Posted by:
randyj
(
)
Date: January 28, 2016 09:15PM
Mormon apologists typically assert that President James Buchanan unjustifiably sent federal troops to Utah because false reports had alleged that Brigham Young and other church leaders were defying and harrassing federal officials and engaging in an insurrection against the government. Government officials didn't tell Young why the troops were coming, so that's why he ordered that the army be prevented from entering the territory.
All of this is false, as the documentation in this post shows.
A non-Mormon, James Hughes, quoted:
>>"By the time James Buchanan was elected, in 1856, the Mormons were defying
> every federal authority, from judges and U.S. marshals to Indian agents.
> Territorial officers were fleeing Utah. There followed increasing reports
of
> Mormon clashes with emigrant parties headed to California, as well as with
> the government surveyor Capt. John W. Gunnison, who, along with members of
> his party, was massacred in south-central Utah whil mapping a route for
the
> transcontinental railroad. Church militia"blue-eyed, white-faced
Indians"
> were said to be masquerading as Utah Paiutes in these confrontations."
> (Sally Denton, American Heritage magazine, Oct. 2001)
A rabid, ignorant, TBM named Diana chimed in. Her comments begin with an >arrow, and my responses have no arrow:
>Ah, yes...you might want, however, to read Juanita Brooks' account of
MMM.....
To which I responded:
Diana, I have read, and am fully conversant in Brooks' book, and she
corroborates what James Hughes quoted above. Perhaps YOU should read it.
>and BTW, Sally Denton's information is a little out of date and more than a
wee bit biased.
Please give us some evidence for such assertions.
>Be that as it may, the above quote does NOT say that
Buchanan sent the army out to punish the Mormons for MMM, as you claim.
I explained in another post that Buchanan sent such a large army contingent out
in part to PREVENT the Mormons from committing such atrocities as the MMM.
Unfortunately, Brigham Young prevented Johnston's army from entering SLC by
having his men harass them, drive off their stock, and burn their supply
wagons. If Young had not committed that act of treason, the army might have
entered Utah in time to escort the Fancher and Duke trains through the
territory so the Mormons couldn't attack them.
>For your information, Buchanan sent the army out to enforce the replacement of
Brigham Young as governor of the territory by Gov. Albert Cumming, because he
had heard rumors that the Mormons were in rebellion...rumors that were
unfounded.
They were official reports, not "rumors," and they most certainly were NOT
"unfounded," as evidenced by the fact that the Mormons harassed and drove off
federal officials, and Young, a federally-appointed territorial governor,
anounced that he was declaring "independence" from the United States:
"President B. Young in his sermon declared that the thread was cut between us
and the U. S. and that the Almighty recognized us as a free and independent
people and that no officer appointed by the government should come and rule
over us from this time forth." (Diary of Hosea Stout, September 6, 1857.)
"Difficulties arose when the first appointments were made by President Fillmore
to federal offices in the territory. Scarcely had these appointees taken their
oath of office when three of them: Chief Justice Brandenberry, Associate
Justice Brocchus and the Territorial Secretary, Broughton D. Harris, refused to
stay longer in the Territory and returned to the Eastern States. There they
spread the report that first, they had been compelled to leave Utah because of
the lawless and seditious acts of Governor Young; second, that Governor Young
was wasting federal funds allotted to the Territory; third, that the Saints
were immoral, and were practicing polygamy." ("The Restored Church," William
R. Berrett, p.321.)
In 1855, one of the succeeding associate justices, William W. Drummond,
tendered his resignation, and included among his reasons:
"That Brigham Young is the head of the Mormon Church; and, as such head, the
Mormons look to him, and to him alone, for the law by which they are to be
governed; therefore no law of congress is by them considered binding in any
matter; that he [Drummond] knew that a secret, oath-bound organization existed
among all the male members of the Church to resist the laws of the country, and
to acknowledge no law save the law of the priesthood, which came to the people
through Brigham Young; that there were a number of men 'set apart by special
order of the Church', to take both the lives and property of any person who may
question the authority of the Church." [Drummond was undoubtedly referring to
Young's "Avenging Angels" such as Porter Rockwell and "Wild Bill" Hickman.]
"That the records, papers, etc., of the supreme court have been destroyed by
order of the Church, with the direct knowledge and approbation of Governor
Young, and the federal officers grossly insulted for presuming to raise a
single question about the treasonable act. That the federal officers of the
territory are constantly insulted, harassed, and annoyed by the Mormons, and
for these insults there is no redress. That the federal officers are daily
compelled to hear the form of American government traduced, the chief
executives of the Nation, both living and dead, slandered and abused from the
masses as well as from all the leading members of the Church. The judge also
charged discrimination in the administration of the laws as against Mormon and
Gentile; that Captain John W. Gunnison and his party were murdered by Indians,
but under the orders, advice and direction of the Mormons; that the Mormons
poisoned Judge Leonidas Shaver, Drummond's predecessor; that Almon W. Babbitt,
secretary of the Territory, had been killed on the plains by a band of Mormon
marauders, who were 'sent from Salt Lake City for that purpose, and that only';
under direct orders of the presidency of the Church of the Latter-Day Saints,
and that Babbitt was not killed by Indians, as reported from Utah."
"Judge Stiles forwarded an affidavit affirming much of Drummond's charges.
These charges were further substantiated by a letter to President Buchanan,
written by Mr. W. F. Magraw.....'In relation to the present social and
political condition of the territory of Utah.....There is no disguising the
fact that there is no vestige of law and order, no protection for life or
property; the civil laws of the territory are overshadowed and neutralized by a
so-styled ecclesiastical organization, as despotic, dangerous, and damnable, as
has ever been known to exist in any country, and which is ruining, not only
those who do not subscribe to their religious code, but is driving the Mormon
community to desperation." (Berrett, p. 322-23.)
"It was now established, 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 unwilingly 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." (History of Utah,
Hubert Bancroft, p. 495.)
>Buchanan sorta forgot to let Brigham Young KNOW this small detail, that he was
being replaced.
This is another oft-repeated lie of Mormon apologists. Young knew VERY WELL
that the army's mission was to replace him as governor, as evidenced by Young's
remarks in a letter to Jacob Hamblin of August 4, 1857:
"Continue the conciliatory policy towards the Indians.....for they must learn
that they have got to help us or the United States will kill us both......We
have an abundance of 'news.' The government have appointed an entire set of
officials for the Territory. These Gentry are to have a bodyguard of 2500 of
Uncle's [Sam's] regulars.....They were to start from Fort Leavenworth July
15th.....There errand is entirely peaceful. The current report is that they
somewhat query whether they will hang me with or without trial. There are
about 30 others that they intend to deal with. They will then proclaim a
general jubilee and afford means and protection to those who wish to go back to
the States." (As quoted in Brooks, "Mountain Meadows Massacre," p. 34.)
Not only does Young's letter of August 4 indicate that he knew the army's
mission was to escort "an entire set of officials for the territory," his
sardonic remark about not knowing whether he would be hung "with or without
trial" demonstrates consciousness of guilt for his rebellion. The very reason
Young prosecuted a guerrilla war to prevent the Army from entering the valley
was because he feared being found guilty of treason and hanged.
>so all the Mormons knew was that, for the FIFTH time, they were about to be
driven out of their homes and forced to go somewhere else.
The Mormons deserved to be booted out of all the places they had been, and if
Young had not capitulated and given up his governorship, the Mormons would have
been run out of Utah as well, and they would have deserved that as well.
>This time, however, they decided that they were bloody
well not going to go.
To the contrary, Young looked for other places to emigrate to---even sending
his men out on a mission to find a non-existent lush habitat south of Utah that
he had claimed to have seen in a vision---and Young even went so far as to
evacuate SLC and tell the Mormons to gather seven years' worth of grain to live
on in the desert, if necessary. Young only decided to capitulate after Captain
Stewart Van Vliet informed him:
"In the course of my conversation with the governor and the influential men of
the territory, I told them plainly and frankly what I conceived would be the
result of their present course. I told them that they might prevent the small
military force now approaching Utah from getting through the narrow defiles and
rugged passes of the mountains this year, but that next season the United
States Government would send troops sufficient to overcome all opposition."
Young realized that if he continued his rebellion against the government, and
his efforts to make Utah Territory his own independent kingdom, that the
government would eventually send enough troops out to overthrow him. So he
caved in.
>There is NO historian who acts purely on fact that blames the Mormons for
Buchanan's Blunder.
All you're telling us here is that you haven't even studied the history, but
instead you are relying solely on propaganda dispensed by Mormon apologists.
>None. The rumors upon which Buchanan acted were just
that, unfounded rumors.
That is exactly what deceitful Mormon apologists claim, but the evidence says
otherwise.
"These troops had been ordered to Utah by John B. Floyd, Secretary of War in
the administration of President James Buchanan. The order to Harney from the
Commanding General of the Army, dated June 29, 1857, explained the move as
follows: 'The community and, in part, the civil government of Utah Territory
are in a state of substantial rebellion against the laws and authority of the
United States. A new civil governor is about to be designated, and to be
charged with the establishment of law and order." (Arrington, "Great Basin
Kingdom," p. 171.)
Randy J.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/29/2016 11:20AM by randyj.