OCR Text |
Show Charge to the Grand Jury When Chief Justice Hunter came to this Territory, a hope was generally expressed that he would prove to be a fair minded man; that he would not be swayed by the actions and utterances of a few unprincipled bigots; and that he would mete out equal justice to all who came before him. That hope seems to have been rudely dissipated. His charge recently delivered to the Grand Jury of the judicial district plainly betrays his ????; and shows to the people of Utah what they may expect. The opening of the address is very fair. The jurymen are instructed in relation to their responsibilities, and some few observations are made on general principles. But when the "polygamy question" is reached, the true spirit appears. We are unable to publish any lengthy quotations, but give a few selections to display the course of Judge Hunter's theories. The government of the United States, representing as it does the advance of civilization, and whose moral influence is felt the world over, and polygamy cannot exist within the same unit[?], and it is more than apparent, it will not be the government that will have to succumb. It will not do for a small portion of the population, representing not more than perhaps a hundred thousand, to dictate what forty millions shall do. The law dictated by the people must stand, and be enforced and you are expected to aid therein. ***** In olden times it is said that men were permitted to have a plurality of wives; if so then perhaps there then was no law prohibiting it. With that question, however, we in this day have nothing to do. We know that our laws do not authorize the act, but that on the contrary prohibit it and make the act criminal. To our law we look, and not to the law that is said to have existed nobody knows how many years ago, to any new fangled pretended prophecy, made to ??? the bestial passions of bad men. However much such persons may seek to shield themselves behind their belief in plural marriage, it has nevertheless been decreed by the United States that such plural marriage is a crime, if at the time it is entered into the man has another wife living from whom he has not been divorced according to law. We have heard here in the court room, within the last few hours, men state on their oaths that they religiously believed in the doctrine of polygamy, and that insomuch as it was a divine right, they would not be committing an offense against God if they took a plurality of wives. Such sentiments are obnoxious to the moral sense of more than forty-five millions of the people of this country, and in the face of their declared will ought not to be and will not be tolerated. * * * In this community we are frequently told, as a reason I suppose for exciting our sympathy, that the people who believe in this polygamous heresy, came to this country when it was a barren waste, and have by their industry made it "blossom as the rose;" that all this is due to the benign influence and teachings of the dominant church, one of whose foundation stones, if not the very key of the arch, is polygamy. But is this true? That these people came here early in the history of the country is true but they were soon followed [unreadable lines] The Gentile ???, as the unbelievers in the teachings of "Mormonism" are called, is here filled with all that spirit of enterprise which has been exhibited by the American people ever since we have been a nation, and to it more that anything else is due the prospective condition of affairs. To this spirit of enterprise these grand old mountains are not only yielding up their hidden treasure but have given up their beautiful valleys and canyons to the locomotive with its trains of cars laden with the produce of the east and west, and bringing us in pleasant communion with people from all parts if the earth. Do you, gentlemen, think it was in the interest of polygamy that those vast changes in Zion have taken place? Do you not rather see in them the purpose of the Supreme Ruler to teach these people their error? |