The Sun.
London, England, 1870-04-15 00:00:00

A BRITISH AIND AN AMERICAN DIFFI.

CULTY.

(From the Anglo-American Times)

Both the United States and the United King-
dom have a little affair of Territories on hand,
which, however small, are as much calculated to
fret these great nations as the spiteful proceedings
of an incorrigible, weak individual, acting spite-
fully against his wealthy neighbour, may puzzle him
how to get rid of the nuisance. Of the two, the
United States difficulty is much the greater ; still
we cannot I redid, with certainty, what the result
may be of the Red River insurrection. We have
now the particulars of the debate in the House of
Rrpresentatives on the Utah Polygamy Bill, re-
ported six weeks ago by thc Committee on Territories.
Mr. WARD, a member of that Committee, addressed
the House in support of the Bill on the 22d of
March, assaulting Mormonism furiously, as well as
Mr. FITCH, who had upheld it in a speech made
a month before. Though Mr. WARD'S power of
imagination did not carry him to the spot where he
could see any one on the floor of the House and
in the face of the country, in the last half of the 19th
century, with the effrontery to defend the Mor-
mons, yet Mr. HOOPER, the Delegate from Utah,
boldly stood up for the rights of the Territory and
its people. For the first time, the Delegate said, in
the history of the American Government,. a propo-
sition had been made to punish citizens for their
belief or disbelief. " The bill declared that the
social system which MOSES taught, which GOD
allowed, and from which CHRIST had sprung, was
a crime, and that every one not simply practising
it, but believing in it, was to be—not tried, but
convicted ; his wife turned out on the world, and
his property confiscated for the benefit of the moral
reformers who were the instigators of the bill." It
is curious to contrast this language with that of Mr.
IVARD, Mr. BLAIR, and Mr. PO3IEROY. JOE SMITH,
Mr. WARD described " as a vagabond, drunkard,
and thief, who, 40 years ago in 'Western New York,
got around him a little crew of 30 persons in Seneca
County, and instituted the religion of the 'Latter
Day Saints.' He spoke of BRIGHA3I YOUNG as
having become disgusted with the honourable occu-
pation of digging potatoes, and joined the Mormon,
becoming their chief after the death of JOE SMITH,
when he readily fell into the doctrine that poly-
gamy was apart of the religion of the Mormons.''
Having thus discussed the chiefs, he sketched the
system of missions by which Mormonism had in-
creased its followers in Utah from 4,000 to 100,000,
and he went on to remark that instead of the rail-
road and the colonization of the adjacent districts
sapping the foundation of Mormonism, Mormonism
was demoralizing all in contiguity with it. The
" saints" were religious fanatics, ruled by an unscru-
pulous demagogue, to whom clung all degrees of
crime, from paltry theft to monstrous murder. Was
the great Republic to arise from its struggle against
the oppression of the black man, stained with pracs
tices within its boundaries so unhallowed, F.O God-
defying, so dishonouring? Was the country, which
at such a fearful cost had removed the stigma of sla-
very, to have the finger of Christendom pointed at
it in scorn as nursing so hateful an institution ? Was
the dream of the Mormon prophet to be realized
that the American nation was to be broken into
fragments, and Mormonism was to become supreme.
It was the duty of the American Congress at least
to make an effort to vindicate the majesty of the
'aw. An attempt was made to have the bill laid on
the t ,ble, but defeated by a majority of -3 to 1 ; and
Mr. SCHENCK, who desired to get it postponed to
proceed with his Tariff and Funding Bills, had to
withdraw his motion. In the course of the debit.:
Mr. BLAIR scouted the notion of serious redstance,
alluding in proof to the report that BRIGHAM
YOUNG was at that moment selecting a new locality
in Arizona, In answer, Mr. HOOPER. said that
BRIGHAM'S trip had no such object, being simply
the usual tour he makes to outlying settLments,
and that he will be home in a few weeks as a per-
manent settler in Salt Lake City. During 11r.
BLAIR'S remarks the subject came up as to how the
extra wives were to be disposed Of when the harems
were broken up, and the House immediately re-
lapsed, with that remarkable facility it often dis-
plays, from the grave to the gay. Mr. BLAIR thought
CRO3IWELL was right when he stamped his foot on
the threshold of the convents he was about to break
up, exclaiming to the nuns,. "Go, spin ye jades;
go, spin !" Mr. NIBLACK jocularly suggested that
the Freedmen's Bureau be despatched to look after
the wives ; but Mr. BLAIR thought it would require
considerable modification first, and this brought him
to the allusion in Mr. FITCH'S speech to the gilded
harems of New York and Boston, and the painted
Jezabels all over the country. These differed widely
from a community that organized lechery into law.
When Mr. FITCH pitied the young man who fell in
with DELILAH, Mr. BLAIR thought it was painfully
evident that the Representative from Nevada would
not make headway himself against DELILAH, and
,he country must look elsewhere than to him to
fight that creature. A short passage of arms then
took place between the member from Kansas and
the Delegate from Utah, which afforded those in the
vicinity much amusement, but was not heard by the
reporters; but the debate ended in the passage of
that portion of the Lill by 94 to 32 depriving poly-
gamists of the rights of citizenship and punishing
them by fine and imprisonment. General j.
W. SHAFFER, of Freeport, Illinois, left Chicago
on the 15th March for Salt Lake City to enter
on his official duties as Governor of Utsh, having
been specially selected by the PRESIDENT in view
of the coming crisis. But althouels the House has
passed t he bill, with the clause struck out which would
have authorised the PRESIDENT to despatch troops
and to raise volunteers for the coercion of the
Mormons, it has still to pass the Senate, and even
then to receive the s unction of the country as to
whether it is to remain a dead letter, or to come
into active operation. There is, however, no deny-
ing that the position is critical, for General SCHAF-
FER must enforce an Act of Congress, and this must
immediately bring him into violent collision with
the Church of the Latter Day Saints. Opinions
are widely at variance as to what the Mormons will
do. Some strenuously affirm that they will knuckle
down if the Governor be firm, as they did once or
twice before in the face of a determined 'General ;
but this opinion loses weight, as it ie based on what
is evidently a false calculation. On former occasions
t heMormons may have surrendered a point of ter some
bluster to avoid a dangerous collision ; but the point
then did not involve their very existence as a community,
which, however, will now become the matter in dis-
pute. There are others who affirm that BRIGHAM
YOUNG'S followers are grossly ignorant ; are em-
bued, like all isolated communities, with an exagge-
rated notion of their power and the difficulty of
reaching them, and are impeded by a fanaticism
which could be blown by BRIGHAM'S breath into a
glowing heat. But while acknowledging the one-
man power of Mormon ruse, we reach the heart of
the subject. Supposing BRIGHA3I to be the despot
he is considered, on him will hinge Mormon action,
which then becomes narrowed to BRIGHAM YOUNG.
In thefirst place, the prophet is old, and therefore
more likely to be circumspect, and not impelled by
arty fiery spirit which might spur on younger men ;
in the st cord place, the prophet is rich, and there-

f )re ern! ued with the caution that wealth ins' ir, s;
in the third place, BRIGHAM is a clever, praciic.d
man, with avarice as his salient point, and no one
whose thirst is for gol 1, will plunge into that gold-
dissolver, war. If the American people are deter-
mined to suppress polygamy, and show that deter-
mination unmistakeably, the chances appear to
be that BRIGHAM will have another revelation,
whereby polygamy will cease to be the " Domes-.