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Show PETITIONS TO CONGRESS. Most of our citizens have seen the petitions to Congress that have been in circulation in this and all the other counties of the Territory, lately. We give below three of them. A fourth, designed for the signatures of all citizens of either sex and any creed, we were unable to procure a copy of. Its purport was similar to those given below. Following is the petition of the young men: To the Honorable, the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress Assembled: Your petitioners, the young men of the Territory of Utah, respectfully represent: That our present interests and future prospects in life are dependent upon the undisturbed peace and prosperity of our Territory. That we are the sons of parents who have braved the dangers and overcome the difficulties incident to pioneering and settling a new, sterile and forbidding country; who have made human habitation in the valleys of the great Rocky Mountain basin a possibility; who have labored with untiring industry under many hardships to create homes for their families, in which we have been nurtured and cared for; who have denied themselves many comforts to educate and train their children in useful arts and industries; who have ever thrown around our paths in the benign influences of home - there are no homeless children in Utah - of religion, of industry, of honor, of patriotism and the broadest and kindest expressions of humanity; who have shielded us from the groveling forms of vice, that tempt and allure to destruction the unprotected and disowned, who, without name or home, life [live] in the streets of the great cities and upon the highways of the outside world, a reproach to civilization and mankind. Under the protection, wise legislation and humane administration of our fathers, our Territory enjoys the blessings of peace and abundance, and we have been started upon the highroad of prosperity and success with bodies untainted by disease, with hearts in which faith and consciousness of divine approval dwell, with minds open to conviction of truth and untrammelled [untrammeled] by dogmas or superstitions that clog progressive thought and ??? the soul with fear. We love and honor our parents, who have thus provided in our childhood for our welfare in active life. Now, therefore, in duty to them and ourselves, having the continued peace and prosperity of our Territory at heart and valuing liberty and the rights of conscience above life, we, the young men of Utah, earnestly remonstrate against the calumnious and misrepresentations of unprincipled men, who would have the world believe that we are curtailed in the enjoyment of American freedom and fettered in chains forged by priestly families. We deny that undue influence is exercised by any authority over our thoughts or actions. We deny that duty to our religion and to our country leads us in opposite directions, or that it can possibly do so while the charter of American liberty remains the supreme law. We deny that the religious institution of plural marriage, as practiced by our parents, and to which many of us owe our existence, ???, ???, or in no way degrades those who enter into it. On the contrary, we solemnly affirm, and challenge successful contradiction, that plural marriage is a sacred, religious ordinance and that its practice has given to thousands honorable names and peaceful homes, where Christian precepts and virtuous practices have been uniformly inculcated and the spirit of human liberty and religious freedom fostered from the cradle to maturity. In consideration of these facts, and in the name of justice, we hereby solemnly immortalize your honorable body to refrain from enacting laws that reflect upon the marital relations of our parents, and that, however specific the provisions to the contrary, stigmatize us in the opinion of the world; to refrain from enacting laws that will enslave a large proportion of the citizens of our Territory, that will gall and fret the spirit of liberty which we inherit and are bound to entertain and that will take from us, for no offense, the privileges and blessings of local vice government, so necessary to the happiness and well being of an American community. We ask you to secure to us the rights, the liberties and the blessings of free men, and to pause before foisting upon us an unrepublican government, placing strangers, by appointment, to rule over us, and sacraficing [sacrificing] the interests, the feelings, the happiness and freedom of the great majority of the citizens of our Territory to the greed and cupidity of a reckless minority; and your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. Following is the petition of the women: To the Honorable, the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress Assembled: We, the women of Utah, view with deepest regret the bills that have been presented in Congress during the present session, asking for special legislation for our Territory; which, if carried into effect, will destroy the peace, tranquility and prosperity which have heretofore characterized our dearly loved homes. We were driven to these mountain vales by the cruel hand of persecution, while, on our journey as outcasts and exiles, our sons, husbands and fathers were called upon by the nation to battle for American rule in this country, then a portion of Mexico and after struggling through privation and hardships such as men, women and children have seldom endured, your petitioners, many of them descendants of the Pilgrims of New England, with their fathers, husbands, brothers and sons, found a barren desert, inhabited only by savage Indians and wild beasts; here we have labored with the courage and endurance born only of religious faith, in helping to establish homes for ourselves and our children, and have made it easy for those coming at a later period, who found these valleys blooming with beauty, and teeming with plenty, to enjoy all the blessings which pertain to life and happiness. And we must respectfully represent to your honorable body, that the bills aforesaid, now pending in the Congress of the United States, are further calculated to destroy our birthright of liberty, the glorious heritage bequeathed by our noble ancestors. And furthermore, we are all aware, that the present excitement in the nation is the result of ignorance and misrepresentation, and that the aim of our enemies is to rob us of our hard-earned homes and to plunder the public treasury. These schemes have been concocted by sectarian priests and political demagogues, and by women who are the tools of wicked and designing men, both men and women unscrupulous in their enmity and mendacious in their statements, although they have homes and houses of worship in Utah Territory, comprising nearly all religious denomations [denominations], and are protected in all their rights as citizens, and as religious worshipers, without the least intrusion or molestation, and who, instead of reforming the morals of the community as they perfidiously pretend, have assisted in introducing and sustaining in our midst, the most demoralizing institutions known in the world. And moreover, we, your petitioners, hereby testify that we are happy in our homes, and satisfied with our marriage relations and desire no change. We are not the "oppressed and down-trodden women" we are represented to be, but enjoy more rights and freedom than women elsewhere in the nation, and we do know that our institutions are of such a nature as tends to purity of morals and elevation of character. And we most solemnly aver, before God and man, that our marital relations are most sacred, that they are divine, enjoining obligations and ties that pertain to time and eternity. Were it not for the sacred and religious character of the institution of plural marriage, we should never have entered upon the practice of a principle which is contrary to our early teachings, and in consequence of which our names are cast out as evil, by the Christian world. Therefore, we most respectfully appeal to your honorable body to forbear hasty and reckless action in regard to so important a matter as the political disorganization of the most prosperous and flourishing Territory of which the nation can boast; and, before proceeding to radical changes, to do yourselves the justice to investigate, by a commission of honest and intelligent men and women, the true condition of the "Mormon" people of Utah Territory. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. Following is the petition of the young ladies: To the Honorable, the Senate and House of Representatives of Congress Assembled: Whereas, Certain bills are now pending before your honorable body, which, if passed, will break up happy homes and families and produce untold misery, sorrow and suffering, will deprive us of the kind, fostering care of honorable, upright, God fearing fathers, and drive forth our precious, loving mothers as outcasts; as those who have no right to the honored name of wife, and also cast opprobrium upon many of us as illegitimate ???. Whereas, The passage of such bills would deprive our fathers, mothers and brothers and ourselves, when properly qualified, of the right of franchise, and in fact, of all the rights of American citizens, debarring us of the free exercise of our holy religion, which is dearer to us than life itself; and will be contrary to the spirit of the glorious constitution of our country, which we have ever been taught to revere as an inspiration from Almighty God, for we have been taught, and conscientiously believe that plural marriage is as much a part of our religion as are truth, repentance and baptism; and, Whereas, In our opinion, the cause of the introduction of such bills has been the false representations of evil disposed persons, who assert we are low, ignorant, degraded and disloyal, and, feeling assured that, had your honorable body been truthfully advised in regard to the people of this Territory, such bills would never have obtained a hearing in the Congress of this mighty nation; Now, Therefore, we, the young ladies of Utah Territory, do most solemnly and truthfully declare that neither we nor our mothers are held in bondage, but that we enjoy the greatest possible freedom socially and religiously, that our homes are happy ones, and we are neither low nor degraded; for the principals of purity, virtue, integrity and loyalty to the government of the United States have been instilled into our minds and hearts since our earliest childhood. According to what we read, and can learn from other sources, in no place in the world is female chastity and virtue guarded with more jealous care than by our people; for we have been taught and do understand that this is our greatest boon; far above jewels or wealth, and more precious than life itself; and we therefore most respectfully memorialize your honorable body to suspend further action on all bills relating to Utah, and send a commission of honorable, intelligent, and unprejudiced men and women to inquire into, and learn the true state of affairs in this Territory; And as in duty bound, your memorialists will ever pray. |