The City of the Saints, and Across the Rocky Mountains to California, by Richard F. Burton

Two points in this subject are truly remarkable. The first is the difference between Utah Territory and all other Anglo-Scandinavian colonies, in which males are usually far more numerous than females. The latter, at Utah, by the census of 1856, are 1781 in excess of the former; almost as great a disproportion as the extra three quarters of a million in England. The second is the rapid growth of the New Faith, and the deep hold which it has taken upon Great Britain. Few Englishmen are aware that their metropolis contains seventeen places of Mormon worship, and their fatherland an army of 4000 volunteer missionaries. In the United States it is also the fashion to ignore the Mormons. The subject, however, will grow in importance, and it is easy to predict that before two decades shall have elapsed, Deserét, unless sent once more upon her travels, will have forced herself into the position of an independent state.

MORMON POLITY.The Mormon polity is, in my humble opinion—based upon the fact that liberty is to mankind in mass a burden far heavier than slavery—the perfection of government. It is the universal suffrage of the American States, tempered by the despotism of France and Russia: in moderate England men have nothing of it but that Tory-Radicalism to which the few of extremest opinions belong. At the semi-annual Conferences, which take place on the 6th of April and the 6th of October, and last for four days, all officers, from the President to the constable, are voted in by direction and counsel—i. e., of the Lord through his Prophet; consequently, re-election is the rule, unless the chief dictator determine otherwise. Every adult male has a vote, and all live under an iron sway. His poor single vote—from which even the sting of ballot has been drawn—gratifies the dignity of the man, and satisfies him with the autocracy which directs him in the way he should go. He has thus all the harmless pleasure of voting, without the danger of injuring himself by his vote. The reverse, duly carried out, frees mankind from king and kaiser, and subjects them to snobs and mobs. Mormon society is modeled upon a civilized regiment: the Prophet is the colonel commanding, and the grades are nicely graduated down to the last neophyte or recruit. I know no form of rule superior to that of Great Salt Lake City; it might supply the author of “Happy Years at Hand” with new ideas for the “Outlines of the Coming Theocracy.” It exerts its beneficial effects equally upon the turbulent and independent American; the sensible and self-sufficient Englishman; the Frenchman, ever lusting after new things; the Switzer, with his rude love of a most problematic liberty; the outwardly cold, inwardly fiery Scandinavian; the Italian, ready to bow down before any practice, with the one proviso that it must be successful; and the German, who demands to be governed by theories and Utopianisms, “worked” by professors “out of the depths of their self-consciousness.”

The following description of a Conference is extracted at length from the “Daily Missouri Republican” of May 4, 1861:

Great Salt Lake City, April 12, 1861.

On the 6th of April, 1830, in a small room about fifteen feet square, in the town of Fayette, Seneca County, New York, a young country lad—Joseph Smith—and five other persons organized that movement now known throughout Christendom as “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints,” or Mormonism. How the units have each increased to tens of thousands, and where those disciples have been found, and how they have been converted, is not the task I assign myself. I assisted, as the Frenchmen say, at the thirty-first anniversary Conference of that obscure movement, and propose to give the readers of the “Republican” its picture, and “nothing extenuate nor set down aught in malice.”

THE MORMON CONFERENCE.Twice a year the Mormons assemble in Conference, on the 6th of April and on the 6th of October, for the purpose of re-electing their presiding authorities, or making such changes among them as are deemed “wisdom” or “necessary”—the chiefs, also, making these periods seasonable for general instruction to the “body”—and in April electing and sending out missionaries to the nations of the earth, where Mormonism is flourishing, or where the New Faith has yet to be introduced.

As the settlements in the Territory are widely scattered, and communication between them rare—except where business or family purposes invite—the Conferences are looked forward to with peculiar interest by the people generally as a time of renewing acquaintance and friendship with those they have known and been associated with in the Old World. To this add the curiosity to see and hear again the “Prophet” and his associates, and the influences that draw the multitude to Conference is comprehended.

Up to within a few years this country has, I am told,[169] been rarely visited by showers of rain, the husbandmen depending almost entirely upon the melting snows of the mountains for irrigating fields and gardens. Very recently the snow and rain had fallen in great abundance, and the muddy roads were rendered almost impassable. Notwithstanding this obstacle, the faithful screwed up courage and traveled in droves from every part of the Territory, and filled the streets of the city during Conference like a county fair.

Early on Saturday morning the carriages and wagons, equestrians and pedestrians, thronged into the city, and long before the opening of the Tabernacle doors the people were gathering in groups, eager for admission to obtain a good seat, fearing the general rush. On the Sunday preceding, Brigham had requested the citizens here to stay at home, and afford their country brethren and sisters an opportunity of getting within the Tabernacle; otherwise there would have been a poor show for the strangers, and as it was they were themselves vastly too many for the dimensions of the building.

At 10 o’clock there were on the stand, according to technical rank and authority:

Of the First Presidency—Presidents Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, and Daniel H. Wells.

Of the Twelve Apostles—Orson Hyde, Willford Woodruff, John Taylor, George A. Smith, Ezra T. Benson, Lorenzo Snow, and Franklin D. Richards.

Of the First Presidency of the Seventies—Joseph Young, Levi W. Hancock, Henry Herriman, Zera Pulsipher, Albert P. Rockwood, and Horace S. Eldredge.

Of the Presidency of the High Priests—Edwin D. Woolley and Samuel W. Richards.

Of the Presidency of the Stake—Daniel Spencer, David Fullmer, and George B. Wallace.

Of the Presidency of the Bishopric—Edward Hunter, Leonard W. Hardy, and Jesse C. Little.

Of the Patriarchs—John Smith and Isaac Morley.

Apostle Hyde called the meeting to order, and in a moment all talking was hushed, and a choir of about a dozen persons, accompanied by a fine-toned organ in the centre of the building, sung:

Apostle Lorenzo Snow offered prayer, and the choir sung, “Praise ye the Lord; ’tis good to praise.”

Apostle Benson was first invited to address the Conference. “Brother Ezra” is generally called a son of thunder—great preacher, I suppose. On this occasion he aimed at being modest, and after expressing his gratitude for the privilege of being permitted to attend Conference, to come and see the Prophet, his counselors, and the twelve apostles, and the good brothers and sisters, he was prepared to bear his testimony.

He knew that Joseph Smith was a prophet; that his predictions had been fulfilled, and were daily fulfilling, to the joy of all the Saints. He would not stop there in his testimony; he would bear testimony to the teachings of President Brigham Young. His counselors—Heber C. Kimball and Daniel H. Wells—were also true as the revelations of Joseph, and he rejoiced in them. Oh, what a joy it was to know that they had such men to lead them! What would be the condemnation of those who rejected their testimony? Ezra was quite serious—yea, serious to shuddering.

The fearfulness of apostasy was eloquently portrayed. False spirits attending it, and false revelations bestowed on the backslider, and every other ugly, disagreeable business was the certain lot of the apostate, and from which the brethren were decently warned.

President Daniel H. Wells was much pleased with the Latter-Day work; it was a great blessing to live in the light of the Gospel. It had been but a few years proclaimed to the world. The channel of communication between heaven and earth was again open to the children of men. Brother Wells referred to the state of the nation. The present trouble was the result of bad treatment to the Saints. The people of God had been driven into the wilderness—thousands might have perished, and the government was indifferent. It was a political axiom, that when governments ceased to protect, the people were released from their obligations. The government had never protected the Saints as other citizens. They had been driven from place to place, and the murderers of Joseph Smith had gone unpunished. Fault had been found with the Mormons because they had asked the government to appoint good men as federal officers—men in whom they had confidence. They were for this called rebels; but they were probably the only people that would yet stand by the Constitution and uphold it.

The government had fallen in the eyes of the civilized world; it had become corrupt and debased. Nowadays nobody expected any thing from public servants but corruption. These things were well known to every body. The Saints had been molested and could get no redress. The Prophet Joseph, moved by the Spirit of the Most High, told their enemies there that they would see mobbing to their heart’s content, for the measure that they meted to the Saints should be meted to them back again.

The Saints could now see the distracted state of the nations, and the confusion of all governments. If they were wise men and women, they would appreciate the blessed inheritance that the Lord had brought them to. He had but one request to make, and that was, that the people should not only believe in the counselings of President Young, but be diligent, and see that his counseling prospered.

President Heber C. Kimball got up with the invocation of “God bless the Saints, and peace be multiplied unto them.” He respected and loved good men and women who were striving to do the will of Heaven. The Mormons were united, and he wanted them to continue so, and be of one heart and of one mind, and to do as they were told. The South had seceded from the North, but the Mormons would never secede from either. He had sometimes a kind of notion that North and South would secede from them, and if they did so the Mormons couldn’t help it, and the Lord would yet make a great people of them, just as fast as they were able to bear it.

Heber had a fling at “the miserable creatures who had been sent here one time and another to rule and judge them.” The yoke was off their neck; they were away out from the confusion, and the yoke was on the neck of their enemies, and the bow-key was in. Many were engaged in trying to have the Mormons associate with them in a national capacity; but they would have nothing to do with them. “No, gentlemen and ladies, we are free from them, and will keep free.” Heber was satisfied with their position in the mountains. Brigham was their governor; had always been so, and would always be so. He went around about with his hands in his pocket, and governed the people. They had the Lord for ruler, and the men whom he delegated could govern the people. He had no fear, for he lived above the law; he transgressed no law, and had nothing to apprehend. With an exhortation to go to and make themselves happy and independent by their own industry, Heber’s racy discourse terminated with a hearty amen from the congregation.

President Brigham Young was much pleased to meet with the Saints. The Church was that day thirty-one years old—it seemed but a short time, yet a great work had been done. He remembered when he had a great anxiety to see some person of foreign birth embrace the faith. For the first few years it was only Americans who received it, but he could now gaze upon tens of thousands from the nations of the Old World. He discarded miracles as being any evidence of the divinity of any man’s mission: men might be astonished by them, but the spirit only could convince and satisfy the mind. Referred to Aaron’s operations: turning his stick into a serpent, filling the air with life, and turning the rivers into blood, did not satisfy. He alluded to the troubles in the States, and warned the people against too great anxiety; thought the nation was breaking up quite fast enough. All he was anxious about was the Saints being prepared for every event in the providence of the Lord. He sometimes wondered if the great men of the nation ever asked themselves the question, “How can a republican government stand?” There was but one way in which it could endure—as the government of heaven endures upon the basis of eternal truth and virtue. Had Martin Van Buren redressed the wrongs committed against the Saints—had he ordered the State of Missouri to restore them to their property, the nation would be stronger to-day than it is. He mourned to see the corruption, and he sometimes felt a blush for being an American. He had been reared by the green mountains of Vermont, and could look down upon the nation and mourn that he had no power to save it. Although he had no reason to doubt that President Lincoln was as good a man as ever sat in the chair of state, he had little hope of his accomplishing much. He was powerless, because of the corruptions that had been introduced and fostered by the chief men of the nation. “Abraham’s” authority and power was like a rope of sand: he was weak as water. The governments that had been had put aside the innocent, justified thieving and every species of debauchery, and had fostered every one that plundered the coffers of the people, and said let it be so.

The choir sung, “Arise, oh glorious Zion,” and with a benediction from President Joseph Young we got home for dinner.

At 2 P.M. the choir sung,

and Bishop Lorenzo D. Young prayed.

The choir sung,

Attention was requested from the congregation, and Apostle John Taylor was to put all the presiding authorities before the people for re-election. Twice a year, in April and October, all the presidents are presented and voted on separately, and such dismissals or changes made that are deemed proper. On this occasion there were some additions made, but not a dissentient voice heard. The present presiding authorities in Mormondom are:

Brigham Young as President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints; Heber C. Kimball, his first, and Daniel H. Wells, his second counselors.

Orson Hyde as President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles; and Orson Pratt, sen., Willford Woodruff, John Taylor, George A. Smith, Amasa Lyman, Ezra T. Benson, Charles C. Rich, Lorenzo Snow, Erastus Snow, Franklin D. Richards, and George Q. Cannon, as members of the said Quorum.

John Smith, Patriarch of the whole Church.

Daniel Spencer as President of this Stake of Zion; and David Fullmer and George B. Wallace, his counselors.

William Eddington, James A. Little, John V. Long, John L. Blythe, George Nebeker, John T. Caine, Joseph W. Young, Gilbert Clements, Brigham Young, jun., Franklin B. Woolley, Orson Pratt, jun., and Howard Spencer, as members of the High Council.

John Young as President of the High Priests’ Quorum; Edwin D. Woolley and Samuel W. Richards, his counselors.

Joseph Young, President of the first seven Presidents of the Seventies; and Levi W. Hancock, Henry Herriman, Zera Pulsipher, Albert P. Rockwood, Horace S. Eldredge, and Jacob Gates, as members of the first seven Presidents of the Seventies.

John Nebeker as President of the Elders’ Quorum; and Elnathan Eldredge and Joseph Felt, his counselors.

Edward Hunter as Presiding Bishop; Leonard W. Hardy and Jesse C. Little, his counselors.

Lewis Wight as President of the Priests’ Quorum; William Whiting and Samuel Moore, his counselors.

M‘Gee Harris as President of the Teachers’ Quorum; Adam Speirs and David Bowman, his counselors.

John S. Carpenter as President of the Deacon’s Quorum; William F. Cook and Warren Hardy, his counselors.

Brigham Young was presented as Trustee in Trust for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Daniel H. Wells as Superintendent of Public Works.

Truman O. Angell, Architect for the Church.

Brigham Young, President of the Perpetual Emigrating Fund to gather the poor.

Heber C. Kimball, Daniel H. Wells, and Edward Hunter, his assistants and agents for said fund.

George A. Smith, Historian and general Church Recorder; and Willford Woodruff, his assistant.

Besides the time consumed in putting every name separately for the action of the assembly, there was a good deal of instruction given about the severities, which is of no outside interest.

Apostles John Taylor and George A. Smith, and Patriarch Assac Morley, addressed the audience.

The apostle Taylor thought the Mormons the freest people on the earth. They could, if they would, reject their rulers twice a year: they had the opportunity. The unity of the Saints pleased them. He questioned Vox populi, vox Dei. He got facetious, and wondered how they would get along, both North and South, with that doctrine. If the voice of the people in the North was the voice of God, and the voice of the people in the South was the voice of God, he was a little interested to know with which of them he would really be. [A Voice in the stand: “Not either of them.”]

With the Saints it was Vox Dei, vox populi; the voice of God first, and the voice of the people afterward. The Spirit dictated and the Saints sustained it. But what were they after? Did they seek to subdue and put their feet on the necks of men? to rule and dictate nations? No. It was only the “little stone cut out of the mountains,” growing into the kingdom that the prophets foresaw that would be established in the last days. The Mormons had never troubled their neighbors, but their neighbors kept meddling with them. They had sent an army here, but the Mormons did not seek to harm them when they had the chance. They came here with the intention to kill the Mormons if they could; but they couldn’t, for the Lord wouldn’t let them. Their enemies had hunted them like wolves; but the Lord had said, “Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm.” They had kept the army out at Ham’s Fork shaking and shivering till they cooled down. “Brother Taylor” was real well pleased with things in general, and concluded with Hallelujah.

Apostle George A. Smith was exceedingly humorous over the democracy. There was no head to it; the centre of its intelligence was the belly, and the principal portion of the body was in the boots. Several plundering operations were alluded to, and Uncle Sam had been sadly victimized by his boys. The government had been a miserable goose for politicians to pluck. Abe Lincoln had now the honor of presiding over a portion of what was once the United States; he had been elected by the religious portion of the States. “George A.” remembered when the folks of New York sold her slaves to Virginia. Their conscience would not allow them to retain their fellow-beings in bondage—oh, they were mighty squeamish! They could take the money from Virginia, and as they got more religion and more conscience they were exceedingly anxious for Virginia to set them loose!

That religious fanaticism that had been mixed up with politics would lead to bloodshed. They were more to be dreaded than infidels. They were cruel in their fanaticism. The Republicans first whipped old Buck[170] into the Utah war, and they whipped him for getting into it, and whipped him awfully for getting out of it—he got out of it too soon. Politicians were in confusion, and the Lord would keep them there. He labored to show the folly of men worshiping a God without body, parts, or passions, for such being, if being he might be called, must be destitute of principles and power. He argued that the God worshiped by sectarians could not be the being that wrestled with Jacob, that conversed with Moses, and wrote with his finger upon tables of stone. He said that Joseph Smith had prophesied when the Saints were driven from Jackson County, Missouri, that if the government did not redress our wrongs, they should have mob upon mob until mob power, and that alone, should govern the whole land.

He bore testimony to the truth of the work in which he was engaged, and said if the Latter-Day Saints would listen to President Young’s instructions as they ought to do, they would soon be the wealthiest people upon the face of the earth.

The choir sung “The Standard of Zion.”

Patriarch Morley pronounced the benediction, and the first day’s conference terminated.

The crowd on the Sunday far exceeded that of the preceding day. The streets around the Temple Block were literally filled with people and carriages. The Tabernacle could not hold a third of those who were anxious to hear. Every seat and standing-place was occupied long before the opening of proceedings. As soon as Brigham reached the inside vestry, he sent out some of the apostles and elders to preach to the outsiders, sufficiently distant from the Tabernacle as not to disturb each other with their preaching.

I have already filled so much paper that I fear trespassing too much upon your columns with the details of the second day at the present time, as Brigham was very explicit on the subject of plurality of wives, and it was the only time I ever heard him on the “peculiar institution.”

Altogether it was a great conference, and, as the foregoing exhibits, the apostles enjoyed a particular free and easy time of it.

In its territorial status an anomaly has been forced upon the Mormon population. It must receive officers appointed and salaried by the federal government, viz.:

A governor, with a salary of $2500 (£500) per annum, payable quarterly.
A secretary to government, $1000.
A chief justice to the Supreme Court, $2500.
An associate to the Supreme Court, $1000.
An associate to the Supreme Court, $1000.
A district attorney, $400.
A marshal, $400 (not including perquisites).
A superintendent of Indian affairs, $2500.
A surveyor general, $2500.[171]

The governor, who is also commander-in-chief of the militia, holds office for four years, unless sooner removed by the President of the United States, or until appointment of a successor. He has the usual right of pardoning territorial offenses, and of reprieving offenders against the federal government. He approves all laws passed by the Legislative Assembly before they can take effect; he commissions all officers appointed under the laws, and takes care that the laws are faithfully executed.

The secretary holds office for the same time: his duty is to record, preserve, and transmit copies of all laws and proceedings of the Legislative Assembly, and all acts and proceedings of the governor in his executive department. In case of death, removal, resignation, or necessary absence of the governor from the Territory, he acts temporarily until the vacancy is filled up; and practically he looks forward to being a member of Congress in the House of Representatives of the United States.

The marshal holds office for a similar term: his duty is to execute all processes issued by the courts when exercising their functions as Circuit and District Courts of the United States. In disturbed countries, as California of the olden time, the marshal’s principal office seems to have been that of being shot at.

The executive arm would, in any other Territory, be found to work easily and well: it is, in fact, derived, with certain modifications, from that original Constitution which has ever remained to new states the great old model. Among the Mormons, however, there is necessarily a division and a clashing of the two principles: one, the federal, republican, and laical; the other, the theocratic, despotic, and spiritual. The former is the State, under which is the Church. The latter is the Church, under which is the State, and hence complications which call for a cutting solution. As long as the Prophet and President was also the temporal governor, so long the Mormons were contented: now they must look forward to a change.

The Legislative Assembly consists of an “Upper House,” a President and Council of thirteen, and a House of Representatives, or Lower House, of twenty-six members, whose term of office is one year. An appointment of the representation based upon a census is made in the ratio of population: the candidates, however, must be bonâ fide residents of the counties or districts for which they stand. No member of the Legislative Assembly is allowed to hold any appointment created while he was in office, “or for one year thereafter,” and the United States officials—post-masters alone excepted—can not become either senators or representatives. The legislative power extends to the usual rightful and constitutional limits. “No law shall be passed interfering with the primary disposal of the soil; no tax shall be imposed upon the property of the United States, nor shall the lands or other property of non-residents be taxed higher than the lands or other property of residents. All the laws passed by the Legislative Assembly and government shall be submitted to the Congress of the United States, and, if disapproved, shall be null and of no effect.”

VOTERS AND VOTING.—LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY.Every free male (white) inhabitant[172] above the age of twenty-one, who has resided in the county for sixty days before the election, is entitled to vote, and is eligible for office; the right is limited to citizens of the United States, including those recognized by treaty with the Mexican Republic (2d of Feb., 1848), and excluding, as usual, the military servants of the federal government. Great fault was found by anti-Mormons with the following permissions in the act regulating elections (Jan., 1853), because they artistically enough abolish the ballot while they retain the vote.[173]

[172] When the vexed passage, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,” written in 1776, is interpreted in 1860, it must be read, “all (free white) men” to be consistent and intelligible. Similarly “persons bound to labor” must be considered a euphuism for slaves. The “American Mirabeau,” Jefferson, who framed the celebrated Declaration, certainly did not consider, as the context of his life proves, slaves to be his equals. What he intended the Mormons have expressed.

Again, what can be clearer than that the Constitution contemplated secession? If an adult citizen is allowed to throw off his allegiance, surely the body of citizens called a state have, à majori, a right to withdraw from a “federal union.”

[173] The first Legislative Assembly was elected in the summer of 1851, and held a session in the following autumn and winter. An historian’s office was established, courts were organized, cities incorporated, and a small body of Territorial laws were passed. The second Legislative Assembly met on the 15th of January, 1852, at the Council House, and after the organization of the two houses, they came together to receive the message of the governor, Mr. Brigham Young. The archon, when notified of the hour, entered, sat down in the speaker’s chair, and on being asked if he had any communication to make, handed his message to the President of the Council, who passed it for reading to the Clerk of the House. The message was a lengthy and creditable document; of course, it was severely criticised, but the gravamen of the charges was the invidious phrase used by the Prophet to his lieges, “for your guidance.”

Sec. 5. Each elector shall provide himself with a vote, containing the names of the persons he wishes elected, and the offices he would have them to fill, and present it neatly folded (!) to the judge of the elections, who shall number and deposit it in the ballot-box; the clerk shall then write the name of the elector, and opposite it the number of his vote.

Sec. 6. At the close of the election the judge shall seal up the ballot-box, and the list of the names of the electors, and transmit the same without delay to the county clerks.

“In a Territory so governed,” remarks Mr. Secretary Ferris, “it will not excite surprise that cases of extortion, robbery, murder, and other crimes should occur, and defy all legal redress, or that the law should be made the instrument of crime.”

The deduction is unfair. The real cause why crime goes unpunished must, as will presently appear, be sought in an unfriendly and conflicting judiciary. The act itself can produce nothing but good; it enables the wise few to superintend the actions of the unwise many, and it subjects the “tyrant majority,” as ever should be the case, to the will of the favored minority. As the Conqueror of Sindh often said, “When noses are counted, the many are those without brains.”

The bad working of a divided executive is as nothing compared with the troubles occasioned by the opposition judiciaries, federal and territorial.

An act (19th of Jan., 1855) provides that a Supreme Court of the United States be held annually on the first Monday in January, at Fillmore City; each session to be kept open at least one day, and no session to be legal except on adjournment in the regular term. Another act (4th of Feb., 1852) directed that the District Courts, now three in number, shall exercise original jurisdiction both in civil and criminal cases when not otherwise provided by law, and also have a general supervision over all inferior courts, to prevent and correct abuses where no other remedy is provided. The above are officered by the federal government.

Section 23d of the same act provides for a Judge of Probate—of course a Mormon—elected by the joint vote of the Legislative Assembly and commissioned by the governor. His tenure of office is four years, and he holds regular sessions on the second Mondays of March, June, September, and December of each year. The Probate Court, besides the duties which its name suggests, has the administration of estates, and the guardianship of minors, idiots, and insane persons; with these its proper offices, however, it combines power to exercise original jurisdiction, both civil and criminal, regulated only by appeal under certain conditions to the District Courts. Of late the anomaly has been acknowledged by the Supreme Court.[174] Inferior to the Probate Court, and subject to its revision, are the Justices of the Peace, the Municipal Court, and the three selectmen in each organized county. Besides the Probate Courts, the Mormons have instituted, as will presently appear, Ecclesiastical High Council under the Church authorities and the President, provided with ample powers of civil and criminal jurisdiction, and fully capable of judging between Saint and Saint.

[174] The Court held, First. That the 9th section of the Organic Act vested all judicial power in the Supreme, District, and Probate Courts, and in Justices of the Peace.

Second. That the only restriction placed upon these courts was as to Justices of the Peace, refusing them jurisdiction to try any case involving the title or boundary to land, or any suit where the claim or demand exceeded one hundred dollars.

Third. That by virtue of that clause of the Organic Act which provides that “the jurisdiction of the several courts therein provided for,” including the Probate Courts, “shall be as limited by law,” that the Legislature had the right to provide by law for the exercise by the Probate Courts of jurisdiction in civil and criminal cases.

Fourth. That as the Organic Act conferred common law and chancery jurisdiction upon the Supreme and District Courts respectively, that this jurisdiction belonged to these courts exclusively, and that the Probate Courts were confined to the jurisdiction conferred by statute, and such jurisdiction might be exercised concurrently with the District Courts to the extent provided by statute.

Fifth. That as the Legislature had passed a law conferring upon the Probate Courts concurrent jurisdiction with the District Courts to hear and determine civil as well as criminal cases within their respective counties, and had provided the manner in which this jurisdiction should be exercised, that the trial, conviction, and sentence of the prisoner were valid and binding in law until reversed by an appellate court.

Although Judge Shaver, one of the best of jurists, tacitly acknowledged the jurisdiction of Probate Courts, Judge Kinney is the first who has dared assert his decision judicially.

In describing the operations of the two conflicting judiciaries, I shall borrow the words of both parties.CONFLICTING JUDICIARIES.

According to the Mormons, the increased chicanery of the federal government has arrived at full development in their Territory.[175] The phrase has been, “Any thing is good enough for Utah.” The salary is too inconsiderable to satisfy any but the worst kind of jack-in-office, and the object of those appointed is to secure notoriety in the Eastern States by obstructing justice, and by fomenting disturbances in the West. The three judges first appointed from Washington in June, 1851, became so unpopular, that in the autumn of the same year they were obliged to leave Utah Territory—one of them with a “flea in his ear” duly inserted by Mr. Brigham Young. I shall not quote names, nor will the reader require them. Another attempted to break the amnesty in 1858, and when asked for suggestions by the Legislative Assembly, proposed an act for the prevention and punishment of polygamy, and urged the Senate to divide the land between the proposed Territories; finally, this excellent Christian hung a Gentile brother on the Lord’s day. Another killed himself with opium; another was a notorious drunkard; and another was addicted to gambling in his cellar. A judge disgraced himself with an Indian squaw, who entered his court, and, coram publico, demanded her honorarium, and another seated on the bench his mistress—la maîgre Ada, as she is termed by M. Remy, the Gentile traveler—and the Mormons have not yet learned to endure Alice Peirce, or to worship the Goddess of Reason in that shape. Another attempted to convict Mr. Brigham Young of forgery. The marshal was, in one case, a ci-devant teamster, who could hardly write his own name. Besides the vileness of their characters, their cliqueism and violent hostility have led to prostitution of justice; a Mormon accusé was invariably found guilty by them, a Gentile was invariably acquitted. Thus the Probate Courts, properly jurisdictors of the dead, were made judges of the living in all civil and criminal cases, because justice was not obtainable from the Supreme District and the Circuit judges appointed by the federal government. To the envenomed reports of these officials the Saints attribute all the disturbances in 1857-58, and sundry high-handed violations of the constitutional liberties and the dearest rights of American citizenship. For instance, the Indian war of 1852 cost them $200,000; they repeatedly memorialized Congress to defray, strictly according to precedent, these expenditures, and yet, from 1850 to 1855, they have received, in payment of expenses and treaties, grants and presents, only the sum of $95,940. Though Utah Territory has practiced far more economy than Oregon or California, the drafts forwarded by the Superintendent of Indian Affairs to the Treasury at Washington are totally neglected, or are subjected to delays and frivolous annoyances. The usual treaties with the Indians have not been held by the federal government. The Mormons’ requisition for becoming a state is systematically ignored, and this ignoble minorhood is prolonged, although they can show five head of souls for three possessed by California at the time of her admittance—another instance of a “rancorous persecuting spirit, excited by false and malicious representations.” He who lifteth up an ensign on the mountains is now “about to destroy a certain nation under the name of the sour grape (Catawba?);” and the Mormons see in the present civil war at once retribution for their injuries, and the fulfillment of the denunciations of Joseph the Seer against the “Gentile land of strife and wickedness.” Assuredly Fate has played marvelously into their hands.

The federal officials retort with a counter charge against the Saints of systematically obstructing the course of justice. A Mormon must be tried by his peers; however guilty, he will be surely acquitted, as a murdering fugitive slave in the North, or a thievish filibuster in the South; that it is vain to attempt jurisdiction over a people who have an ecclesiastical Star-Chamber and Vigilance Committee working out in darkness a sectarian law; that no civilized government could or would admit into a community of Christian states a power founded on prophethood and polygamy, a theodemocracy, with a Grand Lama presiding over universal suffragators; that all accusations of private immorality proceed from a systematic attack upon the federal Union through its officers; and, finally, that, so thin-skinned is Mormon sensibility, a torrent of vituperation follows the least delay made with respect to their “ridiculous pretensions.”

The author speaks. Of course there are faults on both sides, and each party has nothing better to do than to spy out the other’s sins of omission and commission. The Americans (i. e., anti-Mormons), never very genial or unprejudiced, are not conciliatory; they rage violently when called Gentiles, and their “respectability,” a master-passion in Columbian lands, is outraged, maiden-modesty-like, by the bare mention of polygamy. On the other hand, the Latter-Day Saints, who now flourish in the Mountain Territory, and who expect eventually to flourish over the whole earth, “are naturally prepared to hate and denigrate all beyond the pale of their own faith.” If the newly-arrived judge fails, within the first week, to wait upon Mr. President, he or his may expect to be the subject of an offensive newspaper article. If another live among his co-religionists at Camp Floyd, he is convicted of cliqueism, and is forthwith condemned as a foe. Whatever proceeds from the federal government is and must be distasteful to them; to every address they reply, “To your tents, O Israel!” “Their nobles shall be of themselves, and their governor shall proceed from the midst of them,” is the shaft which they level against the other party, and which recoils upon themselves. The result is that if the territorial judiciary sentences a criminal, he appeals to the federals, and at once obtains cassation—and vice versâ. The usual procedure in criminal cases is to make oath before a magistrate, who thereupon commands the marshal to take the accused into custody, and “them safely keep,” so that he may produce their bodies before the first sessions of the United States District Courts; if the magistrate be a Mormon, he naturally refuses to prosecute and persecute a brother Saint—and vice versâ. Thus many notorious offenders, whom the Mormons would, for their own sakes, willingly see cut off from the congregation—in simple words, hung—escape with impunity after the first excitement has settled down: the most terrible crimes are soon forgotten in the party fight, and in the race to “go ahead;” after five years they become pabulum for the local antiquary.

I have thus attempted, with feeble hand, to divide the blame between both the great contending parties, and may fairly, I hope, expect to be unanimously rejected by both.

CORPORATION OF GREAT SALT LAKE CITY.The ordinance to incorporate Great Salt Lake City was approved by the General Assembly of the State of Deserét on the 19th of January, 1851, and the body municipal was constituted, like Fillmore, Ogden, and other cities in the Territory. The City Council consists of a mayor, four aldermen, and one common councilor per ward—formerly there were but nine; they are elected by votes, with the usual qualifications; are sworn or affianced to support the federal and territorial Constitution, and retain office for two years. They collect the taxes, which, however, must not exceed 1·50 per cent. per annum upon the assessed value of all taxable property, real and personal.[176] They appoint their recorder, treasurer, assessor, collector, marshal, and supervisor of streets, and have sole charge of the police. They establish and support schools and hospitals, regulate “hacking,” “tippling houses,” and gambling and billiard-tables; inspect lumber, hay, bread and provisions, and provide against fires—which here, contrary to the rule throughout England and the Eastern States, are rare and little to be feared; direct night-lighting and the storage of combustibles, and regulate streets, bridges, and fences. They have power to enforce their ordinances by fines and penalties. Appeals from the decisions of the mayor and aldermen are made to the Municipal Court, composed of the mayor as chief justice, and the aldermen as associate justices, and from the Municipal Court to the Probate Court of Great Salt Lake City.