History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

486
THE GOVERNMENT IN ARMS.
seat of the legislative assembly and of the supreme
court was removed to Fillmore, and in 1856 again
transferred to Salt Lake City. 13
In the latter year
a further appropriation was asked for the completion
of the state-house, but the request was refused, and
even the expenses of the assembly and other necessary
items were not promptly paid. 14
Meanwhile most of the gentile officials appointed by
the authorities were, according to Mormon accounts,
political adventurers of the lowest grade—men who,
being glad to accept the crumbs of government patronage,
were sent to this the cesspool of the United
States. The officials, of course, answered with countercharges,
among them that the Mormons combined to
obstruct the administration of justice. To attempt
to carry out the laws was, they declared, a hopeless
task, in a community controlled by an ecclesiastical
star-chamber, working out in darkness a sectarian
law, and with a grand lama presiding over their suf-
frages. Complications hence arise, and the conflict
known as the Mormon war.
Among the principal causes of the rupture were the
frequent disputes between the conflicting judiciaries.
By act of 1852 it had been ordered that the district
courts should exercise original jurisdiction, both in
civil and criminal cases, when not otherwise provided
for by law, and should have a general supervision
over all inferior courts, to prevent and correct abuses
where no other remedy existed. By consent of court,
Taylor's Narr., MS.; Wells' Narr., MS.; Hist. B. Young, MS.; Utah
Notes, MS.; Olshausen, Mormonen, 163; Utah, Acts Legist, (ed. 1866), 106.
In Richards' Narr., MS., 69, it is stated that the extra expense caused to
most of the members was the cause of the second removal. Fillmore is about
105 miles south of S. L. City. In the Deseret News of Jan. 11, 1855, is a description
of the state-house at Fillmore, so far as it was then completed.
u Demands were made on congress for the expenses of the assembly in
1856, and for making a survey of the boundaries of Oregon in the same year.
Utah Acts, 1S55-6, p. 47; 1S5S-9, p. 3S. Neither was granted. In 1852 a
bill passed the house of representatives in congress, giving to the legislatures
of territories the control of appropriations for their expenses. To this was
added an amendment 'that the provisions of this act shall not apply to Utah.'
U. S. Home Jour., 32d Cong. 1st Sess., 7S0. The bill was thrown out by the
senate.