History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

A CONFLICT IMPENDING. 495
It was now established, as was supposed, on sufficient
evidence, that the Mormons refused obedience
to gentile law, that federal officials had been virtually
driven from Utah, that one, at least, of the federal
judges had been threatened with violence while his
court was in session, and that the records of the court
had been destroyed or concealed. With the advice of
his cabinet, therefore, and yielding perhaps not unwillingly
to the outcry of the republican party, President
Buchanan determined that Brigham should be superseded
as governor, and that a force should be sent to
the territory, ostensibly as a posse comitatus, to sustain
the authority of his successor. 80
tion to Joseph Smith, Dec. 25, 1832, and first published by F. D. Richards in
the Pearl of Great Price at Liverpool in 1851. 'Verily, thus saith the Lord
concerning the wars which will shortly come to pass, beginning at the rebellion
of South Carolina, which will eventually terminate in the death and misery of
many souls. The days will come that war will be poured out upon all nations,
beginning at that place; for behold ! the southern states shall be divided against
the northern states, and the southern states will call on other nations, even on
the nation of Great Britain, as it is called, and they shall also call upon other
nations, in order to defend themselves against other nations; and thus war
shall be poured out upon all nations. And it shall come to pass after many
days slaves shall rise up against their masters, who shall be marshalled and
disciplined for war. ' It is somewhat suspicious that this revelation should
appear in the edition of 1876, but not in the one of 1845, or in any other edition
published before the war, so far as I am aware. A copy of it will be
found in Stenhouse's Rocky Mountain Saints, 420-1. According to Hist. B.
Young, MS.; Carrington's Rem., MS., Joseph Smith early in his career
warned the saints that 'some day they would see the United States come
against them in war, and that the Lord should deliver them.'
30 The above appear to be the main reasons that led to what was termed
the Utah war. Among the best statements as to its causes, apart from the
official documents already quoted, are those contained in Remy's Journey to
G. S. L. City, i. 468-73, and Tullidge's Hist. S. L. City, 144 et seq., though
the latter is somewhat far-fetched and lays too much stress on the part that
Fremont bore in the matter. 'In the framing of its first platform,' he says
the republican party raised her (Utah) to a kindred association with the
south; and in every campaign where John C. Fremont was the standardbearer
of the party, there could be read: 'The abolishment of slavery and
polygamy, the twin relics of barbarism.' Mr Tullidge borrows somewhat
closely from Stenhouse, who, in his Rocky Mountain Saints, 307-8, makes the
same remark. The causes of the war have, of course, been touched upon by
most writers on Utah, those in favor of the saints claiming that there was no
just reason for it, and others bringing numberless charges against them. During
the years 1855-7 newspapers and periodicals throughout the U. S. were
teeming with articles and paragraphs on the Mormon question, most of them
being more or less acrid and unjust in their comments. A writer in the
Atlantic Monthly, March 1S59, p. 364, states that Buchanan's idea in ordering
the Utah expedition was ' to gag the north, and induce her to forget that
she had been robbed of her birthright, by forcing on the attention of the
country other questions of absorbing interest. ' For views and statements of