History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

GOVERNMENT AND THE MORMONS. 367
one commonwealth, is the real difficulty—not their
religion, their so-called blasphemies, their pretended
revelations and miracles, their opposition bible, their
latter-day dispensations, and the rest; nor yet their
crimes and misdemeanors, their robberies and murders;
nor even yet their secret ceremonies, their endowments,
Danite bands, blood atonement, and the
rest. The copy or counterpart of very many of these,
in greater or smaller degree, is, or has been, practised
by the gentiles; or if not, few care enough for any of
them to go to war on their account. The trouble is
this, and this will continue to be the trouble, in Utah
or elsewhere in the United States, and that whether
polygamy stands or falls—the saints are too exclusive,
industrially and politically, for their neighbors.
The theory of government of this republic is numerical
equality, each man and each hundred men
being equal to every other man or every other hundred
men as industrial and political factors. In this case,
however, it is not so, and it never can be so. Spiritual
manifestations and spiritual wives have nothing
to do with it. A hundred or a thousand Mormons
are a unit, socially, politically, and commercially, in a
community organized theoretically upon the basis of
only one man to the unit. And until the principles
of the United States republic are remodelled, Mormons
and gentiles cannot live together in peace and
amity. It is folly for gentiles to enter a Mormon
Abraham, Smith's Pearl of Gt Price, 25-30; Mil. Star, xv. 549-50, passim.
For additional sermons on theology, see Mil. Star, i. passim, vi. 33-8, 49-56,
65-70, 97-9, viii. 35-8; Times and Seasons, ii., iii., iv., and v. passim, vi. 808-
9, S23-5, 957-8, 1001-5; anal, of, Beadle's Life in Utah, 311-31; Toucnsend's
Morm. Trials, 40; on creed and faith, Times and Seasons, i. 68-70, iii. 803-5,
931-3; Spencer's Letters, etc., 1-252; Young's Wife No. 19, 58-60; Bennett's
Hist, of Saints, 103-32, 302-7, 340-1; Eden Rev., Apr. 1854, 352; Pratt, Inter.
Arct, 27-36; Id., Series of Pamph., nos 2-6; Tucker's Morm., 139-52;
Vetromile, A Tour, 70-1; Ferris' Utah and Morm., 211-13, 299-300; Slenhouse's
Tell It All, 295-300; Reynolds' Bk of Abraham, 15; Grass Valley, Foothill
Tidings, July 5, 1879; Pratt, in Des. News, Aug. 21, 1Sj2; Smith, in
Times and Seasons, iii. 709; Id., Pearl of Gt Price, 63; Smucker's Morm., 61-
6; Pratt's Persecutions, iii.-v.; Id., Voice of Warn., passim; Dixon, White
Conquest, 182-8, 193-7, 223-8; preaciiers and preaching, Greeley's Overland
Jour., 218-22; Seventies, Mil. Star, xxxvi. 369-72; church charter, S. F.
Bidletin, Nov. 26, 185S; sincerity of Morm., S. F. Alia, Mar. 30, 1858.