The daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1848-1851, 1849-10-12
Tho New Mormon State.


1t is rare that there occurs an event so well cal
culated to impress philosophic Imagination as the
forming of the new Mormon State in the neighbor-
hood Of the Great Salt Lake. A day or two ago
we gave a sketch of the Constitution of the State
of Deseret and its provisions are almost remark
able as the strange and anomalous people bywhom
it was formed.
The inhabitants Of DeseFet are almost entirely
Mormons and the Mormon superstition is one Of
the widest vagaries in which the human mind has
ever INDUCED. Believers in new and altogether
ndefnable religious revelation, these enthusiasts,
partly driven from our midst by the behess Of civil
ization and partly attracted to the solitudes of the
Great Westfby the suitableness of its scenes to
their excited imaginations, have formed society
and instituted government in one of the widest
portions of the Continent. Every circumstance
in their condition is calculated to exalt the imagina-
tive faculties-almost to the pitch of frenZy-and
yet in five days they have formed a Constitution
which might excite the envy and the admiration
of Partisan wits and transatlantic legislators.
How is it that people SO insane in many respects
should keep their minds so sound and we'll balanced
on the subject of Government! What charm
threw is spell around them, when they came TO-
gether to legislate? What magic evoked the
the purpose of making laws
This fact in the history of the Mormon Constitu-
tion-this reasonableness Units provisions, and the
entire absence of any thing like rant, religious
prejudice or enthusiasm in its enactments-is, to
our view, one Of the strongest arguments that has
ever been addueed in support of American insti-
tutions. If there ever was people who might
reasonably have made religion a test Of citizen
ship, it is the Mormons. They have, however,
resisted the temptation which two hundred years
ago lured the New England Puritans from the
paths of just law and good government. The Nor
mons have crossed sea of prairie as serious in its
sufferings as any which the Atlantic offered othe
Pilgrim Fathers. They have fixed themselves in
a wild and barren country, compared to which
Massachusetts is a garden and New England a
paradise. They escaped from a civilization which
assumed to be perfect in its forms and its prn-
ciples than any ever imagined by the Mayfiower
fugitives. Yet the emigrants of the seventeenth
century had hardly landed on the rock of Plymouth
had hardly fixed themselves in their new home
before they made religious opinions a necessary
ingredient Of the citizen. In the difference, them
between the Great Salt Lake MOFmons. and the
Massachusetts Puritans, behold the difference be-
tween British and American training-between
those who have lived in politieo- ecclesiastical
State and those brought up under the influence oil
laws entirely repudiating the connection of religion
with government.
So much for the past in the history of Deseret.
If we look to the future, it is hard to determine
what will be the destiny of the new State Will
the religious enthusiasm of this people-un fettered
by opposing pFejudices, and unrestrained by con-
fictng opiniOns-l0se its fereeness and RELAPSE
into mildness and moderation Is the Great Salt
Lake settlement to teach us again the pregnant
truth that anaticism is its own best cure, and that
the patient is soonest healed when left to the forces
Of nature without the interference of physician
And if the Mormon is cured of his folly in the
Far West-=if putting aside his idols he returns t.
the worship of the true God-what is to be the
form and structure of the civilization he will rea
amidst the steppes and lakes of the Rocky Noun
tains viii it be nomadic and Oriental, or GxeC
and European All these are questions which
suggest themselves at the sight of this newest OIL
the American settlements.