Show I 1 P ti T i X E GENTLEMEN your communication of december addressed to the leaders of the mormon church was received by me last evening in reply I 1 have to say that we will I 1 not obligate ourselves to collect your outstanding accounts nor buy your goods merchandise and other articles that you express yourselves willing willingto to sell seil if you could make such sales as you propose you would make more money than any merchants have ever done in this country and we as merchants would like to find purchasers upon the the same basis your withdrawal from the territory is not a matter about which we feel fael any anxiety so faras far as weare we are concerned concern ed you are at liberty to stay or go got as you please we have used no intimidation or coercion towards the community to have them cease trading with any person or class neither do we contemplate using any such means even could we do so to accomplish com such an end Wha twe are doing and intending to dowe are willing that you and all the world should know ow in the first place we you to distinctly understand fand that we have not sought to ostracise ostra eise cise any man or body of men because of their not being olour of our faith the wealth that has been accumulated in this territory from the earliest years of our settlement by men who were not 66 connected with us reil tell religiously and the success which has attended their business 0 operations orations erat ions lons prove this in business we me have havo not been exclusive in our dealings or confined our patronage to those of our own faith but every man who has dealt fairly and hong honestly and confined his attention to his 1 legitimate e gitl mate business whatever his creed has been has found friendship in us to be adverse to gentiles because they are ign gentiles gentiles ien tiles or jews jewa because they are jews is in direct opposition to the genius 0 of our religion it matters not what a mans creed is whether he be catholic or episcopalian presbyterian me methodist Ah odist baptist quaker or jew he will receive kindness and friendship froines fro from inas ings us and we have not the least objection to doing business with him iain his dealings he acton accordance with the princles principles of right and deport himself as a good law abiding citizen should there is a class however who are doing business in the territory who for years have been the avowed enemies of this community the disrud tirre and overthrow of the com eom community u n i y have been the objects which ty they ha have havo v e sought to accomplish they have therefore used every en ergy and all the means at their command to put P u into circulation the foulest slanders a bout about the old citizens missionaries sio sion bion narles aries of evil there have been no arts too base no stratagems too vile for them to use to bring about their nefarious ends while soliciting the patronage of the people and derivi deriving g their support from them they have in the most moat shameless and abandoned manner used the tiie means thus obtained to destroy the very people whose favor they found it to their interest to court with the regularity of the seasons have their plots and schemes been formed and we are warranted by facts in saying that could the hearts blood of the people here bo be drawn and coined into the means necessary to bring their machinations to a successful issue they would mgt mot 9 scruple to use it they have done J in their power to encourage viola 0 f law to retard the administration of justice to foster vice and vicious institutions to oppose the unanimously expressed will of the people to increase disorder and to change our city from a condition of peace and quietude to lawlessness and anarchy they have donated liberally to sustain ac corrupt and venal press which has given publicity to the most atrocious libels respecting the old citizens and have they not had their emissaries in washington to misrepresent and vilify the peo people pie of this T territory errit enrit ory have they not nob kept ep t liquor and surreptitiously sold it in in violation of law and endeavored to bias blas the minds of the judiciary to give decisions favorable to their own practices have they not entered into secret combinations to resist the laws and to thwart their healthy op operation e rat on and arid refused to pay their taxes and to give the support to schools required bylaw by jaw what claims can such persons have upon the patronage of this community and what community on the earth would be so besotted as to uphold and foster men whose aim alm is to destroy them have we not the right to trade at whatever store we please or does the constitution of the united states bind us to enter the stores of our deadliest enemies and purchase of them if so we should like that provision pointed out to us it is to these men whom I 1 have described and to these alone that I 1 am opposed and I 1 am determined determined to use my influence to have the citizens here stop dealing with them and deal with honorable men there are honorable men enough in the world with whom we can do business without being reduced to the necessity of dealing with the class referred to I 1 have much mucia more to say upon this suba subject act BRIGHAM YOUNG great salt lake city dec 21 1866 |