attempted by the Church authorities--and the suspicion of more such--
the marshal had taken everything that he could in any way assume to
belong to the Church. Among the Mormons, there was an unconquerable
spirit of sanctified lawlessness, and, among the non-Mormons, an equally
indomitable determination to vindicate the law. Both were, for the most
part, sincere. Both were resolute. And both were standing in fear of a
fatal conflict, which any act of violence might begin.

Moreover, the Mormons were being slowly but surely deprived of all civil
rights. All polygamists had been disfranchised by the bill of 1882, and
all the women of Utah by the bill of 1887. The Governor of the territory
was appointed by Federal authority, so was the marshal, so were the
judges, so were the United States Commissioners who had co-ordinate
jurisdiction with magistrates and justices of the peace, so were the
Election Commissioners. But the Mormons still controlled the
legislature, and though the Governor could veto all legislation he could
initiate none. For this reason it had been frequently proposed that the
President should appoint a Legislative Council to take the place of the
elected legislature; and bills were being talked of in Congress to
effect a complete disfranchisement of the whole body of the Mormon
people by means of a test oath.

I did not then believe, and I do not now, that the practice of polygamy
was a thing which the American nation could condone. But I knew that our
people believed in it as a practice ordained, by a revelation from God,
for the salvation of the world. It was to them an article of faith as
sacred as any for which the martyrs of any religion ever died; and it
seemed that the nation, in its resolve to vindicate the supremacy of
civil government, was determined to put them to the point of martyrdom.