| Show S the immoral al iio dio mormons cormons Mor mons N lda ida nev political move we ive are arc have a crusade against immorality minor not as it is eating the tilo heart out of our own civilization in maii mail many 3 forms of vice and corruption but lut as it appe appears rs in ili the tile institutions institution of tile the remote territory of utah our congressmen are invited to turn away their eyes from front what is going 0 on I 1 in in tilt tile district of columbia and spend their virtuous ind indignation ig poll upon the too much married mormons cormons Mor mons S wo we artas are eil eli well weil ell e disposed sw is a anybody to con condemn denin polygamy but do not think tile tilo suppression 0 of f tile tiie form of it which exists in utah uta h is all an object to which it is desirable to sacrifice constitutional principles of general und ind and permanent value to tile tho whole whale people of the united states pro president ident grant in ili his late lite message says that an all examination of ole tile organic acts odthe of the territories odthe of tiie united states shows eliat it lias has been the tile invariable policy that the tilt general administration of justice should be as prescribed proscribed by congressional gressional enactment our examination certainly leads us its to exactly y the tiie opposite conclusion to us its it appears I 1 that from the tile earliest times tile tiie policy policy has lias been to leave all matters of internal legislation to the tile legislative aim Ais kj embly as soon as there was one in a territory of the tiie united states tile tiie only deviation to be found from this tilis rule was when the tilo agitation about slavery prompted attempts at exceptional provisions for ir or against it I 1 it t was at tile tilo very time that utah was erected into a territory that adverse pretensions oil on the tile subject of siave slavery ili in the tiie territories i received a ili lui quietus III in tilt tile inea measures of isao 1850 advocated by clay webster douglass cass and other eini eminent nent statesmen they framed and advocated the tile everal averal cv eral acts among adiong them the act organizing utah utai by bi which without proscribing slavery or protecting slavery the matter was left to tile e people of the tilo territory like all other local subjects and with the best results re suite slavery never was introduced into either new mexico INt exico or utah both organized anthe on tiie tile same principle of leaving all domestic don lestle institutions to tile tho local law axen general er cass ili in the debate on the tiie subject gave its true trite history he said during the ot of the tiie Terri territorial government they should be allowed to manago manage their own concerns in lit their own way doea doca not slavery como come within this cate category go la Is it not a domestic concern la Is no not t tat that the doctrine ot of the south of common sense indeed no territorial government was over ever established which had bad not power to regulate the domestic relations of husband and wife of parent and child ot of guardian and ward and it if the tho inhabitants are arc competent to manage these great and indeed the interest interests 8 belonging to all the departments part ments ot society thili including ug the issues l wies of ilfe life te and death aro are a they ey not no t competent to manage the rela rola relation ion iou of master and gen sen ant involving the condition of slavery this gains weight from the fact mentioned by general cass cabs in this speech that lie he had llad lived as a western settler for a large portion of or his life under a territorial form of government ho he vindicated the time honored form of it and with douglass and webster and cassand cass and other sort Nort northern hern bern statesmen secured the passage of those measures of which Clithe the utah aud and new mexico bills were a part while against them senator davis of mississippi ap pp J entered his llis final protest on the lot loth of september 1800 1850 ascribing thein them invidiously to senator douglas utah was then inhabited by the mormons cormons Mor mons who kad had settled there thero while it belonged to mexico N notwithstanding ot withstand lug their vicious social system it is not to be denied that they have played an important part in populating the tile desert and opening communication with the pacific coast it is late now to attempt a political crusado against them on ou the score of murals morals when in the organic act by which th they thes were brought into political relations with the united states slates they were assured asis ared of that territorial privilege of s elf eif government in ln local affairs which is well expressed in the words of general cass which we ve have quoted under the act of 1850 brigham young might have takei taken i as many wives as solomon without the breach broach of any law and the tho subsequent statute against polygamy passed by Con congress kruss gruss has no warr rant in tilo the practice or the tile principals of our government ili in dealing with the tiie territories and contravened a general rule of innia in making king that all an which was not ong ono at the 06 time it IL was committed the grievances eed sed in presidents message are obscure it is aid said ald that cit alt it tag tab ev evidently idelet ly never intended to the terni terri tonal tonai legislature with power which would enable it by vy creating judicatures of its downor own or ittem increasing asing the tilo jurisdiction of courts appointed ag appointed pointed by territorial authority t though tough recognized by congress to ta make take ke the administration of the law out of the hands of the judges appointed by the tile president 11 that they have llave done so or how they could do so 0 o does not appear by tile tilo Illes liles sage sagO in in which bich N bieh bleh the specific complaint is of tile the mode of selecting jurors under a recent decision of tile the supreme cou con court rt 11 but as that decision of the supreme court of the tile united states decided that eliat the tile local modo mode was the tile leg legal III dil one and that attempted by the un united it states marshal was wholly bolly illegal it is not easy aas to find ill in this a proof that the tile inhabitants are resisting the laws nor is it eam ean easy to see gee ee how territorial courts in ili utah can discharge by habeas corpus prisoners Is 0 no 8 of or the united states 1 since llie irle lil til that i at right is now successfully denied to the tiie highest state courts coults throughout shout the union and ind und it is deidel simply by a refusal refu sal mal of the tilo OfIl officers cers of the united states to subject their prisoners to state authority it is singular that the federal officers backed by nill military itar y power should be so be complacent in ht the tilo alleged cases in ili utah it is 14 to be hoped that congress will not hastily act on important political PO lotical and legal quentious under the cry ci now raised against polygamy it is a bad thing but there are many other othor things as bad against which itis it lff iff not expedient leut aleut to attempt arbitrary iv repression lest froni from it worse wone e things flow how titan the tiie evil complained of there are few things bonse oro or c in their consequences than tit tile interference of tho the federal power with what it has lias no concern and for that reasons or protests are arc very greedily aught fought noir nowa now a days the he im present sent cry about polygamy ili in utah savors of hypocrisy and injustice and may bo be made the pretext for acts as bad as til tit tile relations of a nian man with more than one woman to which the mormons cormons have extended the sanet banet sanction lon ion of marriage alre we have evils more general and less transient in our own civilization za gioi which wh ich may merit that vir virtuous tu us indignation nd ignation which is now filed at a distant mark philada philadelphia ph ia alc feb 17 |
