief that nine-tenths of its inhabitants were aliens; that all were bound by horrid oaths and penalties to recognize and maintain the authority of Brigham Young; and that the Mormon government was forming alliances with the Indians, and organizing Danite bands to rob and murder American citizens. ”Under this view of the subject,” said he, ”I think it is the duty of the President, as I have no doubt it is his fixed purpose, to remove Brigham Young and all his followers from office, and to fill their places with bold, able, and true men; and to cause a thorough and searching investigation into all the crimes and enormities which are alleged to be perpetrated daily in that territory under the direction of Brigham Young and his confederates; and to use all the military force necessary to protect the officers in discharge of their duties and to enforce the laws of the land. When the authentic evidence shall arrive, if it shall establish the facts which are believed to exist, it will become the duty of Congress to apply the knife, and cut out this loathsome, disgusting ulcer.”*
* Text of the speech in New York Times of June 23, 1856.
This, of course, caused the Mormons to pour out on Judge Douglas the vials of their wrath, and, when he failed to secure the presidential nomination, they found in his defeat the verification of one of Smith's prophecies.
The Mormons, on their part, had never ceased their demands for statehood, and another of their efforts had been made in the preceding spring, when a new const.i.tution of the State of Deseret was adopted by a convention over which the notorious Jedediah M. Grant presided, and sent to Was.h.i.+ngton with a memorial pleading for admission to the Union, ”that another star, shedding mild radiance from the tops of the mountains, midway between the borders of the Eastern and Western civilization, may add its effulgence to that bright light now so broadly illumining the governmental pathway of nations”; and declaring that ”the loyalty of Utah has been variously and most thoroughly tested.” Congress treated this application with practical contempt, the Senate laying the memorial on the table, and the chairman of the House Committee on Territories, Galusha A. Grow, refusing to present the const.i.tution to the House.
Alarmed at the manifestations of public feeling in the East, and the demand that President Buchanan should do something to vindicate at least the dignity of the government, the Mormon leaders and press renewed their attacks on the character of all the federal officers who had criticized them, and the Deseret News urged the President to send to Utah ”one or more civilians on a short visit to look about them and see what they can see, and return and report.” The value of observations by such ”short visitors” on such occasions need not be discussed.
President Buchanan, instead of following any Mormon advice, soon after his inauguration directed the organization of a body of troops to march to Utah to uphold the federal authorities, and in July, after several persons had declined the office, appointed as governor of Utah Alfred c.u.mming of Georgia. The appointee was a brother of Colonel William c.u.mming, who won renown as a soldier in the War of 1812, who was a Union party leader in the nullification contest in Jackson's time, and who was a partic.i.p.ant in a duel with G. McDuffie that occupied a good deal of attention. Alfred c.u.mming had filled no more important positions than those of mayor of Augusta, Georgia, sutler in the Mexican War, and superintendent of Indian affairs on the upper Missouri. A much more commendable appointment made at the same time was that of D. R. Eckles, a Kentuckian by birth, but then a resident of Indiana, to be chief justice of the territory. John Cradlebaugh and C. E. Sinclair were appointed a.s.sociate justices, with John Hartnett as secretary, and Peter K. Dotson as marshal. The new governor gave the first ill.u.s.tration of his conception of his duties by remaining in the East, while the troops were moving, asking for an increase of his salary, a secret service fund, and for transportation to Utah. Only the last of these requests was complied with.
President Buchanan's position as regards Utah at this time was thus stated in his first annual message to Congress (December 8, 1857):--
”The people of Utah almost exclusively belong to this [Mormon] church, and, believing with a fanatical spirit that he [Young] is Governor of the Territory by divine appointment, they obey his commands as if these were direct revelations from heaven. If, therefore, he chooses that his government shall come into collision with the government of the United States, the members of the Mormon church will yield implicit obedience to his will. Unfortunately, existing facts leave but little doubt that such is his determination. Without entering upon a minute history of occurrences, it is sufficient to say that all the officers of the United States, judicial and executive, with the single exception of two Indian agents, have found it necessary for their own safety to withdraw from the Territory, and there no longer remained any government in Utah but the despotism of Brigham Young. This being the condition of affairs in the Territory, I could not mistake the path of duty. As chief executive magistrate, I was bound to restore the supremacy of the const.i.tution and laws within its limits. In order to effect this purpose, I appointed a new governor and other federal officers for Utah, and sent with them a military force for their protection, and to aid as a posse comitatus in case of need in the execution of the laws.
”With the religious opinions of the Mormons, as long as they remained mere opinions, however deplorable in themselves and revolting to the moral and religious sentiments of all Christendom, I have no right to interfere. Actions alone, when in violation of the const.i.tution and laws of the United States, become the legitimate subjects for the jurisdiction of the civil magistrate. My instructions to Governor c.u.mming have, therefore, been framed in strict accordance with these principles.”
This statement of the situation of affairs in Utah, and of the duty of the President in the circ.u.mstances, did not admit of criticism. But the country at that time was in a state of intense excitement over the slavery question, with the situation in Kansas the centre of attention; and it was charged that Buchanan put forward the Mormon issue as a part of his scheme to ”gag the North” and force some question besides slavery to the front; and that Secretary of War Floyd eagerly seized the opportunity to remove ”the flower of the American army” and a vast amount of munition and supplies to a distant place, remote from Eastern connections. The princ.i.p.al newspapers in this country were intensely partisan in those days, and party organs like the New York Tribune could be counted on to criticise any important step taken by the Democratic President. Such Mormon agents as Colonel Kane and Dr. Bernhisel, the Utah Delegate to Congress, were doing active work in New York and Was.h.i.+ngton, and some of it with effect. Horace Greeley, in his ”Overland journey,” describing his call on Brigham Young a few years later, says that he was introduced by ”my friend Dr. Bernhisel.” The ”Tribune Almanac” for 1859, in an article on the Utah troubles, quoted as ”too true” Young's declaration that ”for the last twenty-five years we have trusted officials of the government, from constables and justices to judges, governors, and presidents, only to be scorned, held in derision, insulted and betrayed.”* Ulterior motives aside, no President ever had a clearer duty than had Buchanan to maintain the federal authority in Utah, and to secure to all residents in and travellers through that territory the rights of life and property. The just ground for criticising him is, not that he attempted to do this, but that he faltered by the way.**
* Greeley's leaning to the Mormon side was quite persistent, leading him to support Governor c.u.mming a little later against the federal judges. The Mormons never forgot this. A Was.h.i.+ngton letter of April 24, 1874, to the New York Times said: ”When Mr. Greeley was nominated for President the Mormons heartily hoped for his election. The church organs and the papers taken in the territory were all hostile to the administration, and their clamor deceived for a time people far more enlightened than the followers of the modern Mohammed. It is said that, while the canva.s.s was pending, certain representatives of the Liberal-Democratic alliance bargained with Brigham Young, and that he contributed a very large sum of money to the treasury of the Greeley fund, and that, in consideration of this contribution, he received a.s.surances that, if he should send a polygamist to Congress, no opposition would be made by the supporters of the administration that was to be, to his admission to the House. Brigham therefore sent Cannon instead of returning Hooper.”
** It is curious to notice that the Utah troubles are entirely ignored in the ”Life of James Buchanan” (1883) by George Ticknor Curtis, who was the counsel for the Mormons in the argument concerning polygamy before the United States Supreme Court in 1886.
Early in 1856 arrangements were entered into with H. C. Kimball for a contract to carry the mail between Independence, Missouri, and Salt Lake City. Young saw in this the nucleus of a big company that would maintain a daily express and mail service to and from the Mormon centre, and he at once organized the Brigham Young Express Carrying Company, and had it commended to the people from the pulpit. But recent disclosures of Mormon methods and purposes had naturally caused the government to question the propriety of confiding the Utah and transcontinental mails to Mormon hands, and on June 10, 1857, Kimball was notified that the government would not execute the contract with him, ”the unsettled state of things at Salt Lake City rendering the mails unsafe under present circ.u.mstances.” Mormon writers make much of the failure to execute this mail contract as an exciting cause of the ”war.” Tullidge attributes the action of the administration to three doc.u.ments--a letter from Mail Contractor W. M. F. Magraw to the President, describing the situation in Utah, Judge Drummond's letter of resignation, and a letter from Indian Agent T. S. Twiss, dated July 13, 1856, informing the government that a large Mormon colony had taken possession of Deer Creek Valley, only one hundred miles west of Fort Laramie, driving out a settlement of Sioux whom the agent had induced to plant corn there, and charging that the Mormon occupation was made with a view to the occupancy of the country, and ”under cover of a contract of the Mormon church to carry the mails.”* Tullidge's statement could be made with hope of its acceptance only to persons who either lacked the opportunity or inclination to ascertain the actual situation in Utah and the President's sources of information.
* All these may be found in House Ex. Doc. No. 71, 1st Session, 35th Congress.
As to the mails, no autocratic government like that of Brigham Young would neglect to make what use it pleased of them in its struggle with the authorities at Was.h.i.+ngton. As early as November, 1851, Indian Agent Holman wrote to the Indian commissioner at Was.h.i.+ngton from Salt Lake City: ”The Gentiles, as we are called who do not belong to the Mormon church, have no confidence in the management of the post-office here. It is believed by many that there is an examination of all letters coming and going, in order that they may ascertain what is said of them and by whom it is said. This opinion is so strong that all communications touching their character or conduct are either sent to Bridger or Laramie, there to be mailed. I send this communication through a friend to Laramie, to be there mailed for the States.”
Testimony on this point four years later, from an independent source, is found in a Salt Lake City letter, of November 3, 1855, to the New York Herald. The writer said: ”From September 5, to the 27th instant the people of this territory had not received any news from the States except such as was contained in a few broken files of California papers.... Letters and papers come up missing, and in the same mail come papers of very ancient dates; but letters once missing may be considered as irrevocably lost. Of all the numerous numbers of Harper's, Gleason's, and other ill.u.s.trated periodicals subscribed for by the inhabitants of this territory, not one, I have been informed, has ever reached here.”
The forces selected for the expedition to Utah consisted of the Second Dragoons, then stationed at Fort Leavenworth in view of possible trouble in Kansas; the Fifth Infantry, stationed at that time in Florida; the Tenth Infantry, then in the forts in Minnesota; and Phelps's Battery of the Fourth Artillery, that had distinguished itself at Buena Vista--a total of about fifteen hundred men. Reno's Battery was added later.
General Scott's order provided for two thousand head of cattle to be driven with the troops, six months' supply of bacon, desiccated vegetables, 250 Sibley tents, and stoves enough to supply at least the sick. General Scott himself had advised a postponement of the expedition until the next year, on account of the late date at which it would start, but he was overruled. The commander originally selected for this force was General W. S. Harney; but the continued troubles in Kansas caused his retention there (as well as that of the Second Dragoons), and, when the government found that the Mormons proposed serious resistance, the chief command was given to Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston, a West Point graduate, who had made a record in the Black Hawk War; in the service of the state of Texas, first in 1836 under General Rusk, and eventually as commander-in-chief in the field, and later as Secretary of War; and in the Mexican War as colonel of the First Texas Rifles. He was killed at the battle of s.h.i.+loh during the War of the Rebellion.
General Harney's letter of instruction, dated June 29, giving the views of General Scott and the War Department, stated that the civil government in Utah was in a state of rebellion; he was to attack no body of citizens, however, except at the call of the governor, the judges, or the marshals, the troops to be considered as a posse comitatus; he was made responsible for ”a jealous, harmonious, and thorough cooperation”
with the governor, accepting his views when not in conflict with military judgment and prudence. While the general impression, both at Was.h.i.+ngton and among the troops, was that no actual resistance to this force would be made by Young's followers, the general was told that ”prudence requires that you should antic.i.p.ate resistance, general, organized, and formidable, at the threshold.”