"This Mormon brotherhood has scarcely preserved the semblance of obedience to the authority of the United States for some years past; not at all indeed, except as it might confer some direct benefit upon themselves, or contribute to circulate public money in their community. . . . I need not here recite the many instances in their conduct and history on which these general allegations are founded, especially the conduct they have adopted within the last twelve months towards the civil authorities of the United States. "It has, nevertheless, always been the policy and desire of the Federal Government to avoid collision with this Mormon community. It has borne with the insubordination they have exhibited, under circumstances when respect for its own authority has frequently counselled harsh measures of discipline. And this forbearance might still be prolonged, and the evils rife among them be allowed to work out their own cure, if this community occupied any other theatre, isolated and remote from the seats of civilization, than the one they now possess. "But, unfortunately for these views, their settlements lie in the great pathway which leads from the Atlantic States to the new and flourishing communities growing up upon the Pacific seaboard. They stand a lion in the path; not only themselves defying the civil and military authorities of the government, but encouraging, if not exciting, the nomad savages who roam over the vast, unoccupied regions of the continent, to the pillage and massacre of peaceful and helpless emigrant families traversing the solitudes of the wilderness. The rapid settlement of our Pacific possessions; the rights, in those regions, of emigrants, unable to afford the heavy expenses of transit by water and the Isthmus; the facility and safety of military, political, and social intercommunication between our eastern and western populations and States,--all depend upon the prompt, absolute, and thorough removal of a hostile power besetting this path, midway of its route, at a point where succor and provisions should always be found, rather than obstruction, privation, and outrage. . . .