History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

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THE STORY OF MORMONISM.
Sidney Rigdon delivered the oration on this occasion;
and being an American citizen, and one of the
founders of an American religion, it was perhaps nat-
ural for him to indulge in a little Fourth-of-July ora-
tory; it was natural, but under the circumstances it
was exceedingly impolitic. "We take God to witness,"
cries Sidney, " and the holy angels to witness
this day, that we warn all men, in the name of Jesus
Christ, to come on us no more forever. The man or
the set of men who attempt it, do it at the expense of
that mob that conies on us to disturb
their lives ; and
us, there shall be between us and them a war of extermination,
for we will follow them till the last drop
of their blood is spilled, or else they will have to exterminate
us; for we will carry the war to their own
houses, and their own families, and one party or the
other shall be utterly destroyed."
On the 8th of July there was a revelation on tithing.
Early in August a conference was held at Diahman,
and a military company, called the Host of Israel,
was organized after the manner of the priesthood, including
all males of eighteen years and over. There
were captains of ten, of fifty, and of a hundred; the
organization included the entire military force of the
church, as had the Kirtland army previously a part
of it. 15
At length the storm burst. The state election of
1838 was held in Daviess county at the town of Gal-
latin on the 6th of August. Soon after the polls
were opened, William Peniston, candidate for the leg-
islature, mounted a barrel and began to speak, attacking
the Mormons with degrading epithets, calling
them horse-thieves and robbers, and swearing they
should not vote in that county. Samuel Brown, a
Mormon, who stood by, pronounced the charges untrue,
and said that for one he should vote. Immediately
Brown was struck by one Weldin, whose
arm, in attempting to repeat the blow, was caught by
15 'Every man obeyed the call.' Lee's Mormonism, 57.