Part 1158

"To this would-be 'State of Deseret' President Fillmore had assigned Brigham Young, the spiritual head of the church, as territorial governor; and by 1857, when a Democratic President showed the disposition to apply the usual temporal rule of rotation to the office, Young was rebellious, and the whole Mormon population, refusing allegiance to anyone but their consecrated head, began to drill and gird on their armor for resistance. Judges of the territorial courts had to flee for their lives; justice, which had long been tampered with to absolve church members from punishment, was deprived of process. It was charged that the Mormon hierarchy had leagued with Indian tribes to impel them to atrocities against the Gentile inhabitants, while their own Danites, or destroying angels, were secretly set apart and bound by horrid oath to pillage and murder such as made themselves obnoxious to the theocracy. … President Buchanan appointed as the new governor of Utah Alfred Cumming, a man combining courage with discretion, and filled the judicial and other vacancies which existed. To protect those new officers and aid them in discharging their functions, he ordered a detachment of regulars to accompany them to the Salt Lake region. The need of this was soon apparent. Early in September, 1857, a part of the troops left Fort Laramie, and on the 15th of the same month Brigham Young, parading audaciously the commission he still held from the United States, forbade all armed forces from entering the territory, and called upon his people to defend themselves against the 'armed mercenary mob' of invaders. His legislature, meeting later, sustained him in his bitter diatribe against the 'profane, drunken, and corrupt officials,' which a Washington administration was trying to force upon Utah territory at the point of the bayonet. A Mormon force had meanwhile advanced to impede the approach of our regulars, capturing and burning three supply trains of wagons laden with tents and provisions, stampeding the horses, and so crippling Fort Bridger, which was distant some twelve days' march from Salt Lake city, as to deprive our army, on its arrival, of a proper winter's shelter after its long and fatiguing march, and compel General Johnston, who commanded this important post, to despatch part of his forces upon a dreary and hazardous expedition to New Mexico for further supplies. Johnston's despatches in October showed the President that unless a large force was quickly sent out, a long conflict would be inevitable. Buchanan and his Secretary of War asked from the present Congress ten new regiments, of which five might be used to bring the Mormons to subjection. But the Lecompton controversy was raging; and the use of Federal troops to put down the free-State movement in Kansas had caused such mistrust and irritation that none but the President's unshaken supporters felt inclined to place more troops at his disposal. The bill for an army increase was lost, though both Houses passed a measure authorizing the President to accept for the Utah disturbances two regiments of volunteers. The volunteers were not called out; but Buchanan mustered a military force out of the regulars strong enough to overawe and overpower Utah's rebellious inhabitants. Two peace commissioners also bore to Utah a proclamation from the President, dated April 6th, which offered free pardon, except to those who persisted still in disloyal resistance. Governor Cumming, upon his arrival, made a like announcement. These conciliatory efforts, backed by an irresistible show of military strength, brought the Mormons to a speedy acknowledgment of allegiance. They fought not a battle, but manifested a purpose to burn their houses and make a new and peaceable retreat into the wilderness. From this purpose, after some conferences, they were at length dissuaded; and it was agreed in June between the Mormon leaders and our commissioners that the United States soldiery should be kept out of sight as much as possible while Utah remained tranquil. On the last day of the same month the new governor, accompanied by Brigham Young, came back to Salt Lake city to assume functions which were fully recognized. A few days earlier, and before the Mormons had begun to return to their homes, General Johnston and his troops, leaving Fort Bridger, reached the desolate city, marched through its streets, and, crossing its river Jordan, encamped on the opposite bank. While abandoning all further effort at violent resistance, the Mormons still clung to the hope of being left to govern themselves and preserve their institutions against the world's contaminating touch, by gaining the indispensable condition of practical isolation and independence. To this Congress in its next winter's session they renewed the former petitions they had presented for immediate admission to the Union as the 'State of Deseret.' And should this request be denied, they prayed that the organic act of the territory might be so amended as to give the inhabitants the right to choose their own governor, judges, and other officers. All this Congress quietly ignored; and in military circles it was still generally believed that, for all this outward show of loyal acquiescence, the Mormons felt at heart no more affection for the United States than for any foreign nation; that the only rule they really recognized was that of their religion and the will of their hierarchy; and that force must still be used to compel them. Such views were entertained by General Albert Sidney Johnston, the military commander at Utah, destined to later distinction in the art of war. But Cumming, the governor, who had the temporizing instincts of a civilian, thought differently. The two came into collision when Mormons were brought to trial in the courts for a slaughter of emigrants in 1857, known as the Mountain Meadow massacre. [This was the massacre, by Indians and Mormons, of a party of 136 emigrants, from Arkansas and Missouri, who were passing through Utah to California; it occurred in September, 1857, in a valley called the Mountain Meadows, about 300 miles south of Salt Lake city; only 17 young children were saved from the slaughter.] At the request of the Federal judge, Johnston furnished a military detachment to guard the prisoners; and when Cumming, the governor, interposed because of the angry remonstrance of the people, Johnston would not remove them. Buchanan, being appealed to, sustained the governor's authority."

_J. Schouler, History of the United States, chapter 22 (volume 5)._

ALSO IN: _H. H. Bancroft, History of the Pacific States, volume 21, chapters 18-21._

_W. P. Johnston, Life of General Albert Sidney Johnston, chapter 13._

_Mrs. T. B. H. Stenhouse, Tell it All, chapter 23._

_Report of United States Secretary of the Interior, 36th Congress, 1st session, Senate Ex. Doc., number 42 (volume 11)._

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UTAH: A. D. 1882-1893. The Edmunds Act and its enforcement. Abandonment of Polygamy by the Mormons. Proclamation of Amnesty for past offenses against the law.

In March, 1882, an Act of Congress (known as the Edmunds Act) was passed for the purpose of making efficient the law against polygamy in the territories, which had stood among the statutes of the United States for twenty years, without power on the part of the federal courts or officials in Utah to enforce it, as against Mormon juries. Besides repeating the penalties prescribed In the Act of 1862, the Act of 1882 provides, in its eighth section, that "no polygamist, bigamist, or any person cohabiting with more than one woman, and no woman cohabiting with any of the persons described as aforesaid in this section, in any Territory or other place over which the United States have exclusive jurisdiction, shall be entitled to vote at any election held in any such Territory or other place, or be eligible for election or appointment to or be entitled to hold any office or place of public trust, honor, or emolument in, under, or for any such Territory or place, or under the United States." The ninth and last section is as follows: "Section 9. That all the registration and election offices of every description in the Territory of Utah are hereby declared vacant, and each and every duty relating to the registration of voters, the conduct of elections, the receiving or rejection of votes, and the canvassing and returning of the same, and the issuing of certificates or other evidence of election, in said Territory, shall, until other provisions be made by the legislative assembly of said Territory, as is hereinafter by this section provided, be performed, under the existing laws of the United States and said Territory, by proper persons, who shall be appointed to execute such offices and perform such duties by a Board of five persons, to be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, not more than three of whom shall be members of one political party, and a majority of whom shall be a quorum. The members of said Board so appointed by the President shall each receive a salary at the rate of three thousand dollars per annum, and shall continue in office until the legislative assembly of said Territory shall make provision for filling said offices as herein authorized. The Secretary of the Territory shall be the secretary of said Board and keep a journal of its proceedings, and attest the action of said Board under this section. The canvass and return of all the votes at elections in said Territory for members of the legislative assembly thereof shall also be returned to said Board, which shall canvass all such returns and issue certificates of election for those persons who, being eligible for such election, shall appear to have been lawfully elected, which certificates shall be the only evidence of the right of such persons to sit in such assembly: Provided, That said Board of five persons shall not exclude any person otherwise eligible to vote from the polls on account of any opinion such person may entertain on the subject of bigamy or polygamy, nor shall they refuse to count any such vote on account of the opinion of the person casting it on the subject of bigamy or polygamy, but each house of such assembly, after its organization, shall have power to decide upon the elections and qualifications of its members. And at or after the first meeting of said legislative assembly whose members shall have been elected and returned according to the provisions of this act, said legislative assembly may make such laws, conformable to the organic act of said Territory, and not inconsistent with other laws of the United States, as it shall deem proper concerning the filling of the offices in said Territory declared vacant by this act."—The following Proclamation, issued by the President of the United States on the 4th day of January, 1893, may be looked upon as the sequel and consequence of the legislation recorded above: "Whereas Congress, by a statute approved March 22, 1882, and by statutes in furtherance and amendment thereof, defined the crimes of bigamy, polygamy, and unlawful cohabitation in the Territories and other places within the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States and prescribed a penalty for such crimes; and Whereas, on or about the 6th day of October, 1890, the Church of the Latter-Day Saints, commonly known as the Mormon Church, through its president, issued a manifesto proclaiming the purpose of said church no longer to sanction the practice of polygamous marriages and calling upon all members and adherents of said church to obey the laws of the United States in reference to said subject-matter; and Whereas it is represented that since the date of said declaration the members and adherents of said church have generally obeyed said laws and have abstained from plural marriages and polygamous cohabitation; and Whereas, by a petition dated December 19, 1891, the officials of said church, pledging the membership thereof to a faithful obedience to the laws against plural marriage and unlawful cohabitation, have applied to me to grant amnesty for past offenses against said laws, which request a very large number of influential non-Mormons, residing in the Territories, have also strongly urged; and Whereas, the Utah Commission, in their report bearing date September 15, 1892, recommended that said petition be granted and said amnesty proclaimed, under proper conditions as to the future observance of the law, with a view to the encouragement of those now disposed to become law abiding citizens; and Whereas, during the past two years such amnesty has been granted to individual applicants in a very large number of cases, conditioned upon the faithful observance of the laws of the United States against unlawful cohabitation; and there are now pending many more such applications: Now therefore, I, Benjamin Harrison, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested, do hereby declare and grant a full amnesty and pardon to all persons liable to the penalties of said act by reason of unlawful cohabitation under the color of polygamous or plural marriage, who have since November 1, 1890, abstained from such unlawful cohabitation; but upon the express condition that they shall in the future faithfully obey the laws of the United States hereinbefore named, and not otherwise. Those who shall fail to avail themselves of the clemency hereby offered will be vigorously prosecuted. In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the city of Washington this 4th day of January, in the year of our Lord 1893, and of the Independence of the United States the 117th. Benjamin Harrison."

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UTAH: A. D. 1894-1895. Provision for admission to the Union as a State.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1894-1895.

UTAH: End--------

UTAHS, UTES, PIUTES, etc.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SHOSHONEAN FAMILY.

UTICA: Start--------

UTICA: Origin.

"The most ancient Phœnician colonies were Utica, nearly on the northern-most point of the coast of Africa, and in the same gulf (now known as the gulf of Tunis) as Carthage, over against Cape Lilybæum in Sicily,—and Gades, or Gadeira, on the south-western coast of Spain; a town which, founded perhaps near one thousand years before the Christian era, has maintained a continuous prosperity, and a name (Cadiz) substantially unaltered, longer than any town in Europe. How well the site of Utica was suited to the circumstances of Phœnician colonists may be inferred from the fact that Carthage was afterwards established in the same gulf and near to the same spot, and that both the two cities reached a high pitch of prosperity."

_G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 18._

[Transcriber's note: The meaning of the phrase '…name (Cadiz)…' appears to be ambiguous. "The site of … Utica is … about 30 km from Tunis and 30 km from Bizerte and near … Zhana, … Ghar El Melh, … El Alia, … Metline." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utica%2C_Tunisia]

UTICA: Relations to Carthage.

See CARTHAGE, THE DOMINION OF.

UTICA: Curio's defeat.

Curio, the legate or lieutenant sent first by Cæsar to Africa (B. C. 49), to attack the Pompeian forces in that quarter, undertook with two legions to reduce the city of Utica, which had became the capital of the Roman Province. Juba, king of Numidia, who was personally hostile to both Curio and Cæsar, came to the assistance of the Pompeians and forced Curio to withdraw from its besieging lines into the neighboring Cornelian camp, which was a famous military entrenchment left by Scipio Africanus. There he might have waited in safety for re-enforcements; but the wily Numidian tempted him out by a feigned retreat and then overwhelmed him. Curio and most of his men were slain.

_C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapter 16._

ALSO IN: _G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, volume 5, chapter 7._

UTICA: Last stand of the opponents of Cæsar.

See ROME: B. C. 47-46.

UTICA: End--------

UTRAQUISTS, The.

See BOHEMIA: A. D. 1419-1434.

UTRECHT: Start--------

UTRECHT: The Episcopal Principality.

"At the last ford of the Rhine a hamlet had in Roman times been built, possibly a fort also. Nothing is preserved regarding it but the name, which, in the mutations of language, passed from Ultrajectum into Utrecht. Towards the conclusion of the 7th century, Clement Willebrod, an English priest, who had been educated at the monastery of Ripon, coming as a missionary into those parts, succeeded, with the aid of eleven of his fellow-countrymen, in winning over the Frisian people to the Christian faith. He fixed his abode at Utrecht, of which he was afterwards appointed bishop; and gifts of land, at the time of little worth, were made to his successors by Pepin and Charlemagne. Such was the commencement of the temporal grandeur of the prince-bishops, whose dynasty attained to a power little less than sovereign during the middle ages. … With ready access to the sea, and not without an early disposition towards these pursuits which their kinsmen of the Rhineland towns were beginning to follow, the inhabitants of Utrecht soon became good sailors and good weavers, and their city throve apace. Enriched by successive grants of privileges and lands, the bishops of Utrecht gradually became powerful feudal lords."

_W. T. McCullagh, Industrial History of Free Nations, chapter 8 (volume 2)._

UTRECHT: A. D. 1456. The bishopric grasped by the House of Burgundy.

"Utrecht was still a separate state, governed by its sovereign bishop, who was elected by the votes of the chapter, subject to the approval of the Pope. On the vacancy which occurred towards the end of the year 1455, the choice of the canons fell upon Gisbert van Brederode, who had previously been archdeacon of the cathedral, and was held in general esteem amongst the people as well as the clergy. The Duke of Burgundy coveted so rich a prize, rather for its political importance, however, … than for any direct or immediate gain." The Duke appealed to Rome; Gisbert was put back into his archdeaconry, with an annuity for life, and David, a natural son of Duke Philip, was made bishop. "Thus the foundation was laid for the permanent union of Utrecht to the other provinces, although its final accomplishment was destined to be deferred yet many years."

_W. T. McCullagh, Industrial History of Free Nations, chapter 10 (volume 2)._

UTRECHT: A. D. 1576. The Spanish Fury.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1575-1577.

UTRECHT: A. D. 1579. The Union of the Seven Provinces.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1577-1581.

UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714. The Treaties which ended the War of the Spanish Succession, forming the Peace of Utrecht and the Treaty of Rastadt.