History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

492 THE GOVERNMENT IN ARMS.
ing Brigharu Young as the only law -giver and lawmaker
on earth."
These allegations were denied by the Mormon
authorities in an official letter from the deputy clerk
of the supreme court of Utah to the attorney-gener-
al, 24 except those relating to the treatment of the fed-
eral officials, the Gunnison massacre, the death of
Shaver, and the murder of Babbitt, which needed no
denial. If it was true that the magistrates appointed
by the United States were held in contempt, there was
sufficient provocation. Two of them, as we have seen,
deserted their post, a third was probably an opiumeater,
a fourth a drunkard, a fifth a gambler and a
lecher.
After the departure of Drummond, the only gentile
official remaining in the territory was Garland Hurt,
the Indian agent, and none were found willing to accept
office in a territory where it was believed they
could only perform their duty at peril of their lives.
The saints had now few apologists at Washington.
Even Senator Douglas, who in former years was their
stoutest champion, had deserted them, and in a speech
delivered at Springfield, Illinois, early in 1856, had
denounced Mormonismas "the loathsome ulcer of the
body politic." At least two years before this date it
was apparent that matters in Utah were tending toward
a crisis, though no measures had yet been taken
except a feeble effort to supersede Brigham as governor
of the territory. On the 31st of August, 1854, Lieutenant-colonel
E. J. Steptoe arrived in Salt Lake City,
en route for California with a body of troops. As
Brigham's term of office was now about to expire, the
governorship of Utah was tendered to the colonel by
President Pierce. Knowing, however, that the for-
2i Id., 214-15. Curtis E. Bolton, deputy clerk (in the absence of the chief
clerk), solemnly declares that the records, papers, etc., are in safe-keeping.
He states that Green, a lad 18 years of age, drew a pistol in self-defence, but
did not point it, and was pardoned at the petition of the U. S. officials and
influential citizens of S. L. City, and that the statement as to the incarceration
of five or six men from Missouri and Iowa without due cause is utterly