"The mission of the Latter-day Saints is to reform abuses which have for ages corrupted the world, and to establish an era of peace and righteousness. The Most High is the founder of this mission, and in order to its establishment, his providences have so shaped the world's history, that, on this continent, blest above all other lands, a free and enlightened government has been instituted, guaranteeing to all social, political, and religious liberty. The constitution of our country is therefore hallowed to us, and we view with a jealous eye every infringement upon its great principles, and demand, in the sacred name of liberty, that the miscreant who would trample it under his feet by depriving a hundred thousand American citizens of every vestige of liberty, should be anathematized throughout the length and breadth of the land, as a traitor to God and his country.
"It is not strange that, among the bigoted and corrupt, such a man and such a measure should have originated; but it will be strange indeed if such a measure find favor with the honorable and high-minded men who wield the destinies of the nation. Let this seal of ruin be attached to the archives of our country, and terrible must be the results. Woe will wait upon her steps, and war and desolation will stalk through the land; peace and liberty will seek another clime, while anarchy, lawlessness and bloody strife hold high carnival amid the general wreck. God forbid that wicked men be permitted to force such an issue upon the nation!
"It is true that a corrupt press, and an equally corrupt priestcraft, are leagued against us—that they have pandered to the ignorance of the masses, and vilified our institutions, to that degree that it has become popular to believe that the latter-day saints are unworthy to live; but it is also true that there are many, very many, right-thinking men who are not without influence in the nation; and to such do we now most solemnly and earnestly appeal. Let the united force of this assembly give the lie to the popular clamor that the women of Utah are oppressed and held in bondage. Let the world know that the women of Utah prefer virtue to vice, and the home of an honorable wife to the gilded pageantry of fashionable temples of sin. Transitory allurements, glaring the senses, as is the flame to the moth, short-lived and cruel in their results, possess no charms for us. Every woman in Utah may have her husband—the husband of her choice. Here we are taught not to destroy our children, but to preserve them, for they, reared in the path of virtue and trained to righteousness, constitute our true glory.
"It is with no wish to accuse our sisters who are not of our faith that we so speak; but we are dealing with facts as they exist. Wherever monogamy reigns, adultery, prostitution and foeticide, directly or indirectly, are its concomitants. It is not enough to say that the virtuous and high-minded frown upon these evils. We believe they do. But frowning upon them does not cure them; it does not even check their rapid growth; either the remedy is too weak, or the disease is too strong. The women of Utah comprehend this; and they see, in the principle of plurality of wives, the only safeguard against adultery, prostitution, and the reckless waste of pre-natal life, practiced throughout the land.
"It is as co-workers in the great mission of universal reform, not only in our own behalf, but also, by precept and example, to aid in the emancipation of our sex generally, that we accept in our heart of hearts what we know to be a divine commandment: and here, and now, boldly and publicly, we do assert our right, not only to believe in this holy commandment, but to practice what we believe.
"While these are our views, every attempt to force that obnoxious measure upon us must of necessity be an attempt to coerce us in our religious and moral convictions, against which did we not most solemnly protest, we would be unworthy the name of American women."
Mrs. Hannah T. King followed with a stinging address to General Cullom himself. She said:
"My Dear Sisters: I wish I had the language I feel to need, at the present moment, to truly represent the indignant feelings of my heart and brain on reading, as I did last evening, a string of thirty 'sections,' headed by the words, 'A Bill in aid of the Execution of the Laws in the Territory of Utah, and for other purposes.' The 'other purposes' contain the pith of the matter, and the adamantine chains that the author of the said bill seeks to bind this people with, exceed anything that the feudal times of England, or the serfdom of Russia, ever laid upon human beings. My sisters, are we really in America—the world-renowned land of liberty, freedom, and equal rights?—the land of which I dreamed, in my youth, as being almost an earthly elysium, where freedom of thought and religious liberty were open to all!—the land that Columbus wore his noble life out to discover!—the land that God himself helped him to exhume, and to aid which endeavor Isabella, a queen, a woman, declared she would pawn her jewels and crown of Castile, to give him the outfit that he needed!—the land of Washington, the Father of his Country, and a host of noble spirits, too numerous to mention!—the land to which the Mayflower bore the pilgrim fathers, who rose up and left their homes, and bade their native home 'good night,' simply that they might worship God by a purer and holier faith, in a land of freedom and liberty, of which the name America has long been synonymous! Yes, my sisters, this is America but oh! how are the mighty fallen!
"Who, or what, is the creature who framed this incomparable document? Is he an Esquimaux or a chimpanzee? What isolated land or spot produced him? What ideas he must have of women! Had he ever a mother, a wife, or a sister? In what academy was he tutored, or to what school does he belong, that he so coolly and systematically commands the women of this people to turn traitors to their husbands, their brothers, and their sons? Short-sighted man of 'sections' and 'the bill!' Let us, the women of this people—the sisterhood of Utah—rise en masse, and tell this non-descript to defer 'the bill' until he has studied the character of woman, such as God intended she should be; then he will discover that devotion, veneration and faithfulness are her peculiar attributes; that God is her refuge, and his servants her oracles; and that, especially, the women of Utah have paid too high a price for their present position, their present light and knowledge, and their noble future, to succumb to so mean and foul a thing as Baskin, Cullom & Co.'s bill. Let him learn that they are one in heart, hand and brain, with the brotherhood of Utah—that God is their father and their friend—that into his hands they commit their cause—and on their pure and simple banner they have emblazoned their motto, 'God, and my right!'"
The next who spoke was Phoebe Woodruff, who said: