The loyalty of the Latter-day Saints to the United States had frequently been questioned by their enemies and those unacquainted with them. When the war of the Rebellion broke out, the Saints again manifested their loyalty to the Union. When the telegraph line across the continent was completed, in October, 1861, President Brigham Young was courteously tendered the privilege of sending the first message from Salt Lake City. It was to the president of the telegraph company, Mr. J. H. Wade, as follows:

“Sir: Permit me to congratulate you upon the completion of the Overland Telegraph Lines west to this city, to commend the energy displayed by yourself and associates in the rapid and successful prosecution of a work so beneficial; and to express the wish that its use may ever tend to promote the true interests of the dwellers upon both the Atlantic and Pacific slopes of our continent.

“Utah has not seceded, but is firm for the Constitution and laws of our once happy country, and is warmly interested in such useful enterprises as the one so far completed.”

In making his reply, President Wade expressed gratitude to President Young, that his, the first message to pass over the line, “should express so unmistakably the patriotism and union-loving sentiments” of himself and people.

In April, 1862, President Lincoln requested President Brigham Young to raise a force of cavalry to guard the overland route, which was promptly done. Before the request came, the offer was made by President Young to protect that route.

Moreover, while many states were endeavoring to get out of the Union, the “Mormons” were petitioning Congress to get in. This privilege of state government was denied them. The denial was very largely due to the hostile attitude of the new officials, Governor Stephen S. Harding, and two of the territorial judges, Charles B. Waite and Thomas J. Drake, who were decidedly unfriendly to the people of the territory.

Other reasons given were the general feeling of opposition to the faith of the Latter-day Saints—especially against the practice of plural marriage, and the belief, which still erroneously persisted, that they were disloyal. “An un-American condition of affairs was supposed to exist here,” so writes Orson F. Whitney, “hostile to the Government and subversive of morality and civilization. Priestcraft, polygamy, and murder were thought to be the chief cornerstones of ‘Mormonism.’ A union of Church and State was alleged. It was charged that the ‘Mormon’ people were under the sway of an ecclesiastical despotism which ‘overshadowed and controlled their opinions, actions, property, and lives, penetrating and supervising social and business circles, and requiring implicit obedience to the counsel of the Church, as a duty paramount to all the obligations of morality, society, allegiance and law.’”[1]

Notes

[1. ] Whitney’s Popular History of Utah, page 183.

Chapter 46

A Period of Strife and Bitterness