Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1871-11-15
Watnhman & Journal,
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER Is, ISL
TERss- t2oo per year, strictly In advance or $50
ifnot paid within three months.
The Romance Of Utah.

The Romance Of Utah.
The Epic of Salt Lake city is ended. The
Utopia of the Latter Day Saints has dis
solved The great problem Of Mormonism
which has yexed the successive adminstra.
tions of the country is solved Our people
have so long been accustomed to approach
every subject politically, that questions Of a
moral and social character give them deal Of
unnecessary trouble The polygamou. insti-
tuition Of Mormonsm has defel the power Of
the government for forty years, simply be-
cause it has aimed to reach political remedy
for it.. Ii seems never TO have occurred to
the rulers Of the country that a legal solu.
ton Of the question was easy and practicable
1t is the fault Of our people that they try to
do everything by politics and not by law. If
any reform is 10 be instituted or accomplished
If serious vices are to be reached and over
thrown-ihe country is ogtated until the peo-
pie elect some man in favor Of the reform, or
committed to prohibition. We attempt to
make people do right, or keep them from do.
ing wrong by elections aud legislation. If
anybody is to be punished for mallcasance in
office, or for social vices and offences, we re-
sort to the machinery Of party politics, and
give the country no rest till the people have
learned the euormity of the evils to be sup.
pressed, and found courage to vote for some
body for office who is committed against them.
We bear and forbear with all the great trans
gressious Of law aud order until the voice Of
the people can be taken
But, by some inexpicable process the pres
ent administration has found out that there
are laws against polygamy aud license, and
that the way to overthrow them is to enforce
the law against them. So long as mormon
ism was a great social problem, and polygamy
a porplcxiug political question, Salt Lake
was an honored community, the resort Of
travellers and philosophers and statemcu, 60
ing thither to study the problem, and air their
wisdom in attempts to discover the remedy
for so abnormal an institution as existed there.
While peripatetc clergymen visited Utah, as
a great school of moral philosophy, and re-
turned to the East to lecture about the lido
syncracies of society, and the restitution of
patrarchal customs, aud the rights Of con-
science and freedom to worship God in the
practices Of RIGHTEOUSNESS, and wandering
Congressman and Vice Presidents aud Edit
ors took it in the course Of trans-contincntal
travels in order to study, on the ground, the
nature and effects Of the Mormon State on the
history Of the race aud the future Of the Re
public-poly gamy attained the dignity Of a
profound political question, aud reached the
high honor of being a mysterious social prob
lem. The discussions about it became COM
plicated with other high and holy questions
Abraham and Solomon came forth from the
dim chambers Of the past to lend it their
sanction, and warn against its Infringement
The great principles of freedom Of conscience,
and liberation Of religious differences, came
in to guard its sacredness, and forbid any
rash intrusion into its mighty mysteries. The
saints were sealed not only to twenty wiz es
apiece but sealed also against all lshonor in
theirvile system, by shielding themselves under
the mgis Of personal liberty to worship God as
they chose.
But at last Mormonism has been revealed
Its deformity, so long concealed in the log
of the grave issues and principles which il
has invoked to protect and hide it, has beer
manifest, and the Ithuriel's spear which ha
detected and impaled it, is lar, and not poll
tics. The country might have discussed tn
question forever and only made it more diff
cult and dangerous, increasing the number of
its adherents aud defenders But when tn
government put aside discussion and resorte,
to law when it ceased to argue about crime
and put itself as an ayengng Nemesis on thu
track of the criminal, the great question van
ished like smoke, and the criminals, no longe
panoplied in the apparel Of sacred principles
were held TO answer for their crimes, or drive
in terror from their haunts.
So the romance of Utah is ended. Hence
forth men may not do that gross wrong in tn
name of religion. What politics would to
crate, law disowns and overwhelms w
might as well have a society of thieves,
community Of robbers and Robin Hood,
pleading social aud political immunity 70
pillagc and burglary. A brothel is no NOR
sacred than a confederacy Of thieves. Re
liglon has no right to be used as the ally 0
crime aud the protector Of rascality and vice
II scorns the association, aud asks no countc
nance to be given on its account to murder
and adultery and theft. And, if any me
flee to its sanctuary to be tolerated and pre-
tected in their outrages against morality, dc
cency and law, it is the first to give them NJ
|, Law can do no greater favor to religion tina
to infict its penalties on them. 1t can do n
higher favor to society, than to make ther
and their practices odous and fagitiou,
When it toleratcs oifenscs, it opens the doc
, to them.
! And this is the great wrong which our gov
ernment has done in respect to Mormonism
1t has given it political tolerance and pres
tige. BY its silence, by the admission of it
delegate to Congress, it has given it currency
1t has armed with its quasi endorsement
every rowing rascally Mormon elder as h
has gone to England, Germany, Ireland an,
Wales, to preach his gospel of polygamy, an,
obtain recruits for the Salt Lake harem |
+ has allowed these evangelists of lechery to 9,
through the world proclaiming that the law
Of the United States tolerated their customs
that the politicians and statesmen and peopl
OF this country allowed them liberty 10 sucl
faith as that. They have used this argumen
we'll and have made converts to polygamy a