History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

ADMISSION AS A TERRITORY. 453
Some action must be taken in the matter, however,
for while yet the struggle on slavery was at its fiercest,
the inhabitants of the territory ceded by Mexico
had formed themselves into two separate states, each
with its own constitution, the people of California
having declared against slavery, and the people of
Deseret having taken the reins into their own hands.
Finally, on the 7th of September, 1850, on which
date the celebrated compromise measures became law
and were supposed to have settled forever the slavery
question, a bill passed the senate for the admission of
California as a state, without slavery, while the selfconstituted
state of Deseret, shorn somewhat of its
proportions, was reduced to the condition of New
Mexico, under the name of the Territory of Utah, with
a proviso that, "when admitted as a state, the said
territory, or any portion of the same, shall be received
into the Union, with or without slavery, as their constitution
may prescribe at the time of their admission."
Two days later, both bills passed the house of representatives,
and afterward received the president's sig-
nature. It is worthy of remark that the final discussion
on the bill for the admission of Utah turned
entirely on the question of allowing slavery in that
territory, for throughout the magnificent domain acquired
from Mexico, the only chance now remaining
to the south was in the desert portion of the great
basin, which, as Senator Seddon of Virginia remarked,
"had been abandoned to the Mormons for its worth-
The act to establish a territorial government for
but kept them in continual danger. ' If you tell us, as some of your predecessors
told our martyred prophets while they were yet alive, that you have no
power to redress our wrongs, then there is presented to the world the melancholy
spectacle of the greatest republic on earth, a christian nation, acknowledging
itself powerless to judge; unable to protect the right; a nation on
whose righteousness half the earth rest the hopes of man, confessing that
there is a power above the law. ' The memoralists beg that congress pass a law
granting the saints the right to settle on and forever occupy the uninhabited
lands in the islands of Lake Michigan. Although there probably were no
unoccupied lands in these islands in 1850, the petition was referred to the
committee on public lands.