Apostles John Taylor and George A. Smith, and Patriarch Assac Morley, addressed the audience.
The apostle Taylor thought the Mormons the freest people on the earth. They could, if they would, reject their rulers twice a year: they had the opportunity. The unity of the Saints pleased them. He questioned Vox populi, vox Dei. He got facetious, and wondered how they would get along, both North and South, with that doctrine. If the voice of the people in the North was the voice of God, and the voice of the people in the South was the voice of God, he was a little interested to know with which of them he would really be. [A Voice in the stand: “Not either of them.”]
With the Saints it was Vox Dei, vox populi; the voice of God first, and the voice of the people afterward. The Spirit dictated and the Saints sustained it. But what were they after? Did they seek to subdue and put their feet on the necks of men? to rule and dictate nations? No. It was only the “little stone cut out of the mountains,” growing into the kingdom that the prophets foresaw that would be established in the last days. The Mormons had never troubled their neighbors, but their neighbors kept meddling with them. They had sent an army here, but the Mormons did not seek to harm them when they had the chance. They came here with the intention to kill the Mormons if they could; but they couldn’t, for the Lord wouldn’t let them. Their enemies had hunted them like wolves; but the Lord had said, “Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm.” They had kept the army out at Ham’s Fork shaking and shivering till they cooled down. “Brother Taylor” was real well pleased with things in general, and concluded with Hallelujah.
Apostle George A. Smith was exceedingly humorous over the democracy. There was no head to it; the centre of its intelligence was the belly, and the principal portion of the body was in the boots. Several plundering operations were alluded to, and Uncle Sam had been sadly victimized by his boys. The government had been a miserable goose for politicians to pluck. Abe Lincoln had now the honor of presiding over a portion of what was once the United States; he had been elected by the religious portion of the States. “George A.” remembered when the folks of New York sold her slaves to Virginia. Their conscience would not allow them to retain their fellow-beings in bondage—oh, they were mighty squeamish! They could take the money from Virginia, and as they got more religion and more conscience they were exceedingly anxious for Virginia to set them loose!
That religious fanaticism that had been mixed up with politics would lead to bloodshed. They were more to be dreaded than infidels. They were cruel in their fanaticism. The Republicans first whipped old Buck[170] into the Utah war, and they whipped him for getting into it, and whipped him awfully for getting out of it—he got out of it too soon. Politicians were in confusion, and the Lord would keep them there. He labored to show the folly of men worshiping a God without body, parts, or passions, for such being, if being he might be called, must be destitute of principles and power. He argued that the God worshiped by sectarians could not be the being that wrestled with Jacob, that conversed with Moses, and wrote with his finger upon tables of stone. He said that Joseph Smith had prophesied when the Saints were driven from Jackson County, Missouri, that if the government did not redress our wrongs, they should have mob upon mob until mob power, and that alone, should govern the whole land.
[170] Mr. Buchanan.
He bore testimony to the truth of the work in which he was engaged, and said if the Latter-Day Saints would listen to President Young’s instructions as they ought to do, they would soon be the wealthiest people upon the face of the earth.
The choir sung “The Standard of Zion.”
Air—“Star Spangled Banner.”
Oh see! on the tops of the mountains unfurled,