Brownlow's Knoxville Whig. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1866-1869, 1867-03-13
The ENFORCEMENT of the MOrmOnS,

The conduct of the Mormons in Utah is
again exciting attention, and becoming so
outrageous that it is difficult to see how the
strong hand of Government can long alb
stain from interference. Not only has a
murder been committed upon man enticed
| from his family by FIVE or six conspirators,
but another man, Captain Brown, was way
laid and made to promise to leave Utah,
while the Vedette newspaper has also been
| threatened and one of its editors beaten
the agents asserting that they acted by au-
| thority in all these instances, and the whole
| matter clear case of conspiracy to expell
all mGentiles," and render Utah an exclu-
sively Mormon Territory
Freedom to settle everywhere in our
country is one of the most important rights
of each American citizen. 1t is not merely
a right belonging to each citizen, but a part
of the public policy virtually essential to
| the preservation of national unity. All our
experience teaches that it is not alone to
armies and navies that we look for the pre-
servation of our permanent national exist
| ence, but also to those iron bands, the rail
roads and telegraph lines, that we must look
| to keep in check sectional spirit. We
want as people constantly to be nursing
up new fresh ties to bind together the
people of SO vast an extent of territory as
ours. The segregating and exclusive policy
of sectionalism has cost too much ever
again to be tolerated There must be full
| freedom for every man TO settle everywhere
he pleases in the land without molestation.
It is by the free circulation of ideas and
principles that their truths are difused,
and their errors exposed and abandoned by
discussion and votes, without those appeals
TO arms which result from narrow and
local prejudices. Let the Mormons once
become a religious sect, expelling foreigners
from vast territory in the heart Of our
continent, and the citizens Of the pacific
coast will be cut off from us by set of
marauders worse than those Mohamedans
who were for thousand years the terror
and the curse of Europe, but are now being
expelled by the uprising of the Christian
population.
Many of them ignorant, and most of
them morally tainted by principles at war
with all the soundest laws Of justice, moral
ity and religion, they cannot with safety be
allowed to have sway in the centre Of our
land and expel the very soldiers who fought
to preserve our national existence 1t is
NOT the less our duty to look after this mat
ter because it is not our men alone who
suffer by the growth of this ynsolent oligar-
chy 1t is the women and children who
become the real prey and suffer most bitter
ly Spoiled of their beauty, the women be-
come, not the companions, but the slaves Of
their so-called husbands, while the children
are neglected and robbed of due fatherly
support and care, having to grow up among
the worst possible surroundings If a
foreign power had provoked us half as
much as these Mormons have, we should
have swept them away long ago. If in
Cuba our citizens were treated with the an
noyance and injustice they are at Salt Lake,
Spain could not hold that island for day
PHILADELPHIA Ledger.