Discourses of Brigham Young

by Brigham Young

In the year 1845 I addressed letters to all the Governors of states and territories in the Union, asking them for an asylum, within their borders, for the Latter-day Saints. We were refused such privilege, either by silent contempt or a flat denial in every instance. They all agreed that we could not come within the limits of their territory or state. Three members of Congress came to negotiate with us to leave the confines of the United States, and of the public domain. It was understood that we were going to Vancouver Island; but we had our eye on Mexico, and here we are located in the midst of what was then northern Mexico. 11:18.

When we were driven from Nauvoo, our Elders went to the east to lay our case before the judges, governors, and rulers of the different states to ask for an asylum; but none was offered us. We sent men through the eastern country to try and raise some means for the destitute women and children, whose husbands, fathers and brothers had gone into the Mexican war at the call of the general Government, leaving their wives and children and aged fathers and mothers upon the open prairies without home or shelter, and the brethren who went east hardly got enough to bear their expenses. The great men of the nation were asked if they would do anything for the Lord's people. No; not a thing would they do, but hoped they would perish in the wilderness. 11:17.

When I was written to in Nauvoo by the President of the United States, through another person, inquiring, "Where are you going, Mr. Young?" I replied that I did not know where we should land. We had men in England trying to negotiate for Vancouver's Island, and we sent a shipload of Saints round Cape Horn to California. Men in authority asked, "Where are you going to?" "We may go to California, or to Vancouver's Island." When the Pioneer company reached Green River, we met Samuel Brannan and a few others from California, and they wanted us to go there. I remarked, "Let us go to California, and we cannot stay there over five years; but let us stay in the mountains, and we can raise our own potatoes, and eat them; and I calculate to stay here." We are still on the backbone of the animal, where the bone and the sinew are, and we intend to stay here, and all hell cannot help themselves. 5:230-231.

Mark our settlements for six hundred miles in these mountains and then mark the path that we made coming here, building the bridges and making the roads across the prairies, mountains and canyons! We came here penniless in old wagons, our friends back telling us to "take all the provisions, you can; for you can get no more! Take all the seed grain you can, for you can get none there!" We did this, and in addition to all this we have gathered all the poor we could, and the Lord has planted us in these valleys, promising that he would hide us up for a little season until his wrath and indignation passed over the nations. Will we trust in the Lord? Yes. 13:216.

The Saints were poor when they came into this valley, twenty-five years ago. They picked up a few buckskins, antelope skins, sheep skins, buffalo skins, and made leggings and moccasins of them, and wrapped the buffalo robes around them. Some had blankets and some had not; some had shirts, and I guess some had not. One man told me that he had not a shirt for himself or family. 15:158.

I will venture to say that not one of four out of my family had shoes to their feet when we came to this valley. 11:288.

We printed the first papers, except about two, set out the first orchards, raised the first wheat, kept almost the first schools, and made the first improvements in our pioneering, in a great measure, from the Mississippi river to the Pacific Ocean; and here we got at last, so as to be out of the way of everybody, if possible. We thought we would get as far as we could from the face of man; we wanted to get to a strange land, like Abraham, that we might be where we should not be continually wrong with somebody or other, and have them crying, "Oh, you Mormons!" and have the priests preaching, the press printing, the drunkard swearing, and all, high and low, rich and poor, wishing these poor "Mormons" were out of the way. We got out of the way as far as we could; and if we can get out of the way any farther and do any good, we are ready to get out of the way; but I think we are as far out of the way as we need to be; and we have got on the highway which has been cast up, and I think we had better stay here. 14:208.

Mormon Battalion—When we were right in the midst of Indians, who were said to be hostile, five hundred men were called to go to Mexico to fight the Mexicans, and, said Mr. Benton—"If you do not send them we will cover you up, and there will be no more of you." I do not want to think of these things, their authors belong to the class I referred to yesterday—the enemies of mankind, those who would destroy innocence, truth, righteousness and the Kingdom of God from the earth. We sent these five hundred men to fight the Mexicans, and those of us who remained behind labored and raised all that we needed to feed ourselves in the wilderness. We had to pay our own school teachers, raise our own bread and earn our own clothing, or go without, there was no other choice. We did it then, and we are able to do the same today. 16:19.

With regard to our going into the wilderness, and our there being called upon to turn out five hundred able-bodied men to go to Mexico, we had then seen every religious and political right trampled under foot by mobocrats; there were none left to defend our rights; we were driven from every right which freemen ought to possess. In forming that battalion of five hundred men, brother Kimball and myself rode day and night, until we had raised the full number of men the Government called for. Captain Allen said to me, using his own words, "I have fallen in love with your people. I love them as I never loved a people before." He was a friend to the uttermost. When he had marched that Mormon Battalion as far as Fort Leavenworth, he was thrown upon a sick bed where I then believed, and do now, he was nursed, taken care of, and doctored to the silent tomb, and the battalion went on with God for their friend.

That battalion took up their line of march from Fort Leavenworth by way of Santa Fe, and over the desert and dreary route, and planted themselves in: the lower part of California, to the joy of all the officers and men that were loyal. At the time of their arrival, General Kearney was in a straitened position, and Colonel P. St. George Cooke promptly marched the battalion to his relief, and said to him, "We have the boys here now that can put all things right." The boys in that battalion performed their duty faithfully. I never think of that little company of men without the next thoughts being, "God bless them for ever and for ever." All this we did to prove to the Government that we were loyal. Previous to this, when we left Nauvoo, we knew that they were going to call upon us, and we were prepared for it in our faith and in our feelings. I knew then as well as I do now that the Government would call for a battalion of men out of that part of Israel, to test our loyalty to the Government. Thomas H. Benton, if I have been rightly informed, obtained the requisition to call for that battalion, and, in case of non-compliance with that requisition, to call on the militia of Missouri and Iowa, and other states, if necessary, and to call volunteers from Illinois, from which state we had been driven, to destroy the camp of Israel. This same Mr. Benton said to the President of the United States, in the presence of some other persons, "Sir, they are a pestilential race, and ought to become extinct." 10:106.