Of the men who could have written this narrative, some are dead; some are prudent; some are superstitious; and some are personally foresworn. It appeared to me that the welfare of Utah and the common good of the whole United States required the publication of the facts that I have tried to demonstrate. Since there was apparently no one else who felt the duty and also had the information or the wish to write, it seemed my place to undertake it. And I have done it gladly. For when I was subscribing the word of the Mormon chiefs for the fulfillment of our statehood pledges, I engaged my own honor too, and gave bond myself against the very treacheries that I have here recorded. We promised that the Church had forever renounced the doctrine of polygamy and the practice of plural marriage living, by a "revelation from God" promulgated by the supreme Prophet of the Church and accepted by the vote of the whole congregation assembled in conference. We promised the retirement of the Mormon Prophets from the political direction of their followers--the abrogation of the claim that the Mormon Church was the "Kingdom of God" re-established upon earth to supersede all civil government--the abandonment by the Church of any authority to exercise a temporal power in competition with the civil law. We promised to make the teaching and practice of the Church conform to the institutions of a Republic in which all citizens are equal in liberty. We promised that the Church should cease to accumulate property for the support of illegal practices and un-American government. And we made a record in proof of our promises by the anti-polygamy manifesto of 1890 and its public ratification; by the petition for amnesty and the acceptance of amnesty upon conditions; by the provisions of Utah's enabling act and of Utah's state constitution; by the acts of Congress and the judicial decisions restoring escheated Church property; by the proceedings of the Federal courts of Utah in re-opening citizenship to the alien members of the Mormon Church; by the acquiescence of the Gentiles of Utah in the proceedings by which statehood was obtained; and finally, and most indisputably, by the admission of Utah into equal sovereignty in the Union--since that admission would never have been granted, except upon the explicit understanding that the state was to uphold the laws and institutions of the American republic in accordance with our covenants.