Salt Lake evening Democrat. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1885-1887, 1885-08-18

or they must suffer the punishment con-
sequent upon their lawlessness. The
people of Utah claim that they have
q divine sanction for doing as they do,
and that also what they do is a Constitu-
tional right That they have divine
sanction for their conduct can neither be
proven nor disproven; but the only power
and authority known to the Constitution
to determine such questions as
Constitutional rights, namely, the
Supreme Court, says they have no
such right Is a man entitled to exercise
any rights or privileges because he has a
religious faith in them any more than a
person who has no such religious faith ?
Are the rights OF conscience, in essence,
any more sacred and to be more jealously
guarded than other rights? Before the
law and before reason do not all rights
stand on the same level? These are
serious and important questions and are
too little pondered; but We are firmly
convinced that no such distinction as
these questions suggest as to rights
exists.
Such being the case, as we believe, can
the people of Utah expect any indulgence
from prosecution when they violate the
law, although in so doing they may think
they have a divine sanction? They
forget that in the domination
of the civil power is the sole
protection of all religions. They not only
forget this important fact, but they also
forget that the Government is determined
to enforce the law, and that it can he
enforced, as experience proves. The peo-
pie here for long, long years have had a
contempt both for the law and the Gov
ernmnnt, arising from two causes. The
first, their belief that the Mormon church
was to be a temporal Kingdom OF God
here on earth, and that here, in the midst
of America, it was to be raised. The
second and the most potent cause is the
vacillating, listless and spasmodic manner
in which all attempts heretofore to vindi-
cate the law have been made. The sec
ond cause has certainly warranted their
contempt for the law and the Government
So often as the Government has ceased
its effort to enforce the laws, just so often
have the people OF Utah seen the
hand OF Providence stretched forth
to shield and protect them. A
people who are filled with faith and fanat-
icism see a divine interposition in all
things, and the fact that it is faith which
rules them is sufficient answer to all
reasoning. Faith and belief do not as
sumo to rest on reason, they are things
which belong to world OF illogical ex-
pectation. These things may be more
prominent here than elsewhere. These,
then, are some OF the elements which
complicate the problem of enforcing the
law in Utah. For the Government now
to cease its vindication OF the law would
be for it to prove to the people OF Utah
once more that God had interfered
to protect them from the machi-
nations of Satan and those through whom
ne works. This would be the general be-
lief OF the Mormon masses, while those of
broader views and larger experience, such
SIS the more prominent Mormons now
under indictment, would mainly regard it
in its true light as at best but a respite
What these men will do no one can tell.
Some think they will obey the law, while
others think differently. Our own opin-
ion is that they will obey counsel and
suffer fine and Imprisonment, for the
pressure being brought to bear upon them
by the leaders who are in hiding is tre-
mendous. But if these gentlemen think
that their suffering fine and imprisonment
will stay the tide of prosecution aga n st
those who shall continue to violate the
law against poIygamy and unlawful CO.
habitation, they will find themselves mis-
taken, and that their time and money, so
far as their object is concerned, have been
thrown away. For the Government to
grant any leniency now will be for it to
strengthen what it would weaken.