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Show THE S.VJAT v. TUE SAINTS. The Utah b':ii: A bi I founded on f-'e pretenses, yppres-ive iu ltd pro-visiouri pro-visiouri aud demonstrating the utter ij.-Dura.u ij.-Dura.u and equal indifference to their d'it of the majority of the senate of the United States- was tajten up and passed on Wedoesdsy. It .-houi have been entitled "A t ill to wurry and oppress the people of Utah; to interfere with their domestic rela-tiocs rela-tiocs and religious belief, and to drive thtuj, if possible, into a war in which rh-y may be htripped and pillaged." Whatever may be the theological views or household practices of the Mormons, Mor-mons, they are their own. With the one the con.iti.ution cxpre.-ly forbids ail interference; the other as any novice in legislation ought to know does not fall within the province of lawmaking. law-making. It lies below the place where government beg i of. The people of the Territories of the United S:a cs are at the mercy of congress; con-gress; being without representation. This should impress upon members the obligation they are under to treat ' them with that consideration to which fhe helpless are entitled. They area common constituency, whose rights each is bound tosee protected. However justly or sincerely the shining lights of the world of which congress has its porportion may condemn or abhor the practices of these subjects of the government there is no denying their humanity. They are men and women, endowed by nature with the same rights as other men and women: rights which can neither ba taken away nc diminished dimin-ished without criminality on the part of those by whom the rubbery is committed. com-mitted. They are sincere ; the sufferings suffer-ings which they have borne for the sake of their faith leave no doubt of their sincerity. If they have now and then done ti at which would better have been emitted, let those who would condemn them remember the provocation. Few people of modern times have been more vilely slandered, few more pcrseveringly pursued; and the slanders have been invented as a means to justity the persecution. Portray Por-tray them as vile as they have been represented: they have been eurrrou need ne-ed bv thoso who aro viler. Human wolvos followed and snarled at their ' heels all tho way of their wearisome pilgrimage from Illinois: such a pilgrimage pil-grimage as no people, from any other than a religious motive, would ever havo undertaken. Human beings who have made such sacrifices for their faith are apt to resent re-sent interferences with its enjoyment with bitterness. There are no hatreds whioh bear any comparison in their intensity in-tensity with theological hatreds. The Mormon has beon intense against the blasphemer of his creed and the do-fa do-fa mer of his practices, and he would have been either moro or less than human had he been othcrwhe Is he tj be puni.-htid for this? Is this a justification jus-tification for robbing him of rights whose eaorcdness aud luali-jnability wo, iu the persons of our ancestors, claim to have been the foremost to discover and declare? Is it here that can bo found an excuse for laws, not to pursue and punish guilty individuals, individu-als, but to establish that which is itself persecution, and leads directly to conflict con-flict aud robbery? It is humiliating that, in the advanoe of this movement, its prompter, and the force which turns a spirit compounded com-pounded of oovctousness and intolerance intoler-ance into a legislative fact, is the President Presi-dent of the United Statcp. It is here that the country encounters the danger which comes from having at the head of the State a man who is pot a statesman, states-man, and who is compelled to rely upon the prompting of others for the direction of his Lets. What feelings of private dislike general Grant may have against the Mormons, it is not in order to inquire; but why a man, who is in general placable, should in this case, exhibit combined malice and bigotry, is a question that many have found difficult of solution. That he will interpose his dissent to this bill of abominations is not to be espeoted. -Washington Capital. |