Affairs in Utah now became more quiet. General Connor (he was made a brigadier general for his service in the Bear River Indian campaign in 1862-1863) yielded nothing to Mormon threats or demands. A periodical called the Union Vidette, published by his force, appeared in November, 1863, and in it was printed a circular over his name, expressing belief in the existence of rich veins of gold, silver, copper, and other metals in the territory, and promising the fullest protection to miners and prospectors; and the beginning of the mining interests there dated from the picking up of a piece of ore by a lady member of the camp while attending a picnic party. Although the Mormons had discouraged mining as calculated to cause a rush of non-Mormon residents, they did not show any special resentment to the general's policy in this respect. With the increasing evidence that the Union cause would triumph, the church turned its face toward the federal government. We find, accordingly, a union of Mormons and Camp Douglas soldiers in the celebration of Union victories on March 4, 1865, with a procession and speeches, and, when General Connor left to assume command of the Department of the Platte, a ball in his honor was given in Salt Lake City; and at the time of Lincoln's assassination church and government officers joined in services in the Tabernacle, and the city was draped in mourning.
CHAPTER XIX. — EASTERN VISITORS TO SALT LAKE CITY—UNPUNISHED MURDERERS
In June, 1865, a distinguished party from the East visited Salt Lake City, and their visit was not without public significance. It included Schuyler Colfax, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Lieutenant Governor Bross of Illinois, Samuel Bowles, editor of the Springfield (Massachusetts) Republican, and A. D. Richardson of the staff of the New York Tribune. Crossing the continent was still effected by stage-coach at that time, and the Mormon capital had never been visited by civilians so well known and so influential. Mr. Colfax had stated publicly that President Lincoln, a short time before his death, had asked him to make a thorough investigation of territorial matters, and his visit was regarded as semiofficial. The city council formally tendered to the visitors the hospitality of the city, and Mr. Bowles wrote that the Speaker's reception "was excessive if not oppressive."
In an interview between Colfax and Young, during which the subject of polygamy was brought up by the latter, he asked what the government intended to do with it, now that the slavery question was out of the way. Mr. Colfax replied with the expression of a hope that the prophets of the church would have a new "revelation" which would end the practice, pointing out an example in the course of Missouri and Maryland in abolishing slavery, without waiting for action by the federal government. "Mr. Young," says Bowles, "responded quietly and frankly that he should readily welcome such a revelation; that polygamy was not in the original book of the Mormons; that it was not an essential practice in the church, but only a privilege and a duty, under special command of God."*
* "Across the Continent," p. 111.
It is worth while to note Mr. Bowles's summing up of his observations of Mormondom during this visit. "The result," he wrote, "of the whole experience has been to increase my appreciation of the value of their material progress and development to the nation; to evoke congratulations to them and to the country for the wealth they have created, and the order, frugality, morality (sic), and industry they have organized in this remote spot in our continent; to excite wonder at the perfection of their church system, the extent of its ramifications, the sweep of its influence, and to enlarge my respect for the personal sincerity and character of many of the leaders in the organization."* These were the expressions of a leading journalist, thought worthy to be printed later in book form, on a church system and church officers about which he had gathered his information during a few hours' visit, and concerning which he was so fundamentally ignorant that he called their Bible—whose title is, "Book of Mormon"—"book of the Mormons!" It is reasonably certain that he had never read Smith's "revelations," doubtful if he was acquainted with even the framework of the Mormon Bible, and probable that he was wholly ignorant of the history of their recent "Reformation." Many a profound opinion of Mormonism has been founded on as little opportunity for accurate knowledge.**
* "Across the Continent," p. 106.
** As another illustration of the value of observations by such
transient students may be cited the following, from Sir Charles
Wentworth Dilke's "Greater Britain," Vol. I, p. 148: "Brigham's deeds
have been those of a sincere man. His bitterest opponents cannot dispute
the fact that, in 1844, when Nauvoo was about to be deserted owing to
attacks by a ruffianly mob, Brigham Young rushed to the front and took
command. To be a Mormon leader was then to be the leader of an outcast
people, with a price set on his head, in a Missouri country in which
almost every man who was not a Mormon was by profession an assassin."
The Eastern visitors soon learned, however, how little intention the Mormon leaders had to be cajoled out of polygamy. Before Mr. Bowles's book was published, he had to add a supplement, in which he explained that "since our visit to Utah in June, the leaders among the Mormons have repudiated their professions of loyalty to the government, and denied any disposition to yield the issue of polygamy." Tullidge sneers at Colfax "for entertaining for a while the pretty plan" of having the Mormons give up polygamy as the Missourians did slavery. The Deseret News, soon after the Colfax party left the territory, expressed the real Mormon view on this subject, saying: "As a people we view every revelation from the Lord as sacred. Polygamy was none of our seeking. It came to us from Heaven, and we recognized it, and still do, the voice of Him whose right it is not only to teach us, but to dictate and teach all men.... They [Gentiles] talk of revelations given, and of receiving counter revelations to forbid what has been commanded, as if man was the sole author, originator, and designer of them.... Do they wish to brand a whole people with the foul stigma of hypocrisy, who, from their leaders to the last converts that have made the dreary journey to these mountain wilds for their faith, have proved their honesty of purpose and deep sincerity of faith by the most sublime sacrifices? Either that is the issue of their reasoning, or they imagine that we serve and worship the most accommodating Deity ever dreamed of in the wildest vagaries of the most savage polytheist."