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Elder Hyde on the Mormon Question
New York Herald
1 December 1857
To the Editor of the Herald
The importance of the subject must be my apology for intruding on your time and space.
Before it can be justly determined as to what should be the correct policy to pursue in the Mormon question, it is necessary to distinctly understand what is the real position of affairs at the seat of rebellion at Utah; and also what are the objects to be accomplished in the premises.
First, what is the situation of affairs? Utah is surrounded by mountains that the Mormons have thoroughly explored, and is approached, on the East, only by narrow and winding gorges, with which they and the Indians are alone familiar. They can muster an active and available force of certainly 8,000 men, well armed and disciplined. They are in collusion with most and in offensive and defensive alliance with many of the adjacent Indian tribes. They are tolerably furnished with the munitions of war, and resources for their manufacture from which they can arm their allies. They are sternly infatuated and firmly believe they are contending for their homes, their religion and their God. They confidently anticipate an ultimate and foreordained triumph, depending on nothing but persistence. Their country is separated by a thousand miles of hills and sand plains from either frontier, and these deserts and mountains traversable only during a few months of the year, and then not by large companies, because of the scarcity of grass and fuel; while to divide up the forces would only subject them to constant harrassment and skirmishings with detached parties of Indians and Mormons, who would burn the grass, cut off the provisions, stampede the cattle, divert their attention and delay their march.
The forces already in the Territory can be destroyed by one-half of their number, even if many do not die with frost and hardship, surrounded as they will be by snow from five to fifteen feet deep in their winter encampment, and molested by Indian and Mormon enemies, who know the mountains and travel on snow shoes. Even though effect an entrance into the settled valleys, the bravest soldiers, jaded from a long and fatiguing march, can offer but small resistance to five times their number fresh from their homes and confident of victory. They can be crushed to death from the mountain ridges, or blown into pieces in the narrow kanyons, where a hundred men could oppose an army; for the Mormons would anticipate a Thermopylae for themselves, and a hundred would be willing to enact the Leonidas. And if they were to be able to quell this rebellion, under the present condition of Utah affairs, the real difficulties of the Mormon question would only be evaded, and not met. So long as the Mormon system remains an established, localized, isolated institution, so long will Brigham have successors, and each will be as troublesome as himself. Their legislature will be Mormon, for the Mormon people will elect no other; their laws will be Mormon, for they will enact no other; and their polygamy will still be legal, for there is no law existing that reaches it in Utah. Congress cannot, and the Mormons will not, prohibit it; and in order to defend their polygamy against the sentiment of the country, they will again resist official interference, and again rebel against official appointments. Such, then, is the position of affairs. What are the objects of the government? Not to affect their religion -- certainly not to injure their persons or invade their rights. It should be the suppression of polygamy and the maintenance of the authority of the United States in the protection of its officers and the enforcing of its laws, and to this end to primarily crush and quell the present rebellion. How to attain these objects is the great question. Polygamy is the root of the present difficulty, and to radically settle this, and effectually prevent future difficulties, polygamy will have to be met. Any less far-reaching policy will only be partial, and a few years would scarcely pass before there would be another rebellion. Congress cannot legislate for the Territories, but it can repeal the organic act and then legislate for the squatters on public lands. It can annex the Territory to the adjoining States, whose laws do prohibit polygamy.
The Mormon Legislature and Brigham have a show of authority now sufficient to impose on many or most of the residents in the Territory. Repeal the organic act and thus deprive these rebels of a legally held power, which they exercise in opposition to the confederacy. As a Legislature they have rejected officials appointed by President Buchanan, resisted his forces, and denounced the government and the people who appointed it. Let the people discard them, and take from their hands the weapons with which they fight. The political organization of the people constitutes their power, and induces their rebellion; and no policy can effectually remedy their rebellion but a deprivation of their power, and that can only be the repeal of the act organizing them.
Utah is far more accessible from the Western and Southern frontiers than from the Eastern, as not only possessing fewer geographical difficulties, but the Southern road being open nine months of the year, instead of five or six, as on the Eastern side. Troops of volunteers be called for in California and Oregon, and they could force a passage by the May of next year. Indeed, the true military policy would advise that the Mormons should not be invaded from the East at all; but that a line of strong posts should be formed on the Eastern border, while the attacking columns should descend on the North, West and South. As to the number of men necessary, it is obvious that the object of the government is rather to induce submission than to inflict punishment; and while the Mormons would resist a contemptible force, they would be intimidated by a powerful army.
Let the government offer a reward for the apprehension of Brigham Young, dead or alive, and the arrest of his confederates, Heber, Chase, Kimball; his counsellor and coadjutator Daniel H. Wells; his military advisor and Lieutenant-General of the Mormon forces, John Taylor, whose harrangues have so inflamed the people; Orson Hyde, the man who, next to Brigham, possesses most influence with the Mormons, and who would almost as ably lead the people should Brigham be arrested, and William Hickman, a ferocious and notorious murderer, and who is commander of the infamous Danite band. The apprehension of these men would destroy the nucleus of the rebellion, and the people would submit.
When the army of occupation takes possession of the valleys, martial law will have to be enforced; and in order to prevent the emigration of ten to fifteen thousand Mormons who will be ready and willing to go to the assistance of their fellow believers next year, martial law should be proclaimed at once, and be made to extend all over the Indian Territory, To allow the Mormon Territorial organization to remain, is for the Mormon Legislature to control the country. To repeal that organization will necessitate another, and as the occupation must be military the law must be martial.
But while resolved to vindicate federal authority and to enforce federal law, the country should be desirous of securing their submission without bloodshed; and therefore, terms of submission must be decided and proposed, and one term should be the suppression of polygamy, which the root and basis of the whole difficulty. If the Mormon polygamists, rather than submit, desire to leave the United States, as they most certainly will, it would immediately quell the rebellion and remove the only difficulty, to allow them to do so, and Sonora or some of the islands in the Southern sea would in that case become their destination and home. They applied to Her Britannic Majesty's government for permission to settle Vancouver's Island, but were refused. I know that the vast majority of the people would be frightened at the thought of encountering the frosts and storms of Russian America, and the Pacific coast and Pacific islands have long formed part of their projects and their prayers. The policy I suggest, then, is in five terms:-
1. Repeal the Utah organic act.
2. Proclaim martial law over the whole Indian Territory around and in Utah.
3. Call for volunteers in California and Oregon, and let them march with as many regulars as can be mustered as soon as the road opens, and the let the troops from the east establish military posts on the eastern frontier.
4. Offer a reward for the apprehension of Brigham Young and his principal confederates.
5. If the Mormon rebellious polygamists—only about one thousand in number—desire to peaceably leave the United States territory rather than submit to United States laws, permit them to do so.
This scheme is respectfully submitted to the consideration of the nation by one who, while he desires to see the majesty of the federal authority duly vindicated, also earnestly hopes that it may be so done, if possible, as to spare the country the horrors of a bloody civil war, and the Mormon people the fearful and mad sacrifice of life attendant on their infatuated folly.
John Hyde, Jr.
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