This manifestation of complete organization aroused the people of Illinois once more to a sense of the dan- ger of constant strife with the settlers at Nauvoo. In 1845 the state Legislature revoked the charter given to the city of Nauvoo, while the citizens banded to- gether for possible contingencies. Open and severe hos- tility against the Mormons was frequent, and hence- forward it was evident that while they continued to in- habit Nauvoo they must live in a perpetual state of
January 20, 1846. It was also communicated to their hostile neighbors, who agreed to allow the INIormons time to sell their property, on condition that they should leave Nauvoo before the ensuing summer. A pioneer party of sixteen hundred persons started before the con- clusion of winter, in the hope of reaching their intended settlement in time to prepare a reception for the main body by the close of autumn. Agricultural operations were commenced almost the instant they reached the shores of the Salt Lake. " The cheerfulness, intelli- gence, and zeal exhibited on all sides," it has been just- ly said, '• were truly admirable. The world has never seen swifter, more active, more glad-hearted colonists than these singular Saints. It would be unfair to shut our eyes to such facts. In judging Mormonism, we must keep these constantly in view to prevent us from forming mere abstract and theoretical decisions, which will not in the least affect the future of Mormonism." Brigham himself arrived in the valley July 24, 1847, and the main body of the Mormons in the autumn of 1848. The Salt Lake City was soon founded; public buildings, including a tabernacle, or temporary place for
siege, and till their fields with a plough in one hand and a ritle in the other. Moreover, experience had shown that elements of disunion existed even among themselves. So long as they were established in anj' of the settled states they could not exclude unbeliev- ers from among them. There must always be Gentile strangers who would intrude among the Saints for lu- cre's sake, and form a nucleus around which disappoint- ed or traitorous members might rally and create inter- nal conflict. This could only be avoided bj' the trans- plantation of the Mormon commonwealth beyond the reach of foreign contact. Actuated by these reasons, the leaders who met to deliberate on the steps demand- ed by the crisis came to a decision which, adventurous as it then seemed, has since proved no less wise than bold. They resolved to migrate in a body far beyond the boundaries of the United States, and to interpose a thousand miles of wilderness between themselves and the civilized world. In the fastnesses of the Rockj' Mountains, the Alps of North America, they determin- ed to seek that freedom, civil and religious, which was denied them by their countrymen. In a hymn com- posed for the occasion, they express this Phocasan reso- lution as follows ;
" We'll burst off all our fetters, and break theGentile yoke; For louu: it has beset us, but now it shall be broke.
No more shall Jacob bow his neck ;
Henceforth he shall be great and free
In Upper California.
Oh, that's the land for me !
Oh, that's the laud for me \"— {Hymns, 353.) Their decision was announced to the Saints through- out the world by a General Epistle, which bears date
public worship, promptly built ; manufactories and shops were also soon reared, an emigration fund established, and in a little while settlers poured in from all parts of Europe and America ; and perhaps a greater amount of physical comfort was enjoyed here than in any part of the world. As early as March, 1849, a convention was held at Salt Lake City, and a state organized under the name of Deseret, a word understood by the Mormons to signify " the land of the honey-bee' (Ether, Book of Mor- mon, ch. i, § 3, p. 518). A Legislature was elected, and a Constitution framed and sent to Washington. Congress, however, refused to recognize the new state, and in Sep- tember organized the country occupied by the Mormons into the Territory of LTtah, of which Brigham Young was appointed governor by president Fillmore. District judges were also appointed b}' the federal government, but these were looked upon with great suspicion and mistrust by the Saints, who finally drove them out of the country in 1851, and openly defied and subverted the laws of the United States. In 1852 the " celestial law of marriage," authorizing polygamy, was promul- gated and at once acted upon, notwithstanding that in 1845 the heads of this self- same religious body had deemed it prudent to put forth a formal denial of any such phase of faith or practice in the following words : "Inasmuch as this Church of Christ has been reproached with the crimes of fornication and polygamy, we declare that we believe that one man should have but one wife, and one woman but one husband, except in the case of death, when either is at liberty to marry again." In 1853 the corner-stone of the great Temple, the plan of which, with all its details, was " revealed" to president
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Young, was laid, so sure felt the ^lor- mons that they hatl finally reached a spot where they could defy all opposition, and en- joy unmolested their most extravagant re- ligious or social no- tions. The United States government had no disposition to interfere with these, but it felt itself oul- raged in the remo of its officers, and in ISoJr a United States colonel arrived at Salt Lake City to be- come the successor of president Young as governor of the territory'. This of- ficer, however, en- countered so much