That is what they know to begin with—and that the people in these mountains were contending for the persistence—and they hoped the triumph—of what to them was a religious principle. That is why honorable non-"Mormons" respect honorable and upright "Mormons" who are doing their duty as God gives them the light to see that duty. And, moreover, their minds doubtless go back to the settlement of this question by the Constitutional convention of this state of which, perhaps some of you will remember, I was a member. The people of the United States, speaking through the Congress of the United States, demanded of the people of Utah, as a condition precedent to statehood, that their Constitution should provide "That polygamous or plural marriages are forever prohibited." When the Constitutional convention met that proposition—desiring to meet it in good faith, they not only made the constitutional declaration that polygamous or plural marriages should forever be prohibited, but they also in order to make that effective, took the territorial law—which was but a copy of the Congressional law, which defined "polygamous or plural marriages" and prescribed for that offense the penalties, the fines and imprisonments, and which also defined polygamous living and prescribed its penalties.
The constitutional convention, I say, took that enactment and cut it square in two, adopting the part that defined the offense of polygamous or plural marriages, and prescribed its punishments, and made it, with its penalties, part of the Constitution; but the part of the law relating to polygamous living or unlawful cohabitation, they left out entirely. The question was brought up on the floor of the convention, and debated in open session. The leader of this movement, who advocated the adoption of this part of the law for the Constitution—for it was rather an unusual proceeding in constitution making, intended, however, in good part, to meet a very unusual condition; the question was put to him in substance: If you thus cut the law in two, and prohibit polygamous or plural marriages but say nothing about unlawful cohabitation or polygamous living, will not the inference be—will not the conclusion be, that you do not intend to include unlawful cohabitation in the offenses defined and made punishable under this constitutional provision? The answer was that such would be the implication—that the intent was to leave the offense out. That was not only the inference, but it was the understanding—say what men will—in that convention. The record bears out the statement I make of it, because it was not done in a corner, or in the dark, it was out in the open, and some of those who now join you reverend gentlemen in this agitation against men who are seeking, under hard conditions, to respond to the promptings of duty and conscience—some of those who now join you in your clamor, were parties to and sanctioned that settlement in the constitutional convention.[1]
[Footnote 1: This subject is discussed circumstantially and at length in my reply to Senator Kearns' U.S. senate speech,—"Defense of the Faith and the Saints," Vol. I, pp. 209-218.]
The subject of "Mormon" loyalty is briefly discussed in this review, and apparently the only way you reviewers could meet the treatment of the subject was by a sneer. You say, "It is not recalled that any Christian Church in this country has found itself under a like necessity." That is, to avow and defend its loyalty to the government. Very true, gentlemen, but do you recall that any other church that has been assailed with misrepresentation and charges of disloyalty as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been? And so, being assailed, we necessarily make defense. I pass the rest that could be said on that subject, excepting this, that when you refer to the conflict we had with the general government during territorial days, I take you to witness that the controversy was not of our making, but it was the result in part of your sectarian agitation, your arousing a popular sentiment, exercising church influence upon Congress which led that body to enact laws against a principle of our religion. We contested those laws for every inch of the ground, until the court of final appeal pronounced judgment on the controversy. Was not that our right? And does it necessarily involve us in or leave us open to the charge of disloyalty, because we thus contended for religious freedom—the right to practice what to us was part of our religion? Let us remind you, gentlemen, that had the people of the first Christian age, and the people of the sixteenth century followed your idea of immediately surrendering when religious principle was attacked, there would have been no Christian religion at all, there would have been no such thing as Protestant sects. We contested the grounds legally, and fought as hard as we could for a religious principle; that is the head and front of our offending.
These gentlemen Reviewers express two fears. One is that they will be charged, because of issuing this review, with misrepresentation. Well, I don't wonder at that, and I think we have proven that you have misrepresented. But they also fear that we will charge them with persecution. Gentlemen, we acquit you of the intention of persecution. When the Revs. Phineas Ewing, Dixon, Cavanaugh, Hunter, Bogart, Isaac McCoy, Riley, Pixley, Woods and others carried on an agitation in Missouri against "Mormonism" and the "Mormons" that resulted in burning hundreds of our homes and driving our people—including women and children, remember—to bivouac out in the wilderness at an inclement season of the year; when the mob incited by these reverends, your prototypes, gentlemen, laid waste our fields and gardens, stripped our people of their earthly possessions, keeping up that agitation until twelve thousand or fifteen thousand people were driven from the state of Missouri, dispossessed of several hundred thousand acres of land—two hundred and fifty thousand acres, to be exact—which they had entered, and rendered them homeless—we might call, we do call, that persecution. When the Rev. Mr. Levi Williams led the mob that shot to death Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum Smith in Carthage prison, and when the Rev. Mr. Thomas S. Brockman led the forces against Nauvoo, after the great body of the people had withdrawn from that city, and expelled the aged, the widow and the fatherless, and laid waste the property of the people—we think we are justified in calling that persecution, of which right reverend gentlemen were the chief instigators. And when in this territory some years ago one wave of agitation followed another, of which your class, and some of you, were chief movers, until a reign of terror was produced, and a regime was established under which men guilty at most of a misdemeanor, could nevertheless be imprisoned for a term of years covering a lifetime, and fined to the exhaustion of all they possessed, under the beautiful scheme of segregating the offense into numerous counts in each indictment; and when in that reign of terror women were compelled to clasp their little ones to their breasts and go out among strangers, exiled from their homes—we might be inclined to call that persecution. But our experience has been such that we scorn to call such attacks as this review of yours persecution. It does not rise, gentlemen, I assure you, to that bad eminence. So we acquit you of any intent in your review to persecute us. You need not fear that such a charge will be made, we are not so thin-skinned as all that. Besides, gentlemen, your power is no longer equal to your malice, and so we do not believe you will ever be able to persecute us again.
And now I want to turn "reviewer" myself a while. I want to review some things which the ministers of the association before us stand for, at least some of them stand for what I shall refer to; and I only regret that we can't take up each one in turn and examine his doctrines. But we all proceed, as far as we can, on this occasion. I turn "reviewer" because I want to show our young people who are represented here, that these gentlemen, standing for such principles as their church creeds represent are scarcely in a position to make an assault upon our doctrines on any score of inconsistency or repulsiveness; and second, by placing our doctrine in contrast with theirs, I desire to show the youth of Israel, whose representatives are here, the greatness and grandeur and the divinity of those principles for which their fathers have stood, and for which we stand, for the ensign given into the hands of our fathers we will sustain and carry to still greater heights of success.
Of the doctrine of the Godhead, taught and advocated by the sectarian world, I have already said something and pointed out the inconsistency of these ministers, holding Jesus to be divine—nay more, to be Deity, and yet proclaiming against our views of God being a personage of tabernacle, a personage of flesh and bone as well as of spirit—in a word, an exalted, a perfected man—Christ Jesus resurrected from the dead and possessing all power in heaven and in earth. I shall leave them, of course, to patch up the contradictions of their creeds on that subject, I am not concerned about them.
And now, to turn to another portion of the creed, held at least by the Presbyterian ministers before us, and by some other members of the Ministerial Association—our reviewers. I read from the Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter iii, section 3.
"By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting death.
"Sec. 4.—These angels and men, thus predestinated and foreordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed, and their number is so certain and definite, that it cannot be either increased or diminished.
"Sec. 5.—Those of mankind that are predestinated unto life, God, before the foundation of the world was laid, according to his eternal and immutable purpose and the secret counsel and good pleasure of his will, hath chosen in Christ unto everlasting glory, out of his mere free grace and love, without any foresight of faith or good works, or perseverance in either of them, or any other thing in the creature as conditions, or causes moving him thereunto; and all to the praise of his glorious grace."
Now listen to this: