Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1859-02-12
THE MORMON REBELLION-P PRESENT con-
DI1lON or AFFAIRS IN UTAH.

UTAH January Sth, 1859.
The affairs Of Utah remain unchanged They
are q standing comment on the character OF
democratic government as developed in the
Years. 1t Is only a democratic administration
Of the federal government that could resort so
coolly to standing army as a necessary means
for governing our territories. Should our prog
ress in the same direction be as rapid during
the next thirty years to come as it has been
during the thirty years last past we could then
look as cooly upon the introduction of the mil
itary element as governing principle in our
general government, as we do now upon its in
PRODUCTION into the territories. Never before
has any Of our territory receiving its organic
law from the United States been governed by
a standing army.
There is now no government in Utah except
the mere repressive force which is exercised by
the presence of the army. Although the great
majority of the people are from that quarter of
the world where the common law prevails, vet
they have failed to take the proper measures for
carrying out that law, and hence, from that
cause alone, they have actually put themselves
in state of rebellion against the United States,
whose law is the common law. The very fact
of the people attempting to set up here kind
OF theocratic autocracy, is rebellion, because it
is in direct opposition to the fundamental prin-
ciple of our institutions, which is, popular SOW
ereignty. Where Brigham Young regns as an
autocrat there can evidently be no sovereignty
of the people. The two principles, in fact, are
in direct opposition to each other; and one or
the other must be rebellious.
Rebellion then, is the normal condition of af-
fairs in Utah and this rebellion is sustained in
its attitude of logged defiance to our laws and
to our sense of decency and propriety by a par
don from the President. Before the pardon
was given, the rebellion presented assailable
points which the ministers of justice supported
by an army, might have seized upon for the
yindication of the law; numerous individuals
were implicated who might have been tried any
where within the United States, and whose trial
would not have been rendered mockery bv
being made subject to the peculiar views of
Mormon jury; but now, since the giving of the
pardon, by which individuals are screened from
the operations of the law, there are no issues
presented upon which the law can act. What
was formerly particular and definite, has now
become general and indefinite, representing no
hold for the law, but rather as fair a mark as
ever for the exercise of military power. Rebel
lion in fact exists here by the will of the Presi-
dent, in spite Of both law and the military force
A set of rebels are allowed to remain in A per-
manent state of rebellion to form iuries for
deciding such cases arise from their own re-
bellion, and thus, by aping the forms of the
common law, to subvert the very objects which
that law was designed to protect!
But while this humiating state of things ex-
ists-humiliating to every lover of his country
and of human freedom, lit is well to draw from
it such lessons as it is capable of giving And
why is it, we may ask that, since the DECLARE
ton of our independence, this is the first in
stance where an army has been used for the
government of one of orr territories? Why
has Utah required such means of government
rather than any other terrtoryP Is it not be-
cause its population is made up chiefly of for
eigners who have no rational perceptions of
either the character value of free institutions
And if foreigners require military government
here in Utah, will there not be a corresponding