Proclamation by the Governor, proclaiming Martial Law in the Territory of Utah.
“Citizens of Utah,—We are invaded by a hostile force, who are evidently assailing us to accomplish our overthrow and destruction.
“For the last twenty-five years we have trusted officials of the government, from constables and justices to judges, governors, and presidents, only to be scorned, held in derision, insulted, and betrayed. Our houses have been plundered and then burned, our fields laid waste, our principal men butchered while under the pledged faith of the government for their safety, and our families driven from their homes to find that shelter in the barren wilderness, and that protection among hostile savages, which were denied them in the boasted abodes of Christianity and civilization.
“The Constitution of our common country guarantees unto us all that we do now or have ever claimed.
“If the constitutional rights which pertain unto us as American citizens were extended to Utah, according to the spirit and meaning thereof, and fairly and impartially administered, it is all that we could ask—all that we have ever asked.
“Our opponents have availed themselves of prejudice existing against us because of our religious faith to send out a formidable host to accomplish our destruction. We have had no privilege, no opportunity of defending ourselves from the false, foul, and unjust aspersions against us before the nation. The government has not condescended to cause an investigating committee or other person to be sent to inquire into and ascertain the truth, as is customary in such cases.
“We know those aspersions to be false, but that avails us nothing. We are condemned unheard, and forced to an issue with an armed mercenary mob, which has been sent against us at the instigation of anonymous letter-writers ashamed to father the base, slanderous falsehoods which they have given to the public; of corrupt officials, who have brought false accusations against us to screen themselves in their own infamy; and of hireling priests and howling editors, who prostitute the truth for filthy lucre’s sake.
“The issue which has been thus forced upon us compels us to resort to the great first law of self-preservation, and stand in our own defense—a right guaranteed unto us by the genius of the institutions of our country, and upon which the government is based.
“Our duty to ourselves, to our families, requires us not to tamely submit to be driven and slain without an attempt to preserve ourselves. Our duty to our country, our holy religion, our God, to freedom and liberty, requires that we should not quietly stand still and see those fetters forging around which are calculated to enslave and bring us in subjection to an unlawful military despotism, such as can only emanate [in a country of constitutional law] from usurpation, tyranny, and oppression.