Mormon History
Mormonism Defined - 1867
The Daily Union Vedette – July 17, 1867
MORMONISM
DEFINED.
______
A recent article in the [Montana] Post, touching mildly on the abominations practiced by Brigham Young and his followers, appears to have touched a tender place in the Salt Lake Telegraph, and it thereupon devotes a couple of editorials to the Post. The Telegraph builds its article on this kind of theory: "The legalizing of prostitution is advocated in some of the States. Polygamy is no worse than prostitution, therefore why disturb it? This kind of argument is its own refutation, and would not merit a reply were it not for the following assertions:
"There is something said in
general terms about infamous and detestible criminal practices, pernicious and
demoralizing institutions, hostility toward resident unbelievers and the Federal
Government and its officers, intimidating courts, defiance to the laws, locally
legalized abominations, and so on.
"We have lived in this city quite a time, and must confess to utter ignorance of
the prevelence hereabout of the crimes somewhat indefinitely preferred by the
Post.
"We are in a great loss to know what those infamous and detestable criminal
practices, pernicious and demoralized institutions mean. We have not the
remotest idea of any such things in connection with the people of Utah....
On the 7th of January, 1863, Judge Cradlebaugh stated in the House of
Representatives that "while he was an Associate Justice of Utah, the Grand
Juries utterly refused to do anything and had to be discharged.
He added:
"Sitting as a committing magistrate, complaint after complaint was made before
me of murders and robberies. Among these I may mention, as peculiarly and
shockingly prominent, the murder of Forbes, the assassination of the Parrishes
and Potter, of Jones and his mother, of the Aiken party, of which there were six
in all, and, worst and darkest in the appalling catalogue of blood, the
cowardly, cold-blooded butchery and robbery at the Mountain Meadows, September
10, 1857. At that time there still lay, all ghastly, under the sun of Utah, the
unburied skeletons of one hundred and nineteen men, women, and children, the
hapless, hopeless victims of the Mormon creed."
He stated that the wholesale murder was committed by Mormons, partly painted as
Indians, by written authority of Brigham Young. They were a train of emigrants
who had passed through the the city and been joined by disaffected Mormons.
United States officers reported officially the same thing. The train was a
wealthy one, was from those States from which the Mormons had been expelled, and
Revenge and Avarice inspired the deed. It consisted of 40 wagons, 800 head of
cattle, 60 horses and mules, and nearly 150 men and women and many children. The
people were all massacred except the infants, and Hon. J. Forney testifies to
the Commissioner of Indian Affairs that a few days after the massacre that there
was distributed among the leading dignitaries $30,000 worth of property. Captain
Campbell who was appointed to enquire into these affairs reported to the A. A.
General of the U. S. Army,
July 6, 1859, that
"These emigrants were [here] met by the Mormons, assisted by such of the
wretched Indians of the neighborhood as they could force or persuade to join
[them], and massacred, with the exception of such infant children as the Mormons
thought too young to remember or tell of the affair."
Judge Cradlebaugh visited the scene of the massacre, was thoroughly convinced
that the Mormons concocted the deed and were the main parties in executing it.
Numbers of Mormons who had apostatized offered abundance of evidence if they
were assured of military protection. He took affidavits and issued warrants for
the arrest of thorty-eight Mormons including three Bishops, when orders were
received from Washington to withdraw the military and so ended, for the time at
least, the investigation. Brigham Young, Superintendent of Indian Affairs at the
time, made no mention of the massacre in his report. The Deseret News
made no mention of it for several months. The Indians, apostate Mormons and the
children saved in the massacre; goods found in the possession of the Mormons,
known to have belonged to the emigrants, and traced back to the day succeeding
the massacre, every evidence of a direct or circumstantial character, fastens
upon the Mormon people the stigma and guilt of this damnable outrage. If this
not sufficient, there is this day in possession of Judge Titus in Salt Lake
City, the original order, issued by Lieut. Gen. Wells, commanding the
Nauvoo Legion, in the handwriting of his Adj. Gen. Spangler sworn to as
authentic by two witnesses, and admitted last winter by the widow of Spangler to
be his handwriting, ordering the murder of over forty teamsters who had
incurred the displeasure of the Mormon dignitaries. This order is published in a
report in the United States Congress last winter....