The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1894-08-02

the evidences and the announcement or
the early realization of the hopes, the
aspirations, the ambitions and the eff
forts of a lifetime. There are gray
haired men before me, there are men
there the glory of whose hirsute adorn-
ment has come and gone, who were not
lyet upon this earth when their fathers
were talking of statehood, working for
statehood, pleading for statehood for
Utah. I know many OF you, perhaps
most of you, who are old citizens or
knew your fathers and mothers, and l
know how YOU and they have longed
for this day, how you have labored for
lit, how earnestly and how honestly, and
with how much patriotism and Ameri-
lcanism, you have given your time, your
efforts and your means to the cause,
which has at last been Won-won after
more than forty years of as earnest, as
persistent as determined a struggle as
free born men and women ever engaged
lin After what has been done, after the
glorious fights and the defeats which
were neither disgraceful to us nor dis
| courag cling in their effects, is 1t any
wonder that we are proud To-Day, lhaI
| we feel that a mighty victory has been
won by the right and that we are the
RECIPIENTS of the fruits and benefits of
THAT victory? Ought we not to feel
little prouder than we have ever felt?
fought we not to feel ourselves a little
larger, a little more important, a little
/ more as if life were worth living, lit
t Ie more as if we were real American
| citizens. with all that the proud desig-
nation implies? I think so, and l feel
! that YOU think so. / know that in the
lpast, proud as we all have been OF our
lcountry, of its heaven inspired Consul
tuition, its glorious institutions, ats
matchless system OF government we
ihave nevertheless, deep down in our
breasts felt that there was at least
Suggestion of sarcasm, if not of down
fright mockery in calling ourselves
American citizens while living under
territorial rule. 1t has been the system,
let us say, rather than the administra-
ton that we have protested against and
ways wrong in principle, and often
Iabused in application, which has de-
iprived us of some of our rights when
we crossed the borders and became
Presidents of the territory; it is the sys-
item which has made us less citizens of
1.-The republic than are our fathers and
brothers in those American common
Iwealths which are governed by Con-
iStitution, and in whose management.
direction and administration every
member has q voice and more or less
influence.
But L will not inveigle against what
lis fast passing into oblivion. In a little
of things, in the enlargement of our
rights and the increase of our response
Utilities, we will have forgotten that for
NEARLY half a century, while Americans
lin all things, and as loyal to the Re
public as we were true to ourselves, we
lived under a local government as I'M
like in principle and operation as are
the monorchical governments of Europe
and Asia is unlike the free and glorious
republic of the United States.
But perhaps 1 am going too fast am
saying too much. Utah has not always
been a territory. There was time
when this part of the national domain
was in fact a state, and some who are
with us today, were citizens of that
state. 1t was away back in the misty,
if not musty past, before a territorial
territorial government had been
thought of for this almost unknown
and far distant portion of the country.
For two years after reaching here, the
pioneers of Utah did not seem to re-
quire a secular government, but in
1S49 they concluded that it would be
better to have a civil government, and
then began the efforts for statehood
which are now fast eliminating. 1t
was in the month of March, 1S49, that
delegates from all that part of upper
California east of the Sierra Nevada
mountains, assembled In Great Salt
Lake city, as it was then called, in
constitutional convention, and in three
days complete state constitution was
formulated. OF the committee of ten
who reported that constitution, one
alone remains. The other nine having
finished their work, have gone to their
rest. l may here remark that the con-
stitution then adopted was pretty
good constitution. If there were not gil
ants in those days, there were states
men. who did their work honestly and
iintelligently, framing fundamental
law embracing those sacred principles
of human liberty which may we'll be
embodied in the constitution, to be
formed by the delegates whose election
has been ordered by the executive pro-
clamation read from this platform this
afternoon This constitution proved so
satisfactory to the people, that it re-
NAMED the supreme lawsof the terri
tory, much more extensive in area than
the Utah territory of today, for more
than two years the provisional govern
ment of the state of Deseret being in
actual existence from the framing and
PRONUNCIATION of the constitution IN
March, 1849, till April, 1851. True, on
September 8, 1850, the act creating the
territorial government was approved,
but it took nearly six months for the
news to reach here. We may therefore
date the struggle for statehood from
the adoption Of the constitution in
1S49. For the state of Deseret petit
toned for admission into the Union,
and at no time since has the effort to
obtain release from what we have been
pleased to term territorial bondage, been
abandoned. The movement may have
been pressed less urgently at periods,
but it may be said that statehood has
at all times been the cry, the ambition,
the object Of the people of Utah. Con-
stitution after constitution in success
| sion TlreSented fO COngreSS with earn
est prayers that we might be taken in
to the fold of states. Being rejected
and turned back, we have appealed to
be permitted to form a constitution and
in our eagerness for emancipation have
even asked that terms upon which we
could be freed might be dictated to us.
Since 1S49 three great constitutional
, conventions have been held, three con-
situations framed, ratified by the people
and presented to Congress with our
prayer for admission. Less earnest
less intelligent, less ambitious people
would have been discouraged and long
ago given up in despair; but it is to the
credit of the people of Utah, it does
: honor to their manhood and their pat
: riotism, that turning them down. on
ly made them the more determined to
win the great boon to which they felt
they were justly entitled.
l will not go into detail concerning
: the constitutional conventions of 1856
! 1862, 1872, 1882, and 1887 nor will 1 re-
fer more specifically to the petitions
and requests for statehood which have
. territory. Nor can l do more
here and now than pay a
hasty and inadequate tribute to the
good, worthy and able men who helped
) to build the various constitutions, Civ
ing their time and ability in labor OF