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Show , W.HEPW0RTH DIXON. Another lolling Stroke from this Mighty Pen. How Utah affairs appear to a person per-son who is capable of judging. Who cuu ui"ay the, Truth ? Salt Lake City, Jan. 1875. I For several years the public law and public force of the United States have been directed at polygamy in I Utah. Means both fair and unfair havo been tried, Gravo men have often had to shake their hoads about the course adopted towards the saints. In the first place, exceptional legislation legisla-tion has been used; and in a free country, governed by, majorities of j votes, exceptional legislation is often a danger, always an offense. It looks as though the law would not suffice. In the Bccond place, a oamp has been established near the New Jerusalem; an American city, with a natural claim to live according to tho will of the majority of citizens. This camp has been established, with the object, openly avowed, of preventing the majority of citizens from living their own lights; and therefore is, in free America", an atterly abnormal fact. In the third place, the common law, including trial by jury, has been Dracticallv susDended in this Terri tory for a denizen in - Salt Lake city is not, as in other parts of the United States, allowed fair trial before his neighbors and his peers. These things suggest the failure of attempts at-tempts at government for the peopls by the people; therefore, the failure of American institutions! Nor can a serious thinker tell where the reformers reform-ers may be good enough to stop. A western man who has been Darned to me as not unlikely to be some day made governor of Utah, crietto me across the dinner table, "Sir, we are a law abiding people, and, by G , Sir, we will cleanse the place by fire and aword." "You would employ force, instead of law?" "Yes, I'd hang them all, and burn their houses to the ground." "Without trial, proof or condemnation?" "Yes, d them! They're only a set of outlaws. They have no right to be tried by any court. They're only got to be swept out." A man who is a candidate for public honors, tells me he has apian for putting this polygamy polyg-amy down; he would simply close the portst A merchant, who is present, starts at this idea "That would be against our public policy." "Then d ' our public policy," exclaims the hot reformer. All. these - Mor-1 mons come to us from Liverpool, and I would close the ports against them." A lady asks hiin how he would know them? "Easily, he cries, "I would put them on oath, and I would send back every man and woman who could not answer squarely." "That," says one of our neighbors, "would be contrary to the very first articleofour constitution." "Would it? Then d the constitution." Serious men may well despond on finding such things done, such sentiments senti-ments expressed. A man who loves liberty must feel than an exceptional law, a military post, and a practical suspension of trial by jury, are disastrous disas-trous facts; sad evidence that, in the sphere to (which they apply, the theory of popular government has broken dowu. America is a democratic demo-cratic couutry, where the law for one is supposed to be good law for all. One vicious principlo, though introduced intro-duced with .pure intentions, may be fatal to the common weal. A little leaven leaveneth the lump. A system sys-tem made for Utah maybe carried into Arizona or Colorado. Who, indeed, in-deed, can say with certainty that the system of governing by the sword instead in-stead of the popular will, may not be introduced into every- state and city of the Bouth? , . Considering how much pure santi--meni has been enlisted. in the came, I cannot say that the interference of judge and soldier in the Mormon homestead has been happy. Twelve years ago congress passed the first exceptional law against polygamy ; an act well meant, but faultily conceived, con-ceived, and still more faultily framed. It had the flaw of boirjg designed to punish past offences. -The-moment it was signed the Mormons challenged a direct and public issue on its leading clauses; a challenge : which the law officers of the United States found it necessary to refuse. No doubt their difficulties were very great, for the act was meant to punish a man for having married two or more women ; and marriage is an act which has been carefully defined by law. Sealing Seal-ing is not marriage in the legal sense, and proof that a man is sealed to several women is no evidence tnat ne is married to more than one. In order to remove this obstacle, the Mormona oflered their enemies a case. One of the elders undertook to confess his marriage to more than one woman, so that legal proof of his offence would not be required. Brif-ham Brif-ham and bis court of biahops went so confident that the act was contrary to the constitution, therefore null and void, that they were willing to vacate their strong position of defence, and come into the open, where the contest might do fought on the mero ground of law. They wanted the decision of a Gentile judge in Utah, so that they might carry an appeal into the Supreme court of the United States. The local magistrates' officers declined this offer; giving as their reasons that they had to wait instructions from their lecal chiefB. Instructions never came, and so the law was loft a mere dead-letter on tho statute books. I verified these facta myself in Washington. Wash-ington. Both Chase and Seward told me, in effect, that there were doubts I about the; act, and government was afraid of an appeal. To, this day nothing has been done to put it to the test. A practical victory for the Mormon cause. Jn lieu of this dead letter, Justice McKean, who oame into the territory with a party mandate to improve polygamy out of America, endeavored to entrap the Mormon bishops and elders in the meshes of one of their own laws. He got up a charge against Daniel Wells, George Q. Cannon, Brigham Young and others of "las civious cohabitation." Hempstead. United States attorney fo r Utah, the proper public prosecutor for the "territory, declined to help him. Hempstead was aware that no one in Washington desired to have a case of polygamy brought before the Supreme court, and- tho Dretended lascivious cohabitation either meant polygamy or it meant nothing. No other charge was on the cards. McKoan thought otherwise. The judge, I am told, hardly knows a rulo of law from a party cry. Ho said tuO Mormon ciders might be tried on this charge of lascivious cohabitation. co-habitation. Where was such a enmo defined? Not in any statue book of the Unitid States. Then where. A Mormon parliament has made a law against immorality of life. But how, asked Hempstead, could this law be turned against themselves? A law is always to be interpreted according to tho known intention of the legislators. legisla-tors. "I will interpret their intentions," inten-tions," said the judge. Hempstead resigned. McKean appointed two successors, under whose indictment warrants wore issued aiinst several eldera, who wore held to bail on various charges, including tho charge of lascivious cohabitation. Nothing came to this unseemly course. On an appoal being carried to Washington Washing-ton by the first pnrly condemned, Chief Justice Chase, speaking in the name of his brethren on the bench, pronounced the whole course of Mc-Koan'i Mc-Koan'i proceedings in Utah to be unlawful. un-lawful. The parlies in arrest were liberated, and the bnila of all of them discharged. The Mormon cause, in cluding that of polygamy, secured a second triumph and the Mormon elders stood before the world as men who had suffered from an unjuBt judge, and had been delivered from their .'enemies by the power of the law. Cor, IV. Hepworth Dixon. |