I regard the mission of the Latter-day Saints as the most important
that has fallen to the lot of man because we, as the people of God,
live in the most important period of the world's age—the dispensation
of the fulness of times, in which the God of heaven has set his hand a
second time to recover his people, the house of Israel; to lay the
foun dation of the fulfillment of the promises made to the fathers
through Moses and the Prophets, and to bring to pass the covenants
made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and those made with Joseph the son
of Jacob, concerning his seed. The Book of Mormon gives a brief
history of a portion of the house of Joseph who came to this land from Palestine, their native land; and, it not only gives an
account of this people but it foretells their future. A great future
lies before this people in connection with the Latter-day work.
Our mission is not a mission of blood; it is not a mission of war, of
strife or contention, but a mission of peace on earth and good will to
men; a mission to bring life and salvation unto the children of men
who will receive it; a mission to make known the things that God has
revealed for the happiness, glory and exaltation of his children, both
in this world and the world to come. And what God has revealed to us,
which we call our religion, is not only theoretical but eminently
practiced. It could not be otherwise and be the Gospel of life and
salvation. A religion that is exclusively theoretical, that is merely
a matter of faith producing no legitimate works or fruits of that
faith is dead. There are many dead forms of religion in the world; and
as a matter of course they are without force and effect. But the
Gospel of the Son of God revealed anew from heaven in our age and
time, and which his people have espoused, is a living faith, producing
in its votaries its legitimate fruits—love, joy, peace and good works.
I am sorry to say, however, that we are not all examples of that
living faith to the extent that God requires at our hands. In this
respect it is with us as it was with others who preceded us; some of
the seed lies fallen by the way side, producing little effect in them
that received it; some has fallen in stony places, and as anciently,
such rejoice for the time being, but alas! when tribulation or
persecution arises, they having not much depth of soil, are easily
uprooted. Some again has fallen among thorns, and the cares of the
world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it becomes
unfruitful. But blessed are those who break up the fallow ground of
their hearts, thereby preparing themselves by suitable reflection,
meditation, humility and prayer, overcoming the evil that is in them
by the good, that the seed when sown, may take deep root and spring
forth and bear precious fruit, some thirty, some sixty, and some one
hundred fold, according to the depth of the soil and the strength and
cultivation of the mind.
I said our religion was eminently practical, as true religion cannot
be separated from true practice. It teaches us to visit the fatherless
and the widow in their affliction, and to keep ourselves unspotted
from the world; it teaches charity and love one toward another, and to
assist to bear each other's burdens, and be one in Christ Jesus. Just
before the Savior was offered up upon the cross he prayed to his
Father in behalf of his disciples and those who should believe on him
through their ministrations, that they might be one with him as he was
one with the Father.
Now it is quite a fine thing in the estimation of the Christian world
to preach about Jesus and his doctrines; but when it comes to practice
it is quite another thing. One of the main objects of the Latter-day
Saints is to become united, both spiritually and temporally. The
clergymen of America who have been foremost in working up the late
furor against the "Mormon" people, who have met in solemn conclave
and dictated resolutions and gotten up memorials to Congress, and who
have traveled and visited the noted cities as lecturers, among whom
may be mentioned the celebrated Parson Newman and the
celebrated—what shall I say?—well, Mr. Schuylar Colfax, and others,
have aroused the nation and moved the members of Congress to hostile
legislation against the Latter-day Saints. Their general declaration
has been that polygamy—though polygamy was the war-cry—was not to be
dreaded like "Mormon" unity. They term it priestly influence, or the
influence of the "Mormon" hierarchy. In reflecting upon this
declaration which was freely expressed on numerous occasions during
last winter and spring, in the tirades made against the Latter-day
Saints, it has caused some curious reflections. What would have been
the result if the Methodists, the Presbyterians, the Baptists and all
the prominent denominations of America, had been true disciples of
Christ, and had come under that rule laid down in the Savior's
prayer—if they had all become one in Christ as he was one with the
Father? What would have been the result? Methinks things would be very
different in the history of American government from what we now see.
We will refer, for example, to the condition of things prior to the
late civil war, and about the time the republican party incorporated
in their platform at the Philadelphia convention in 1856, the
celebrated plank known as the twin relics—in which they pledged
themselves to exterminate the twin relics, slavery and polygamy. What
was the condition of the religious sects of America at that time?
Those who are familiar with the history of those times will remember
that preparatory to that great struggle which resulted in the great
civil war, there had been a complete separation and two distinct
organizations of all the prominent sects of America. The Methodist
church was divided into the Methodist church north and the Methodist
church south; the Presbyterians were divided into the Presbyterian
Church north and the Presbyterian church south; the Baptists, the
Campbellites and the other various sects were divided in like manner,
the Mason and Dickson line, as it was called, was the line of division
between the churches north and the churches south; and substantially
the same line marked the boundary between the southern confederacy and
northern. States during the war, for the division commenced in the
churches, and it was the various religious sects of America that
worked up the war. They divided one against another, and brought on
the war. And when the Northern and Southern armies were marching
against and slaying each other by hundreds of thousands, every
regiment and division of the army on both sides were encouraged by the
prayers and preaching of their respective chaplains of the various
sects on both sides, each praying for the success of their arms, that
each side might succeed in using up the opposite side.
Now imagine them, for a moment, to be the true disciples of Christ,
Ministers of the true and everlasting Gospel holding power and
authority from him. What would have been the result if the Lord had
heard the prayers of the religious elements of these two contending
parties? The only thing we can think of as expressing the idea, is the
old fable of the Kilkenny cats, which, it is said, fought each other
and devoured each other all but the tails, and they began to jump at
each other. From the results one would suppose that the Lord heard
the prayers on both sides to a con siderable extent. But it is
too serious a matter to be treated in a jocose style. And, yet, one
can hardly resist the temptation, it is so ludicrous to see people
professing the same holy religion, to be followers of the meek and
lowly Jesus and his righteousness, and preachers of his Gospel arrayed
on each side, stirring up the people to war, urging them on, and
praying to the same God for the success of each others' arms. Now, I
ask, is this an ensample of Christian unity such as the Savior prayed
for, when he asked the Father that all that should believe on him
through the words of his disciples might become one even as he and the
Father were one?
The Latter-day Saints, as I have before remarked, are far from being
as yet what the Lord requires them to be. But that spirit which
accompanies the fulness of the Gospel, and which the Latter-day Saints
have received through the preaching of the Gospel and through
obedience to its requirements, has so far made their hearts as one,
causing them to see eye to eye, and to gather together upon this land
of Joseph, that they might learn more fully the ways of the Lord and
walk in his paths, and cultivate the Christian unity which the Savior
prayed for. And this appears to be the head and front of our
offending. Polygamy is ostensibly the cry; but what reflecting man
that is posted in the history of the times, believes that this has a
particle of influence upon our statesmen? They admit, according to
their own showing, that there is more immorality, depravity, whoredom,
and the terrible consequences of the social evil in one of the great
cities of the Union in a single year than has been in Utah ever since
it has been founded. They know this full well. They know that we are a
people of energy, of industry and honest labor, a people who do not
labor with a view and desire to build ourselves up at the expense and
ruin of our neighbors; but a people who labor to gather from the
elements around us, producing the comforts of life for ourselves and
families. They recognize in us a people who have planted a flourishing
commonwealth in the heart of the great American desert, and made it
possible to populate the surrounding Territories.
In 1847, the standard of the American nation was planted on this Temple
block. I assisted in planting it; and many around me today
participated in those early scenes. At the same time the country lying
west of the Sierra Nevada and between it and the Pacific Coast, was
held under the American flag by the Mormon Battalion, who under
General Kearney captured the State of California from the Mexican
government and held it for the United States government until this
country was ceded to the United States by treaty on the 22nd of
February, 1848. The stars and stripes were planted between the Rocky
Mountains on the east and the Sierra Nevadas west by "Mormon"
colonies, and west to the Pacific coast by the "Mormon Battalion,"
and, the country held for the American government. We proceeded to the
establishment and organization of civil government. This great basin
country between the mountains was incorporated into the State of
Deseret, a provisional government was organized for the State of
Deseret, a republican constitution was framed and adopted by the
people; the country was divided into counties and precincts, local
government was organized, laws adopted and delegates sent to Congress
to ask for admission into the Union. At the same time the gold
hunters were flocking to California after the "Mormon Battalion"
revealed the first gold which they brought to light while dragging
Captain Sutter's mill race. Some of the men are still in our midst who
brought about these results, who first revealed to the astonished
world the gold of California, and who raised the first furor, which
resulted in thousands flocking to the Pacific coast. And mark you, the
first colony of settlers upon that Pacific coast after the capture of
that country through the valor of the "Mormon Battalion," was a
"Mormon" colony shipped from the New England States, who took with
them a printing press, and planted their feet upon the shores of San
Francisco, and there issued the California Star, in 1847, which was
the first publication in the English language west of the Rocky
Mountains—the first free press hailing the American flag and
proclaiming American liberty, the principles of free government; and
at the same time we planted a free press in this city, whence was
issued the DESERET NEWS, proclaiming those principles to all the
world.
Both California and Deseret presented themselves at the same time,
through their delegates, knocking at the door of Congress, praying for
admission into the Union. The prayer of California was accepted; that
of Deseret was rejected.
Jesus had occasion to ask this question of the Jews: If a son shall
ask bread of any of you that is a father, will ye give him a stone?
or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? It might ill become
me perhaps, to apply these words to our national government; but the
facts are that when we presented ourselves as the State of Deseret,
precisely on equal footing with that of California, with equally a
democratic government and republican constitution, both of which
States had been organized out of the old Mexican States of Upper
California, and which had been recently captured from the Mexican
government, and presented themselves to Congress on equal footing; one
was accepted, the other rejected. Instead of granting to Deseret a
State government, Congress gave us a territorial form of government
under the Organic act of 1850. It is true it extended to us certain
rights of self-government, but to a limited extent. We had the right
of representation in the Legislative Assembly, but those rights were
clipped by the absolute veto of a Federal Governor; nor, indeed, is
the absolute veto of a Federal Governor the only veto held over the
Territorial Legislature, Congress itself reserving to itself a right
to annul the acts of the Legislative Assembly, though receiving the
signature of the Governor. But if the Governor chooses to withhold his
signature no matter how wholesome or necessary the measure, it cannot
become law, nor would he be, under the Organic Act, required to assign
any reason for it. The mere whim of a man, a stranger to our country
who has but little, if any, practical knowledge of our needs, and who
himself is not a taxpayer, probably may deprive a whole community of
people of their legal rights. Such is the territorial form of
government, not of all Territories, for with the exception of Utah and
New Mexico, this absolute veto power does not exist on American soil.
Other Territories as well as the States, and the United States, may,
through a two-thirds vote of their legislature, pass any measure over
the veto of its executive.
But what does this signify? It says to us, "we are not willing to
trust you with the rights and privileges of self-government in common
with other American citizens; and it is deemed advisable that we
should hold this check upon your legislature." But notwithstanding we
have been shut out from Statehood, we have prospered and grown into a
flourishing community of people.
On several occasions we have renewed our efforts by appealing to
Congress for the rights of self-government; but on every occasion we
have been put off. But we have continued to prosper, and yet we have
received no aid from the general government in establishing and
maintaining schools, as other portions of the country have. We have
built our schoolhouses and maintained our schools, and educated our
children as best we could. And here let me say that Utah will compare
favorably in educational matters with any portion of the United
States, even the older and richer States; and while the number of
children is three times that of other populations, yet, they are all
enjoying the benefits of a common school education at least; and as
the higher schools are being established the facilities for more
extensive education are accessible.
We have opened up farms and established towns and cities over this
vast country, of 500 miles in extent. We have established mills and
have produced the various cereals and vegetables and fruits, and
raised the beef and mutton, and the wool to supply our factories, and
cotton, to manufacture to a considerable extent, the clothing that we
wear; and we have manufactured to a considerable extent our farming
implements, and yet we are under the necessity of largely importing
manufactured goods. And, today, Utah enjoys prosperity equal, if not
superior to any other Territory, and, indeed, some of the Western
States.
Now these are facts patent to the world. And with such facts can they
in their inmost souls look upon this people as a vicious people, or as
a wicked, licentious people, as a people who are influenced by worldly
considerations and fleshly lusts? Are these the works of the
licentious and dissolute? We invite the people of the United States to
attend our Sabbath School Unions and attend the public gatherings of
the people where they congregate; we invite their statesmen and
honorable men and women of all classes to come and visit us and learn
facts as they exist, instead of swallowing greedily the malicious
calumnies and misrepresentations set afoot concerning us by those who
know little or nothing about us; or if they have known anything about
us, they have sold themselves to the Devil long since, and they are of
their father the Devil, who was a liar from the beginning, and his
works they will do; and when honest people come among us we ask them
not to sit themselves down and allow themselves to be corralled by the
lying hypocrites that are fanning the flame of persecution, and never
come in contact with the people they desire to know and understand.
Why is it that honorable men should act as though they were ashamed to
learn the truth? Why is it they do not come and hear and see for
themselves both sides?
We are accused of disloyalty. We are accused of being governed by
priestcraft, and that we are subjects of the one-man power. Here we
would pause and respectfully say, in the language of Scripture,
"Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and
then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's
eye." Where, I would ask, could we look for a more decidedly marked
expression of the one-man power than in the case we have recently had
in Utah, in which the Governor gave the certificate of election to the
man for whom the insignificant number of 1,300 votes was cast,
withholding it from the rightful representative of the people for whom
18,000 votes were recorded? The persistency with which he and his
friends, the enemies of this people, have sought to fasten this fraud
upon the people in this Territory, not to say anything about the
one-man power provided for in the organic act! A federal governor, a
stranger sent among us with an absolute veto, possessing the power to
wipe out the doings of a whole session of the people's
representatives!
I will further direct attention to all reflecting men to the scenes in
the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States when
the Edmunds' bill was put through under what is called the gag law of
the previous question, cutting off amendments and limiting debate. I
will appeal to every honest man—if there be an honest politician in
the land—by asking, Who among them possesses the freedom of speaking
and acting only in obedience to the party lash, and what Senator or
Representative dare try to air his sentiments or vote contrary to the
dictum of his party leaders? Shame upon them when they talk about the
exercise of one-man power in Utah! If there is a people upon the earth
that exercise greater freedom of speech or action than the Latter-day
Saints, I hope and pray that we may grow until we become their equals
at least.
Every principle in our holy religion tends to freedom, or in the
language of the New Testament, the Gospel is the perfect law of
liberty. The reason that it is so is, because it lifts the spirits of
man above the law, or, in other words, it teaches him to work
righteousness and thereby escape the penalties of the law, and enables
him to enjoy that perfect freedom which God has ordained for all
flesh—the freedom to do right, but there is no liberty to do wrong
without incurring the penalty of that wrongdoing, therefore, every
one who does wrong must accept of the consequences of that wrong, and
may expect to suffer the penalty either in time or in eternity. The
Gospel then extends to us the freedom to do right, and the laws of our
common country used to extend this right and privilege to its
citizens. This was declared by the fathers in the famous Declaration
of Independence, and which was consolidated by the fathers of the
Constitution of our country, which was one of the fruits of their
great struggle.
This famous declaration enunciated the doctrine that "all just powers
of government are derived from the consent of the governed;" and upon
this principle are the institutions of our country founded; and it is
only through the guarantees of this fundamental doctrine underlying
our institutions that there can be any freedom. This declaration of
the fathers embodied in that celebrated instrument, signed on the 4th
of July, 1876, is the embodiment of the principles of civil and
religious liberty, such freedom as God has ever taught and sought to
establish among his children from the beginning of the world.
And whenever there has been a people who have listened to the voice of
God, they have been made free, and oppression has been a stranger to
them. The careful student of the Bible will at once perceive that
everything which God sought to establish among his people, tended to
freedom and the enjoyment of the common rights of humanity. Never did
ancient Israel enjoy as free and happy a government as under the reign
of the judges, from the time Moses led them out of Egyptian bondage
until they clamored for a king. For 430 years they triumphed over
their foes, and they dwelt in peace and unity, and love and freedom
existed, and every tribe was a commonwealth managing its own local
affairs, while they all sustained a central power which counseled and
directed them; and their rulers were judges inspired of God, were
prophets, seers and revelators, who judged in righteousness, and
exercised no control over the liberties and consciences of men. The
same principle is observed in reading the history of the American
continent. The Book of Mormon is replete with testimony in this
direction. And during the palmy days of the Nephites there was no king
among them; and that long and happy period that preceded the coming of
the Savior, and for hundreds of years that followed during the reign
of the judges among the Nephites, liberty and freedom and happiness
prevailed. And although they had at one time in accordance with their
pronounced and persistent desire, a king—King Benjamin and King
Mosiah—yet, these were kings more in name than in fact; they were only
patriarchs or fathers among their people, and the term they apply to
them might quietly have a tendency to cause them to augment power to
themselves and to exercise oppressive jurisdiction over the people,
and foreseeing this King Mosiah beseeched the people to abolish the
office, and establish and maintain free government, and elect their
chief judge or governor by the voice of the people. He reasoned and
explained to them the dangers which would result to them by having a
ruler who was not elected by the people. When Israel began to fall
into darkness and transgression, in the days of Samuel, and they
clamored for a king to lead them to war and thus be like the Gentile
nations around them, it grieved Samuel the Seer to his heart; and he
besought the people to desist from their determination, and he warned
them of the dangers that would follow, telling them that it would lead
to oppression and tyranny, and that taxes would be levied and heavy
burdens would be laid upon the people grievous to be borne, and that
it would finally lead to war, bloodshed and bondage. But they would
not listen. And when the prophet inquired of the Lord what he should
do, he answered and said to Samuel: "Hearken unto the voice of the
people in all they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but
they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them."
Furthermore, the Book of Mormon tells that God will cause a free
government to be established upon this land in the latter days, and
inasmuch as the people will serve the Lord they shall forever be a
free people. And in the Doctrine and Covenants is contained a
revelation which was given to the Latter-day Saints in the early
history of the Church, commanding us to uphold and maintain the
principles of freedom and liberty, as claimed by our fathers and
consolidated in the Constitution of the United States, and in which is
written this remarkable declaration: "Let no man break the laws of the
land, for he that keepeth the laws of God has no need to break the
laws of the land;" and we are further told that we should uphold and
maintain that law which is the Constitutional law of the land; for,
the Lord said, the Constitution was established by wise men whom he
raised up for that purpose, after the land had been redeemed by
bloodshed. This doctrine was taught by the Prophet Joseph Smith, in
the early days of this people, and cannot be separated from the
religion we have embraced; and by the help of the Lord we mean to
maintain those principles to the end, notwithstanding that some of our
American statesmen wax wanton in their feelings and tyrannical in
their acts and expressions, while religious bigots and political
demagogues are undermining the foundations of our American
institutions. They commence today upon Utah; but it is not the first
time. From the time the declaration was made in Philadelphia by the
republican party there have been divers departures from those
principles embraced in our American Constitution. Had the people of
America listened to the voice of the Lord through the Prophet Joseph
Smith, they would have long since freed their slaves in an amicable,
an honorable and economical manner without the shedding of blood. But
they disdained the counsels of the Lord. The Prophet Joseph published
his views in pamphlet form on the powers and duties of the national
government on the then much-mooted question of slavery, in which he
treated upon the compact of the United States as between the North and
South on this question of slavery; and proposed an easy and honorable
plan of settling the question without violating that compact or
encroaching upon the rights of each other; and that was, to negotiate
with the Southern States for the gradual emancipation of their slaves,
the consideration to be met by the national treasury, and fixing a
time after which all children should be born free, thus providing for
a gradual emancipation, and that they might not feel that they were
robbed, and by their being gradually emancipated they would have been
prepared gradually for free government and free labor, and thus the
ill and unpleasant consequences would have been measurably averted, at
least, of turning loose a horde of uncultivated people who were
totally unprepared for American citizenship. Had they listened to this
proposition, less than a tenth part of the cost of the war would have
freed all the slaves, and that too without bloodshed, and the utter
devastation of the Southern States would have been spared.
But we have seen it. And following the war has been inaugurated an era
of degeneracy in public morals, degeneracy in politics and religion, a
degeneracy in the minds of our statesmen which has shown itself in a
desire on their part to tamper with the sacred rights of man, to
tamper with every part of the government, not even excepting the
Supreme Court, which, up to the time of the civil war, was looked
upon by the American people as almost beyond temptation, and beyond
the probability of being corrupted or bribed. But alas! the Supreme
Court itself has been tam pered with. And for many years, almost
from the commencement of that effort to break down the barriers of the
Constitution and to settle this vexed question of slavery by
violence—from that time politicians have sought to sustain themselves
in violent, revolutionary and unconstitutional measures by foisting
into the Supreme Court partisans who are already imbued with extreme
political notions and ideas, whose carrying them with them on the
bench has resulted in many decisions which after ages will greatly
deplore and point out as the stepping stones to the destruction of our
free institutions. But it remains for the Congress of the United
States in 1882 to strike the blow at human freedom which places a vast
people who have enjoyed their freedom in part only for 35 years in
these mountains, at the disposal of a returning board to be sent here
by the President. This is the object of the Edmunds' bill. Its
framers, its advocates and supporters scarcely expect anything from it
toward the extinguishing of polygamy; but they do expect from it the
transfer of our flourishing Territory into the hands of the enemies of
the "Mormon" people. And they expect to disfranchise whom they will,
and decide who may vote and who may hold office, who may become
members of the Legislature, etc., and vice versa; and then dictate
what laws they shall make, and then dictate how the people shall be
taxed to pay their salaries and expenses, unless forsooth, Congress
shall, according to the recommendation of President Arthur, reconsider
that part of the law and make provision for their salaries.
It is not my purpose to attempt to foretell the consequences of this
class of legislation. We shall all see for ourselves; but if our
neighbors, our Gentile friends can stand it, we can; and if our nation
can stand it, we can; and if our statesmen and the people who elect
them and countenance their acts can stand it, we can; and if
merchants, miners, bankers, agents, speculators, etc., among us can
stand it, we can. If the taxes should be doubled up, and burdens put
upon the people, and they can stand their share of it, we can stand
ours, because we are used to it, and they are not. If they can confine
themselves to one woman, I know we can. (Laughter.) The proof of the
pudding you know, is in the eating. We do not intend to be worried; we
have already passed through many very trying places, and we still
expect to find an outlet. I am reminded often of our experience when
traveling through some of the narrow gorges in our mountains; it often
appears that our road has come to an end against a mountain, but when
we get close up to it, we find a turn, and we keep traveling; and this
is sometimes often repeated in a day's travel, until, at last, our
road opens out and a broad, beautiful valley is in sight, which never
fails to bring feelings of relief to the weary traveler, especially if
he is not familiar with the road. Such has been our experience in the
pilgrimage of life up to the present time, and we confidently expect
that He who has led us, through His Holy Priesthood, will continue to
open up our way, and He will do so if we keep our covenants with Him.
Amen.