LAND TITLES FROM THE UNITED STATES, OR DIRECT FROM GOD?
One extremely important area of conflict between the Washington government and the Deseret theocracy was over the issue of land ownership and land rights. According to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo between Mexico and the United States ending hostilities on February 2, 1848, the Territory of Utah and surrounding states had been ceded by Mexico to Washington. That meant that the land titles and deeds granted by the Deseret administration during the first years of settlement were not valid. Accordingly, when federal officials arrived in Deseret for the purpose of beginning the process of surveying the land, they were subjected to extreme harassment. When the first federal surveyor entered Utah Territory, the Mormons saw this as an attempt by the United States government to assert authority over land which they held on perpetual lease from God. (The Mormon Rebellion, Bigler & Bagley, p. 49)
Agents of the Bureau of Indian Affairs found in 1851 that the top Utah officials had "no sympathy or respect for our government or its institutions," and could be "frequently heard cursing and abusing not only the government, but all who are American citizens." One official concluded that the Mormons would try to prevent the United States from "peaceably extending her laws over the territory."
At the same time, an awareness of the alliance between Mormons and the British Empire was common in the population at large. Mormons were overheard saying that "they did not fear the United States. If they needed help, they can easily get it from England." (The Mormon Rebellion, Bigler & Bagley, p. 56)
Not content with harassing federal officials and making their work impossible, the Brigham Young regime in the early 1850s also began promoting armed attacks on pioneer wagon trains transiting the Utah Territory, both by inciting the Indians to hostile action, as well as by having Mormons carry out the attacks themselves. Rumors soon abounded that white men, evidently Mormons, were joining in Indian attacks on pioneer wagon trains. The Mormons told the Indians "that it was all right to kill American soldiers, but not Mormons." (The Mormon Rebellion, Bigler & Bagley, p. 64)
In 1853, Captain John W. Gunnison of the United States Army was killed, presumably by Indians, while doing surveys for the proposed transcontinental railroad, which would most likely pass through Utah. There were many questions as to whether the Mormons had incited the Indians to carry out this murder.
"THOSE DAMNED AMERICANS"
Among the Mormons, the term "American" was a sign of contempt. In one typical incident, a group of Mormons attacked a dwelling because they had heard that there were Americans inside. The Saintly assailants demanded to know from the homeowner "what he was doing with those damned Americans about his house." [141] (The Mormon Rebellion, Bigler & Bagley, p. 72)
Among the Indians, however, "The American" often had positive connotations. This is especially the case with Garland Hurt, an energetic Indian agent who did much for the federal cause, and who must be seen as one of the unsung heroes of the Utah Territory. Hurt worked especially with the Ute people, whom the Mormons had systematically antagonized. The result was that, just as brother Brigham was sending out his emissaries, disguised as missionaries, to recruit the Indian tribes for war, at least one federal official was preventing an important Indian nation from being goaded into conflict by the Mormon Saints. (The Mormon Rebellion, Bigler & Bagley, p. 72)
THE CRISIS OF 1855: BRIGHAM MOBILIZES FOR TOTAL CIVIL WAR
In February 1855, President Franklin Pierce attempted to appoint a territorial governor to take the place of Brigham Young. In response to this, Brigham Young began the first phase of his plan for secession. During these months, he would hide behind the slogan of "sovereignty," a word which in our own time often has a similar subversive intent.
Brigham Young in 1855 therefore set out to accentuate and radicalize the existing tendencies and institutions of Mormondom, with a view to mobilizing the Utah Territory for total war against the United States. He was, in fact, executing an articulated strategy: he was willing to accept statehood and entry into the Union, but his first choice was existence as an independent, sovereign nation. Brigham Young was prepared to call attention to his landmark decision with special rhetorical fireworks. (The Mormon Rebellion, Bigler & Bagley, p. 73)
BRIGHAM: GATES TO HEAVEN CLOSED TO GENTILES AS OF 1855
Brigham Young proclaimed a revelation according to which salvation was no longer available to the Gentiles, meaning the Americans and all other non-Mormons. The word went out that "the day has come to turn the key of the Gospel against the Gentiles, and open it to the remnants of Israel, the people shouted, Amen, and the feeling was such that most present could realize, but few describe." [142] Young's pronouncement in effect consigned the Gentiles to damnation, through the proverbial outer darkness where there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth. From this he also derived the consequence that "the time had come to reject the colonial government Congress had imposed on God's kingdom." If Washington continued to deny Deseret the status of a sovereign state within the Union, then the obvious result would be a completely independent nation striking out on its own. [143]
MORMONS INCITE INDIAN WARS
Contemplating these events, one inevitably feels a sense of the grotesque disproportion between cause and effect. Here, for example, the mere act of a US president naming a territorial governor for Utah who happens not to be one of the anointed Mormon Saints is enough to cause cataclysmic effects in heaven, ruling out a future possibility of salvation for hundreds of millions of "Gentiles." How could this apocalyptic event be triggered by the routine actions of one Franklin Pierce, president of a nation of the middle rank at best? What kind of a religion was this? Was it a religion at all, or a thinly veiled pretext for theocratic secessionism? Brigham Young and his associates were indeed radical subjectivists who thought the drama of salvation revolved around them.
To enhance the possibilities of a military alliance with the "Lamanite" Indians, who were considered a lost tribe of Israel, Brigham ordered his missionaries out with orders to teach them farming, instruct them in the Book of Mormon, and teach them polygamy in practice by marrying Indian women. Eventually the red men could become "white and delightsome," like the good angels who fought on the side of the Mormon Jesus, according to the time-honored Latter-day Saint formulation. (The Mormon Rebellion, Bigler & Bagley, p. 74) Notice that the Mormon concept of saving the Indians includes forcing them to become white.
The Mormon hierarchy also organized in 1855 a conference of missionaries who would enter into communication with the main Indian tribes of North America, with the obvious implication of inciting them against the US federal government. In this continent-wide mobilization, one hundred and sixty Mormon missionaries went out, from the Pacific Ocean to the Mississippi, soon to be followed by more. They made contact with the principal Indian nations, including Delawares, Cheyennes, Cherokees, Kiowas, Comanches, Wacos, Witchitas, Lakotas, Choctaws, Moquis (Hopis), Mojaves, Nez Perces, Goshutes, Shoshones, Utahs, Paiutes, Omahas, Flatheads, Navahos, Shawnees, Bannocks, and Creeks. (The Mormon Rebellion, Bigler & Bagley, p. 74)
BRIGHAM YOUNG'S PRIMITIVE COMMUNISM
Brigham Young also mobilized what amounted to a collectivist war economy in Deseret. Modern Mormons claim to be the true apostles of the free market, but Brigham Young -- alone in North America at the time -- relied on a command economy using centralized planning and coercion. All important economic decisions involving the application of resources were the prerogative of the Mormon Moses. He claimed in 1867 that he had been called by God "to dictate affairs in the building up of his Zion," and that this gave him the totalitarian power to determine everything, "even to the ribbons the women wear." [144] One is reminded of the Soviet planners who wanted to control economic activity "down to the last bolt."
The Mormon statist war economy was fed by tithing. It was also fed by usury, with a rate of 12% interest per year being charged on the money the church had advanced to overseas converts making the journey to Deseret. For this reason, historians have seen many in the Mormon rank-and-file as having "the status of indentured servants." (The Mormon Rebellion, Bigler & Bagley, p. 80)
During the 1850s, an entire popular literature grew up around the theme of "Escape from Mormondom." Contributors included women like Ann Eliza Webb Young, who had managed to escape their marriages to Brigham Young and other Mormon bigwigs, plus European travel writers, Christian moralists, and muckraking social reformers. One wellknown contributor was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who later began his famous Sherlock Holmes series with the story centering on the same theme. Brigham Young became the villain of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's first entry in the Sherlock Holmes series; this was A Study in Scarlet, the story of two unhappy Mormons, John Ferrier and his daughter, who escape from Deseret.
1856 REPUBLICAN PLATFORM VS SLAVERY AND POLYGAMY, "TWIN RELICS OF BARBARISM"
Brigham Young was thrown into a state of complete frenzy in the summer of 1856 when he received word of the first Republican national convention, which had occurred in June in Philadelphia. Here John C. Fremont of California, the Pathfinder of the West, had been nominated for president. The Republican platform also included the following provision:
Resolved: That the Constitution confers upon Congress sovereign powers over the territories of the United States for their government; and that in the exercise of this power, it is both the right and the imperative duty of Congress to prohibit in the territories those twin relics of barbarism -- Polygamy, and Slavery.
Brigham Young was apoplectic. Although Fremont was defeated by Buchanan in the November 1856 election, in 1858 the Republicans took control of the House of Representatives with a platform that would have made it impossible for states to join the Union without prohibiting both slavery and polygamy. (The Mormon Rebellion, Bigler & Bagley, p. 87) This turned out to be the doom for Brigham Young's fallback option of forcing the United States government to protect polygamy in the same way that the Slave Power was making the federal government protect black chattel servitude.
The Republican stance on these issues was also tactically astute. The Mormon apostle John Taylor realized that the Republicans had now succeeded in attaching not just slavery but also polygamy to the Douglas-Democratic slogan of popular sovereignty or squatter sovereignty. Taylor saw that the Republicans had successfully "introduced opposition to Polygamy, as well as to Slavery, [as] twin relics of barbarism, which had thrown 'the onus of protecting & sustaining both onto the Democratic party.'" Taylor complained that this maneuver was a "mean dastardly act, in good keeping with other political moves of the present day; it is greedily swallowed by religionists of all parties ... polygamy is shook at the Democrats as one of the institutions which they must defend, in conjunction with slavery.'" (The Mormon Rebellion, Bigler & Bagley, pp. 87-88) Brigham Young's only consolation was that the sporadic fighting in Bleeding Kansas was getting worse. Clearly, Brigham Young was hoping to see the short-term fulfillment of Joseph Smith's apocalyptic Civil War Prophecy, itself an early fruit of the cooperation of the Mormon Church hierarchy with British intelligence.
THE MORMON ""REFORMATION" -- BRIGHAM YOUNG'S REIGN OF TERROR
In the summer of 1856, Brigham Young proceeded to whip the population of Deseret into a paroxysm of apocalyptic and theocratic frenzy. He did this by unleashing the so-called "Mormon Reformation," which has a number of features in common with the Anabaptists of Muenster in the 16th century, with Robespierre's Reign of Terror in the French Revolution, and with Chairman Mao's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. It was a chance for the Mormon hierarchy to cultivate a war psychosis or war hysteria among its subject population, and also to systematically eliminate any possible leaders of some possible future challenge to the absolute leadership of Brigham Young and The Quorum of Twelve.
Once again, Brigham Young stressed the messianic function of the kingdom of God, and in the process explicitly embraced the notion of terrorism. He announced that God's Kingdom was supposed to be "a terror to all nations." Mormondom had been divinely appointed to "revolutionize the world and bring all under subjection to the law of God, who is our law giver." [145]
BLOOD ATONEMENT -- FOR CRIMES OF AMERICANS AGAINST MORMONS
Brigham Young also thought it proper at this point to introduce a theological concept, one which was once again totally alien to the tradition of Christianity. For Christians, the crucifixion of Christ on Calvary was a sacrifice which, because of the sinless and divine nature of the victim, fully atones for the scenes of mankind, no matter how monstrous they may be. The grace accorded to humankind by Christ's self-sacrifice is infinite, and any denial on this point amounts to outright blasphemy. But Brigham Young now put forth the doctrine that Christ's atonement is implicitly not enough, and that for certain heinous sins and crimes, "Blood Atonement" is required. Not surprisingly, many of the crimes he had in mind were crimes against Mormons, and the sinners he wanted to punish were very often none other than the American people.
Brigham offered the following concise summary of blood atonement in his sermon of September 21, 1856: "There are sins that can be atoned for by an offering upon an altar as in ancient days; and there are sins that the blood of a lamb, or a calf, or of turtle doves, cannot remit, but they must be atoned for by the blood of the man." [146]
Blood atonement became the centerpiece of a phase of acute hysteria about the Mormon creed. The grand inquisitor of the Mormon Reformation was Jedediah M. Grant, whom we have already encountered. The New York Times described Grant as "a tall, thin, repulsive looking man, of acute, vigorous intellect, a thorough-paced scoundrel, and the most essential blackguard in the pulpit." His nickname was 'Brigham's Sledgehammer."' [147]
The inhabitants of Utah were subjected to an inquisition in which they were interrogated on 13 questions about their possible sins. They were grilled about their contributions to public sanitation. They were interrogated even about whether they managed to take a bath once a week. Brigham Young ordered that all the Mormon Saints be baptized, and demanded that girls over twelve start attending lectures on the importance of polygamy and the submission of plural wives, very much in the spirit of Chairman Mao's rectification and reeducation campaigns.
DANITE AND SHENPIP DEATH SQUADS PURGE THE RANKS OF THE SAINTS
Grant, in his role as Brigham's Torquemada, told the worst offenders that they should come forward and voluntarily arrange for their own capital execution. He told the worst offenders among the Mormons that they ought to go and confess to Brigham Young, who would then appoint a firing squad to execute them. If they paid the price of blood atonement now, they might still have some hope of getting into heaven. Utah traditionally offered death row inmates the choice between hanging and shooting, in deference to Brigham Young's idea that shedding your blood now might increase your chances to get into heaven later, assuming you were in the blood atonement category. The executioners would obviously be drawn from the ranks of the Danites, [148] and might include the Exterminating Angels, sometimes called Shenpips.
A few years later, Brigham Young Jr. confessed, not in public but in his diary entry for December 15, 1862, that the Reformation instituted by his father had been a "reign of terror." (The Mormon Rebellion, Bigler & Bagley, p. 95)
THE HAND-CART HECATOMB: BRIGHAM YOUNG'S GREAT LEAP FORWARD
Just as Mao used the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution starting in 1966 to divert attention from his failures like the Great Leap Forward, so Brigham Young was able to use a smokescreen of fanaticism to cover up his own logistical blunders, most notably the great handcart tragedy of 1857. Seeking ways to promote an immediate wave of mass migration into Deseret on the cheapest possible basis to get ready for the imminent conflict, Brigham Young had ordered that newly converted Mormon adepts arriving at the Mississippi or Missouri River points of debarkation that served the overland trails west should not be provided with expensive wagons with oxen or horses, but rather with cheap wooden handcarts. These often resembled rickshaws. Each handcart was supposed to carry 400 to 500 pounds of baggage. Logistical support was limited to one wagon and three yokes of oxen for each 20 carts or 80 to 100 people. This was insufficient for food, clothing, and tents, and it was a recipe for disaster. [149]
Nevertheless, the Brigham Young personality cult generated paeans of phrase for this idea
Oh, our faith goes with the hand-carts,
And they have our hearts' best love;
'Tis a novel mode of traveling,
Devised by the gods above.
And Brigham's their executive.
He told us the design;
And the Saints are proudly marching on,
Along the handcart line. [150]
But in 1856, a party of immigrants from England, Wales, Scotland, and the Scandinavian countries arrived late, and then had to wait for their handcarts to be manufactured. Two parties started the trek from Florence, Nebraska in August rather than in the spring. When they arrived at Laramie, Wyoming, it was found that Brigham Young had failed to honor his promise to provide the necessary food stocks for the rest of the trip. Handcarts began to break down, rations were cut by 25%, and the starving Saints began eating their supplies of axle grease to stay alive. A blizzard then arrived from the north, leaving the immigrants stranded. Out of about a thousand Mormons in the two hardest hit companies, some 210 died.
Brigham Young did everything possible to escape responsibility, despite the fact that logistics was supposed to be his strong point. The idea of using wooden hand carts had been totally his own, and they implemented it despite the warnings of other senior Mormon leaders. He had skimped on the accompanying wagons, and had failed to provide food stocks and emergency help along the way.
Brigham Young was widely blamed in Salt Lake City, and he lashed out in rage at his critics: "if any man or woman complains of me or my counselors, in regard to the lateness of some of this season's immigration, let the curse of God be on them and blast their substance with mildew and destruction, until their names are forgotten from the earth." [151] Modern-day political observers are reminded of the attitude of the Romney campaign towards its critics, which can be summed up as the same "the public be damned."
One wretched woman survived Brigham Young's handcart fiasco, only to lose her life when she had second thoughts about polygamy. She committed suicide on Christmas day by cutting her throat. The Mormon authorities were not interested in clarifying this tragic case, but the loyal American Indian agent Garland Hurt investigated. Hurt discovered that the victim had "come with the handcarts and been told that she would be denied subsistence and denounced as a prostitute if she did not become the polygamous wife of the man with whose family she was living, and the fatal razor was brought to its relief." [152]
It was in these same dark weeks of the winter of 1856-57, with the handcart tragedy and the Reformation hysteria providing the backdrop, that the Brigham Young clique carried out new steps on the path to secession.
In December 1856, the Legislature of Utah Territory met in Fillmore, and quickly voted to move the territorial capital back to Salt Lake City, where it could be more easily defended. One observer of its proceedings found that the wind of theocratic secessionism and rebellion against the United States had reached hurricane force. The Mormons wanted independence, and they were willing to court a confrontation with the federal government to get it. (The Mormon Rebellion, Bigler & Bagley, p. 103)
Brigham Young railed against the few loyal United States officials in the territory, including Surveyor General Burr, Garland Hurt, and Federal District Judge William W. Drummond. These he vilified as "dogs and skunks." [153]
MORMONS ENDORSE NULLIFICATION DOCTRINE
Building a case for a declaration of independence or sovereignty, the Utah territorial legislature began voting a series of raving resolutions pledging to "resist any attempt of Government Officials to set at naught our Territorial laws, or to impose upon us those which are inapplicable and of right not in force in this Territory." [154]
They then passed a long resolution addressed to President elect James Buchanan, in which they recited all the injustices that had been afflicted on the Mormons starting from their foundation. Their major complaint was that American presidents had appointed Utah territorial officials "who seek to corrupt our community, trample upon our rights, walk underfoot our laws, rules and regulations, who neither feared God nor regard men and whenever checked in a mid-career, threaten us with death and destruction by United States troops." [155]
John M. Bernhisel was Utah's territorial delegate to the U.S. Congress in Washington, and tried to make the case for Utah's statehood to the new President Buchanan shortly after his inauguration, but Buchanan told them to submit these documents to Interior Secretary Jacob Thompson. Thompson declared that the Mormon version of nullification was nothing less than "a declaration of war." (The Mormon Rebellion, Bigler & Bagley, p.106)
MORMONS IN OPEN REBELLION
At about the same time, Surveyor General Burr wrote urgently to Washington: "The fact is, these people repudiate the authority of the United States in this country, and are in open rebellion against the general government." [156]
More reports came to the White House from Federal Judge Drummond about Mormon destruction of judicial records, American citizens imprisoned without due process of law, Brigham Young's suborning of juries, the Gunnison murder on orders from the Mormon Saints, and the assassination of Federal District Judge Shaver through poisoning.
Meanwhile, the Reformation was still in full swing, and a Mormon bishop and his gang of Danite retainers castrated one man for alleged sexual misdeeds. This prompted a discussion among the sons of Brigham Young, which the patriarch concluded by prophesying "that the day would come when thousands would be made eunuchs 'in order for them to be saved in the Kingdom of God."' [157]
BRIGHAM YOUNG SEES SEPARATION OF UTAH FROM KINGDOMS OF THIS WORLD
Brigham Young escalated his rhetoric, challenging his Salt Lake City audience to embrace the cause of secessionism and an independent Mormon theocratic empire. In his sermon of August 2, 1857, the Prophet intoned: "The time must come when there will be a separation between this kingdom and the kingdoms of this world, even in every point of view. The time must come when this kingdom must be free and independent from all other kingdoms. Are you prepared to have the thread cut now?" [158]
With many reports of a full-fledged Mormon insurrection converging on Washington, pressure mounted on the feckless and treacherous President James Buchanan to do something. The Mormons had considered Buchanan a friend, just as they had positively evaluated Millard Fillmore and Stephen Douglas, since all of them accepted the Democratic Party doctrine of squatter sovereignty, which the Mormons thought would allow polygamy to be continued perpetually. Buchanan's Secretary of War was John B. Floyd, who used his term in office to do everything possible to facilitate secessionism and rebellion. Some historians think that Floyd encouraged Buchanan to send a force into Utah because he expected the expedition to be a fiasco, and estimated that it was sure to drain the federal treasury in the process. Some have seen the motivation in the lucrative contracts that might be distributed.
Purely political factors clearly played a part. The Republicans had scored significant gains in 1856 by tying the albatross of polygamy around the neck of the Democratic Party. Now, Democrats were looking for a way to put some distance between themselves and the Mormon Saints. US Senator William Bigler wrote to Buchanan that "there is a good deal of honest indignation in the country against the conduct of the Mormons. The universal sentiment seems to demand the assertion and maintenance of the political authority of the general government over the territory, regardless of their peculiar institution. They may convince the world that a man in that country may have more wives than one; but it will be difficult to show that it gives him a right to reject the executive officer of the law." [159] At this point, Buchanan alerted 1,500 US troops to be ready to move into Utah.
JUNE 1857: STEPHEN DOUGLAS CONDEMNS THE "TREASONABLE, DISGUSTING, AND BESTIAL PRACTICES" OF MORMONDOM
On June 12, 1857, Stephen Douglas, who was getting hammered as the defender of slavery and polygamy in the territories, also called for military action to reassert federal authority in Utah. Douglas declared that 90% of the Mormons were foreigners, aliens who rejected US citizenship. The Mormons, he said, considered Brigham Young and his regime superior to the federal government, which they hoped in the long run to subvert. The Mormons were goading the Indians into warlike acts, even as the Danites crushed internal dissent. Douglas denounced the Mormon power, declaring: "Should such a state of things actually exist as we are led to infer from the reports, and such information that comes in an official shape, the knife must be applied to this pestiferous, disgusting cancer which is gnawing into the very vitals of the body politic. It must be cut out by the roots, seared over by the red hot iron of stern and unflinching law." Douglas wanted to abolish the Utah Territory altogether by repealing the 1850 act of Congress which had created it. This was because the Mormons were "alien enemies and outlaws," unfit to be citizens of the Territory, and even more unfit to be citizens of a state. Douglas warned that "to protect them further in their treasonable, disgusting, and bestial practices would be a disgrace to the country -- a disgrace to humanity -- a disgrace to civilization, and a disgrace to the spirit of the age." Douglas wanted Brigham Young and his retainers to answer for any crimes they have committed in courts in Iowa, Missouri, or California. [160]
Heber Kimball replied that Douglas was trying to get elected president, which was certainly true, and that "he will go to hell," which remains to be determined. [161]
MAY 1857: ONE THIRD OF US ARMY DEPLOYED TO QUELL MORMON REBELLION
One of Brigham Young's sources in New York City reported that the US Army supreme commander, the Whig General Winfield Scott, had ordered Brevet Brigadier General William S. Harney along with his command of twenty-five hundred officers and men to occupy a line along the Oregon Trail from Fort Leavenworth to Fort Laramie. With this order, which was issued on May 28, 1857 Scott had committed about one third of the officers and men of the entire United States Army to dealing with the Mormon threat. (The Mormon Rebellion, Bigler & Bagley, p. 130-2)
At this time, the majority of Mormons were convinced that the apocalypse would occur during their lifetimes. Brigham Young cannily exploited this belief structure for his own political gain. "This is the kingdom of heaven -- the kingdom of God which Daniel saw," Young sermonized. "This is the kingdom that was to be set up in the last days." If US troops came into Utah, Brigham Young considered that an aggression which he would meet with armed force and with the weapon of secessionism: "I shall take a hostile move by our enemies as an evidence that it is time for the thread to be cut. I think that we will find three hundred who will lap water, and we can whip out the Midianites." [162]
BRIGHAM YOUNG PROCLAIMS SECESSION TO CHEERING MORMONS
This is also what Brigham Young was writing in his own private diary, where he recorded on August 11, 1857: "Fixed my detirmination [sic] not to let any troops enter this territory ... And unless the Government assumes a more pacific attitude, to declare emigration by the overland route Stopt. And make every preparation to give the U.S. a Sound drubbing. I do not feel to be imposed upon any more." (The Mormon Rebellion, Bigler & Bagley, p. 139) According to an eyewitness, on August 16, 1857, Young had stated in a speech in the temple that Utah was now a separate and independent territory, owing no allegiance or obedience to any laws but their own. Mormon bigwig George Brown Bailey later wrote that "This people came out and declared their independency of the United States from this very time ... The Presidency put it to the people wither [sic] they would maintain it to the last and it was carried by unanimous vote of uplifted hands and a shout of Yea which made the place echo." [163]
Young's actions depended on a kind of primitive doublethink which he constantly practiced. One aspect was to pledge support for the Constitution at the same time that he plotted insurrection. Here is how Brigham's doublethink sounded in that fateful August of 1857: "The United States had turned mob & were breaking the Constitution of the United States & we would now have to go forth & defend it & also the kingdom of God ... If General Harney Came here with an armey [sic] to destroy this people we would destroy him & his armey [sic]." (The Mormon Rebellion, Bigler & Bagley, p. 141)
If the United States Constitution no longer applied to Utah, and the writ of the US federal government no longer ran, what exactly was going to take their place? Brigham Young fell back on Joseph Smith's slogan of "theodemocracy," which the original Prophet had cooked up for his 1844 presidential campaign. Clearly, theodemocracy was simply a way to sugarcoat theocracy, a concept which has never been popular in the United States. Theodemocracy, it turned out, meant a totalitarian regime with no opposition.
MORMON THREAT TO DESTROY US CITIES
When US Army Captain Stewart Van Vliet arrived in Salt Lake City to attempt to negotiate with the Mormon regime, Brigham Young greeted him with a tirade full of threats against the federal government:
'''The intention of the Government is to destroy us & this we are determin[ed] they shall not do. If the government of the United States [persists] in sending Armies to destroy us in the name of the Lord we shall Conquer them .... And even should an Armey of 50,000 men get into this valley when they got here they would find nothing but a Barren waste. [Washington] must stop all emigration across this Continent for they Cannot tread in safety. The Indians will kill all that attempt it. ... If the Government Calls for volunteers in Calafornia [sic] & the people turn out to come to destroy us they will find their own buildings in flames before they get far from home & so throughout the United States." [164]
Did Brigham Young really possess a terrorist network capable of carrying out such a massive retaliatory strike against American cities? Were the Danites and Shenpips really that powerful? We do know that Nauvoo Legion officer John L. Dunyan was making similar threats in the same timeframe, telling a Mississippi traveler that, if the US Army tried to march into Mormon territory,
"every city, town and village in the States of California, Missouri and Iowa should be burned immediately -- that they had men to do this who were not known to be Mormons!" (The Mormon Rebellion, Bigler & Bagley, p. 147)
Thus, a century and a half before September 11, 2001, the Mormon chieftain was openly threatening to destroy American cities. What links might there be between the nightmare vision of Brigham Young's threats and the tragedy of 9/11? Up to now, many had imagined that no political force inside the United States could have been the author of 9/11, but this opinion clearly needs to be revised in light of threats the Mormons actually made. It should be added that the other significant force talking about burning New York City around this time was the British Admiralty. [165]
Another name enters into Romney and Bain Capital and that is Frank Morse who served as an attorney for Howard Hughes. Morse was also on the board of directors of Summa Corporation, a company William Gay controlled. Later, Morse had as his client Saudi Arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi “In the 1980s and 1990s, as a partner in the law firm Sandler, Rolnick & Morse, Morse served as Chief Legal Advisor for Adnan Khashoggi in the United States and Europe. Morse was responsible for complex litigation and business transactions for Khashoggi, personally, and for Khashoggi's Triad Group of Companies” Wikipedia Traid Group worked with high ranking members of the Mormon Church in building a complex in Salt Lake City. Khashoggi sold a Venice, Florida Airfield to Mormon Bishop Wally Hilliard. Hilliard trained two of the 9/11 pilots at the Venice air field.
-- Romney links to Death Squads, Hughes and Nixon Corruption, by Debbie McCord Skousen
The rules of engagement given to the United States Army for the Utah deployment were to respect all inhabitants, to shoot only in self-defense, and to assist federal officials in the implementation of applicable law. This was, in other words, anything but a punitive expedition on the order of Sherman's March to the Sea. Nevertheless, Brigham Young found it politic to exaggerate the federal presence into a nightmare. On September 15, 1857, the Prophet decreed the distribution of a proclamation of martial law addressed to the "Citizens of Utah" which he had ordered printed up.
BRIGHAM YOUNG'S INSURRECTION PROCLAMATION OF SEPT. 15, 1857
According to this remarkable document, the Mormons have been "invaded by a hostile force, who are evidently assailing us to accomplish our overthrow and destruction .." [166] For the Mormon Saints, as a result,
"Our duty 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 into subjection to an unlawful military despotism, such as can only emanate (in a country of constitutional law) from usurpation, tyranny and oppression."
Brigham Young, despite the fact that he was a private citizen and religious leader and not a government official in any way, did not hesitate to act in the name of the United States:
"Therefore, I, Brigham Young, Governor and Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Territory of Utah, in the name of the people of the United States in the Territory of Utah,"
Brigham Young then proceeded to create a regime of martial law that included the following points:
"First -- Forbid all armed forces of every description from coming into this Territory, under any pretense whatever.
Second -- That all the forces in said Territory hold themselves in readiness to march at a moment's notice, to repel any and all such invasion.
Third -- Martial law is hereby declared to exist in this Territory, from and after the publication of this Proclamation; and no person shall be allowed to pass or repass, into or through, or from this Territory without a permit from the proper officer.
This proclamation was Utah's functional equivalent of the South Carolina ordinance of secession of December 20, 1860. Utah was acting as an independent country, hostile to the United States.
In a crescendo of provocation, Brigham Young thus announced that special safe conduct passes, like those issued by the infamous Committee of Public Safety during the Reign of Terror in the French Revolution or the internal passports of the USSR, would be required for all persons wanting to cross the borders of Utah Territory.
He followed this on September 18, 1857 with a general order to the Mormon troops recalling how "many and deep were the scars which the knife of the legalized assassin had inflicted upon us ... God will avenge our many wrongs to guard the portals and bar the entrance of the polluter." Special vigilance was demanded of the armed forces to guarantee the faithful execution of Brigham Young's commands and to "to see that the requirements of the Proclamation are strictly carried out."
BRIGHAM YOUNG'S SIEGFRIED LINE TO KEEP US FORCES OUT
The main access to Salt Lake City from Colorado and points further east was Echo Canyon. Here the Mormon Saints constructed a line of fortifications. Because the Mormons lacked competent military engineers, the trenches they built would have been highly vulnerable to assault. The Mormon breastworks "were accessible from the rear and so exposed that army sharpshooters might easily have picked off the defenders."167 The trenches were also vulnerable to artillery attack. This is where Miles Romney the younger wanted to fight against the United States, and where his elder brother George was part of the garrison. Although these earthworks were not formidable, they nevertheless psychologically intimidated some federal officers who were already tending towards defeatism.
From a geostrategic point of view, Brigham Young's attempt to cut transcontinental communications posed a dire threat to the federal union. The transcontinental telegraph was still several years in the future, but it would go through Salt Lake City. The famous Golden Spike which completed the transcontinental railroad at Promontory Point in May, 1869 was also located in Utah. Among wagon routes, the Oregon Trail and Spanish or Mormon Trail passed through southern Idaho and Utah, both areas controlled by the Mormons. An insurrection in Utah and Southern Idaho would cut off communications between the East Coast and California, creating a grave danger that the Golden State might be subverted and detached from the Union. There was a secessionist constituency in Southern California, which came out in the open in 1860-61, so this danger was anything but academic.
In addition, if the Mormons could successfully block the overland wagon trails, then the great western migration of the American people would be stopped. In the summer of 1857, California newspapers were reporting that the number of people traveling west overland was between 25,000 and 30,000, which they estimated to be the highest level since 1853. What would be the fate of these numerous pioneers if Brigham Young were to succeed in his attempt to make Utah a zone of exclusion? Clearly, many of them would perish.
BRIGHAM YOUNG ORDERS WAGON TRAINS TO STAY OUT OF UTAH
A further complication came from the Mormon strategy of attempting to use the Indian tribes as irregular auxiliaries in shutting down westward migration through the Intermountain West. Brigham Young tried to scapegoat the Indians and use them as a pretext for his actions, lamenting that American atrocities against the Indians were stirring up Indian violence in his bailiwick. Therefore, the Americans must "stop traveling through this country," and desist from their "outrageous treatment" of the Native Americans. (The Mormon Rebellion, Bigler & Bagley, p. 143)
At the same time, Brigham wanted God's help in getting the Indians to fight and die for the cause of the Mormon Saints: "We pray our Father to turn the hearts of the Lamanites even the sons of Jacob unto us that they may do thy will & be as a wall of defense around us." (The Mormon Rebellion, Bigler & Bagley, pp. 156-57)
THE MORMON SAINTS MASSACRE THE BAKER-FANCHER PARTY FROM ARKANSAS
At this point, a column of US forces was moving through Wyoming, spread out over several hundred miles. It was now under the command of Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston, who would shortly join the Confederate States of America and be killed during his attack on the Union Army commanded by Ulysses S. Grant at Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee, in the battle of Shiloh in the spring of) 862. Johnston deployed his forces poorly. Cavalry was essential for fighting Mormons on horseback, as well as for warding off attacks by mounted Indians. But instead, Johnston had his infantry at the front of the column and his cavalry fought to the rear, where they could not be effective.
Brigham Young now caused the massacre of 140 peaceful Arkansas Travelers, including men, women, and children, in the infamous Mountain Meadows Massacre. This horrendous event stands still today as the third largest politically motivated terrorist attack in American history, ranking after 9/11 and the Oklahoma City bombing. It is a case of unprovoked violence against peaceful civilians by the Mormon Danite militia under the control of Brigham Young. Understandably. the Mountain Meadows Massacre has been a cause of acute embarrassment for Mormon, pro-Mormon, and anti-American historians. They have therefore attempted the classic maneuver of blaming the victims, alleging that the Arkansas Pioneers had mistreated the Indians, poisoned water wells, created friction with the Saints, or otherwise stirred up trouble. These are ludicrous and morally bankrupt subterfuges that are hardly capable of obscuring the fundamental responsibility of Brigham Young and the Mormon Church for these deaths.
The Arkansas wagon train had set out in the spring of 1857, long before Brigham Young had issued his order to close the borders of Utah. The travelers came from a group of families -- the Fanchers, Bakers, Camerons, Joneses, Dunlaps, Mitchells, Huffs, Tackitts, Millers, and Woods -- from Northwest Arkansas. These were prosperous settlers, and were accompanied by a considerable herd of cattle. These were truly innocent passersby, most or all of whom could have had virtually no knowledge of what was awaiting them in Utah until they had come in contact the Mormons. (The Mormon Rebellion, Bigler & Bagley, p. 156)
BRIGHAM YOUNG TO THE DANITE COMMANDER: "PITCH INTO" THE ARKANSANS
Brigham Young preferred to orchestrate atrocities indirectly. Signed orders to commit war crimes were not his style. Historians have never found a piece of paper from Brigham Young that would finally establish his guilt for the Mountain Meadows Massacre. But to look for such documents is to misunderstand the leadership style of the Mormon Prophet. King Henry II of England, in the winter of 1170, is supposed to have exclaimed before his court, "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?" The priest in question, St. Thomas Beckett, was soon assassinated in Canterbury Cathedral by killers who were seeking favor with the English sovereign. Brigham Young preferred to operate in precisely this fashion.
In the late summer of 1857, Brigham Young conferred with Mormon Bishop John D. Lee, his adopted son, a top leader of the Danites, and also a member of the secret Council of Fifty, the explicitly political body which Joseph Smith had created to advance Mormon power on this earth. The Mormon Prophet asked: "Brother Lee, what do you think the brethren would do if a company of emigrants should come down through here making threats? Don't you think they would pitch into them?" Visiting the site where the Mountain Meadows Massacre would shortly occur, Brigham had pointed out to Lee that the "Indians, with the advantage they had of the rocks, could use up a large company of emigrants, or make it very hot for them." [168] "Use up" was Brigham's usual euphemism for slaughter. It was practically an engraved invitation for a major atrocity.
The Mormon Prophet also telegraphed his intentions to the world at large, slyly warning the Gentile or American overland travelers that they were in immediate danger from the Indians: "'I now wish to say to all Gentiles send word to your friends that they must stop crossing the Continent to Calafornia [sic] for the Indians will kill them'" (The Mormon Rebellion, Bigler & Bagley, p. 161) But the killers would be Mormons, not Indians.
BRIGHAM YOUNG'S GRAIN EMBARGO AGAINST AMERICANS
The intentions of the Fancher-Baker party were entirely peaceful, but there was friction with the Mormon Saints because Brigham's followers had decided that they owned every inch of land in the Utah Territory. A conflict arose because "the nature of the terrain and Mormon communal land-use patterns made the large cattle herd and its need for forage a point of dispute over who owned the land -- Uncle Sam or the Almighty?" (The Mormon Rebellion, Bigler & Bagley, p. 166) The Mormons were forbidden to give or sell any food to the United States Army or to the Arkansas Travelers. Young commanded them that not even a kernel of grain ... "be sold to our enemies." [169]
On September 1, 1857 Young met with the leaders of the Pahvants and Paiutes. The details of this conference are still a secret, but Brigham wrote in his diary that he could "hardly restrain them from exterminating the' Americans.'" [170] This looks like a cover story invented after the fact.
On the morning of Monday, September 7, 1857, a group of Mormon riflemen accompanied by a small screening force of Indians opened fire on the Arkansans as they prepared breakfast. The Pioneers circled their wagons, threw up earthworks, and returned fire with their Kentucky rifles. Some of the Indian screening force were killed. The Mormons realized that if they attempted a frontal assault, they could eventually overwhelm the Arkansans, but only at the cost of heavy losses to the Saints. Instead, from the Mormon point of view, a stratagem of deception was in order to convince the Arkansas people to give up their guns and deliver themselves into the hands of the Mormons, who would then slaughter them. (The Mormon Rebellion, Bigler & Bagley, p. 173)
DANITES: "EMIGRANTS MUST BE DONE AWAY WITH"
The Danites conferred about what to do. One of the leaders, Colonel Dame, insisted that there must be no delay while waiting for further guidance from Salt Lake City. Said Dame: "I don't care what the council decided ... My orders are that the emigrants must be done away with." [171] The Mormons were able to convince the Arkansans to give up their weapons and accept a Mormon escort out of the territory. Each Arkansan male was flanked by an armed Mormon. There ensued the greatest peacetime massacre of Americans in the entire 19th century.
The Arkansas Travelers and their armed Mormon guards walked along a path which was surrounded by brush on both sides. At the signal from one of the Mormon leaders, each of the armed Saints turned and shot the disarmed Arkansas man walking next to him. Mormon men with their faces painted, accompanied by a few Indian allies, emerged from their hiding places in the bushes to kill the women and children at close range. The vast majority of the killers were Mormons, and not Paiute Indians. Older children begged for their lives, but they were killed if the Mormons estimated that they were old enough to give a credible account of what had occurred, and would thus be able to testify against the murdering Mormon Saints. [172]
The Mormons were anxious to hide their monstrous guilt from the world, so they took care to kill every adult and even the older children, leaving alive only the infants and toddlers who would not be able, they thought, to tell the story of how the Saints had committed this monumental atrocity. The last to die was a girl aged between ten and twelve, whom the Danites judged to be old enough to tell the story. A total of seventeen children survived. Later, with characteristic Mormon aplomb, the Southern Utah Saints -- some of whom had taken part in the killing -- who had taken these children in, presented the United States government with a bill for $7,000 for child care services rendered. In the event, they got $3,500." (The Mormon Rebellion, Bigler & Bagley, p. 343)