The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 03, No. 19, May, 1859: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
History
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 03, No. 19, May, 1859: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
From the Utah Expedition, then, it has become patent to the world, if
it is not to ourselves, that the Mormons are unwilling to administer a
republican form of government, if not incapable of doing so. The author
of the letter recently addressed by "A Man of the Latin Race" to the
Emperor Napoleon, on the subject of French influence in America,
comments especially upon this fact as symptomatic of the disintegration
of this republic; and allusion is made to it in every other foreign
review of our political condition. It is obviously inconsistent with our
national dignity that a remedy should not be immediately applied; but
when we seek for such, only two courses of action are discernible, in
the maze of political quibbles and constitutional scruples that at once
suggest themselves. One is, to repeal the Organic Act and place the
Territory under military control; the other is, to buy the Mormons out
of Utah, offering them a reasonable compensation for the improvements
they have made there, as also transportation to whatever foreign region
they may select for a future abode.
The embarrassments which might result from the adoption of the former
course are obvious. It would be attended with immense expense, and would
embitter the Mormons still more against the National Government; and
it would also deter Gentiles from emigrating to a region where three
thousand Federal bayonets would constitute the sole guaranty of the
security of their persons and property.
The other course is not only practicable, but humane and expedient.
During his whole career, Brigham Young committed no greater mistake than
when he settled in Utah a community whose recruits are almost without
exception drawn from foreign lands; for, since the removal from
Illinois, every attempt to propagate Mormonism in the American States
has been a failure. Every avenue of communication with Utah is
necessarily obstructed. No railroad penetrates to within eleven hundred
miles of Salt Lake Valley. There is no watercourse within four hundred
miles, on which navigation is practicable. Neither the Columbia nor the
Colorado empties into seas bordered by nations from which the Mormons
derive accessions; and the length of a voyage up the Mississippi,
Missouri, and Yellowstone forbids any expectation that their channels
will ever become a pathway to the centre of the continent. The road to
Utah must always lead overland, and travel upon it is the more expensive
from the fact that no great passenger-transportation companies exist at
either of the termini. Each family of emigrants must provide its own
outfit of provisions, wagons, and oxen, or mules. Through the agency of
what is called the Perpetual Emigration Fund of the Church, the capital
of which amounts to several millions of dollars,--which was instituted
professedly to befriend, but really to fleece the foreign converts,--few
Englishmen arrive at Salt Lake City without having exhausted their own
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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