History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

THE MORMON POLITY. 449
As with the judiciary so with the legislature. The
people were instructed by their spiritual law-givers
whom to elect as law-makers in matters temporal,
and these were always the dignitaries of the church.
Vote by ballot obtained, indeed, in name, but there
was practically no freedom of election, and there were
seldom even opposing candidates, the strife between
political parties, as republican and democrat, being
something unknown among them. It is this that the
gentiles find fault with ;
though the Mormons boasted,
they say, and still boast of this feature in their polity,
as showing the harmony which prevails in their midst,
it is in fact tyranny, and tyranny of the worst kind—
an oligarchy with the form but without any of the spirit
of republican institutions. Here we have one of the
worst phases of Mormonism. It must be remembered,
however, that a great majority of the Mormons
were foreigners or of foreign extraction, most of them
being men who had never enjoyed political rights,
and therefore did not miss them in the land of their
adoption.
In the proceedings of the general assembly of the
state of Deseret there is little worthy of record, and
that little relates mainly to municipal affairs, and the
establishment of courts of justice, no expense being
incurred for this or other branches of government. 21
During the winter of 1849-50 a portion of the territory
was divided into counties, which were named Salt
Lake, Weber, Utah, San Pete, Tooele, and Juab. 22 To
these were added, in 1850, Iron county; in 1851, Mil-
woman, during the husband's absence, the judge declared: 'The principle, the
only one that beats and throbs through the heart of the entire inhabitants of
this territory, is simply this: The man who seduces his neighbor's wife must
die, and her nearest relative must kill him.' Id,, 72. See also Utah Early
Records, MS., 159-60.
21 Utah Early Records, MS., 117.
22 Third General Epistle of the Twelve, in Frontier Guardian, June 12, 1850,
where the two last are spelled Yoab and Tuille. In Smith's Rise, Progress, and
Travels, 20, it is stated that Juab county was not organized until 1852. The
same statement is made in Utah Sketches, 106. Juab is a Ute word, signifying
flat or level. San Pete, sometimes called Sanpitch, was the name of an
Indian chief. "Weber is named after an explorer along the river of that name.
Richards' Utah MiscelL, MS., 1.
Hist. Utah. 29