The terrible doings of those times I have no idea of relating just now; I simply allude to them in order that the reader may understand how, in the excitement produced in that border-warfare, it was possible for such strange events as afterwards transpired in Utah to originate. I may simply add, that the Temple being completed, and the first “Endowments” given there, the people gathered up what little property they could rescue from the mob, and under the guidance of Brigham Young, and amidst privations, sufferings, and outrages of the most painful character, left the city which they had founded in Illinois, and set out for the Rocky Mountains, where, beside the Great Salt Lake, they founded their modern Zion.
Free now from the violence of mobs and Gentile enmity, it might have been supposed that the hatred which had so long been part of the Mormon faith would have died a natural death. The contrary, however, was the case. The Mexican war was then raging, and, en route to the Rocky Mountains, the Mormons had received a proposal from the Federal Government that they should supply a regiment, upon highly advantageous conditions, to join the United States troops which were then operating in California. This suggestion was kindly made, for it was thought that the Mormon regiment thus raised would in reality be only marching their own way in going to California, and that the outfits, pay, arms, &c., which were to be theirs, after the year for which they were enrolled had expired, would be of essential service to them. It was like paying men liberally for making a journey for their own benefit.
Notwithstanding all this, Brigham Young and the leaders represented the transaction in quite another light, and the people were taught that an engagement, into which they had entered of their own free will, and from which they had derived substantial advantages, was an act of heartless cruelty and despotic tyranny on the part of the Government. This feeling was fostered, until at length the Saints as a body regarded themselves as a wronged and outraged people, and considered every Gentile, in fact the whole nation, as their natural enemies. This was perhaps all the more singular, since, after the vast tract of country, of which Utah forms a part, had, at the end of the war, been wrested from Mexico, Brigham Young had been appointed by President Millard Fillmore the first Governor and Indian Agent of the territory; he was therefore in Federal pay, and bound, as long as he retained office, to support the Government, or at the very least not to stir up disaffection.
Trouble soon arose between Governor Young and the Mormons on one side and the Judges and United States courts and officials on the other. Once an armed mob burst into the Supreme Court, and forced the Judge then sitting to adjourn; at another time a bonfire was made of the books and papers of the District Courts; then a Judge on the bench was threatened with personal outrage; and subsequently a posse summoned by legal(!) process “encamped” for a whole fortnight over against another posse summoned without legal process, the two bodies burning with bitter hatred and breathing out threatenings and slaughter. Such a state of affairs could not, of course, last long. On the one side the wildest statements were publicly made against the Government; threats which, uttered by a little band of pioneers against a mighty nation, were perfectly ridiculous, stirred up the hearts of the Saints. On the other hand it was pretty certain that Federal troops would have to be sent out to Utah to preserve the peace of the Territory. The Federal Government was nevertheless defied, abused, and derided, and the people, thoroughly blinded by their fanaticism, did not for a moment doubt that, should Governor Young “declare war,” the United States troops would vanish before the “Armies” of the Saints like chaff upon the threshing-floor. So absurd does all this appear that I should really hardly venture to repeat it were it not that every one in Utah—Mormon and Gentile—knows that I am really understating facts rather than otherwise. Very soon came a crisis in Mormon history, for which all the wild sayings and unlawful doings had been so long paving the way:—“The Reformation” was destined to be the crowning point of Saintly folly and Saintly sin.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE “REIGN OF TERROR” IN UTAH:—THE REFORMATION OF THE SAINTS.
The people were now thoroughly excited. Their religious antipathy, their political hatred—two of the most powerful passions which move individuals or bodies of men—had been appealed to, and both in public and private they had been stirred up to a pitch of frenzy which it is hardly possible at the present time to comprehend.
There were whisperings now of a most fearful doctrine, calculated not only to strike terror into the hearts of those whose faith was weakening, but even to shock with a sense of horror those who only heard of it from afar—I mean the doctrine of the Blood Atonement.
The Saints had all along been taught to distinguish between murder and the shedding of innocent blood—the former being spoken of as a crime for which atonement might be made, but for the latter there was no repentance on earth—it was an unpardonable sin. They were also taught to distinguish carefully between sins which might be forgiven, and sins for which pardon was impossible. Now the difference between murder and shedding innocent blood is this:—the latter is the crime of killing a Saint, which can never be forgiven, but by the death of the transgressor; but the former is of quite a different character. To murder a Gentile may sometimes be inexpedient, or perhaps even to a certain extent wrong, but it is seldom if ever a crime, and never an unpardonable sin.