146 BRIGHAM YOUNG. 



Whether in the pulpit, in public addresses,an official documents, 

 or in private intercourse, the same spirit of lofty patriotism 

 seemed to pervade their whole community. At the same time, it 

 should not be concealed that a stern determination exists among 

 them to submit to no repetition of the outrages to which they were 

 subjected in Illinois and Missouri ; but, on the contrary, to resist 

 by force and to the last extremity, from whatever quarter, any 

 such interference with what they consider their civil and religious 

 rights, guarantied to them, as to other citizens, by the constitution 

 of the United States. Yain-glorious vaunts may indeed have been 

 sometimes made by individuals whose knowledge and judgment 

 were not equal to their religious zeal, as to the ability of the com- 

 munity to maintain itself in the fastnesses of the mountains, even 

 against the military forces of the Government ; but we know that 

 there are in every society men whose valour is ever great in pro- 

 portion to the remoteness of the danger. I have no idea that any 

 such collision was ever seriously anticipated. 



Upon the action of the Executive in the appointment of the of- 

 ficers within the newly-created Territory, it does not become me to 

 offer other than a very diffident opinion. Yet the opportunities of 

 information to which allusion has already been made, may perhaps 

 justify me in presenting the result of my own observations upon 

 this subject. With all due deference, then, I feel constrained to 

 say, that in my opinion the appointment of the president of the 

 Mormon church, and head of the Mormon community, in preference 

 to any other person, to the high office of Governor of the Terri- 

 tory, independent of its political bearings, with which I have 

 nothing to do, was a measure dictated alike by justice and by sound 

 policy. Intimately connected with them from their exodus from 

 Illinois, this man has been indeed their Moses, leading them 

 through the wilderness to a remote and unknown land, where they 

 have since set up their tabernacle, and where they are now building 

 their temple. Resolute in danger, firm and sagacious in council, 

 prompt and energetic in emergency, and enthusiastically devoted 

 to the honour and interests of his people, he had won their unlimited 



desert our country's cause ; never will we be found arrayed by the side of her 

 enemies, although she herself may cherish them in her own bosom. Although she 

 may launch forth the thunderbolts of war, which may return and spend their fury 

 upon her own head, never, no never, will we permit the weakness of human na- 

 ture to triumph over our love of country, our devotion to her institutions, handed 

 down to us by our honoured sires, made dear by a thousand tender recollections." 

 Such, surely, is neither the language nor the spirit of a disloyal people. 



