A more clear and indisputable right does not exist, than that the "Mormon" people who were expelled from their homes in Jackson County, should return and live on their lands; and if they cannot be persuaded as a matter of policy to give up that right, or to qualify it, my course as the chief executive officer of the State is a plain one. * * * The Constitution of the United States declares: "that the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States." Then we cannot interdict any people who have a political franchise in the United States, from emigrating to this State, nor from choosing what part of the State they will settle in, provided they do not trespass on the property or rights of others. * * * And again, our Constitution says, "that all men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own conscience." _I am fully persuaded that the eccentricity of the religious opinions and practices of the "Mormons," is at the bottom of the outrages committed against them._ They have the right constitutionally guaranteed to them, and it is indefeasible, to believe and worship JOE SMITH as a man, an angel or even as the only true and living God, and to call their habitation Zion, the Holy Land, or even Heaven itself. Indeed there is nothing so absurd or ridiculous that they have not a right to adopt as their religion so that in its exercise they do not interfere with the rights of others. Surely this is a liberal statement of the rights of the Latter-day Saints, and, indeed, of any other people; for the rights, privileges, and immunities of the saints under the government of the United States are no more than those belonging to other people--certainly they are no less. Still the governor was loath to perform what he admits to be his plain duty in restoring the "Mormons" to their homes. Indeed, he at length refused to do it; fearing that in executing the law, by returning the saints to their homes, he would involve the State in a civil war. He came the easier to this conclusion, doubtless, because the sufferers were an unpopular religious community. But if the execution of law must be abandoned because the violators thereof threaten to resist its execution, or because a reckless mob led by desperate men threaten that if the law is enforced they will plunge the country into civil war--what a burlesque on government it would be to refrain from the execution of law on that account!