---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Talmage, James Edward
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 4
number: 12
published: 1901-10
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'James E. Talmage, "The Story of “Mormonism” V," *Improvement Era* 4, no. 12 (October 1901): 905–911.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0412unse
  transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers.
  identifier: improvementera0412unse
start_page: 905
end_page: 911
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1901-10)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0412unse
  publication_year: 1901
  note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1901, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# The Story of “Mormonism” V

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,

THE STORY OF "MORMONISM."*
BY DR. JAMES E. TALMAGE, OF THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH.

( Concluded from page 826.)

But the officers of the army kept their word; the troops were
put into camp forty miles from the settlements, and the settlers
returned. The president's commissioners brought the official par-
don, unsolicited, for all acts committed by the"Mormons" in op-
possing the entrance of the army. The people asked what they had
done that needed pardon; they had not robbed, they had not killed.
But a critical analysis of these troublous events revealed at least
—
one overt act; some "Mormon" scouts had challenged a supply
train; and, being opposed, they had destroyed some of the wagons
and provisions; and for this they accepted the President's most
gracious pardon.
And after all, the "Mormon" people regard the advent of the
Buchanan army as one of the greatest material blessings ever given
them.
The troops, once in Utah, had to be provisioned; and every-
thing the settlers could spare was eagerly bought at an unusual
price. The gold changed hands. Then, in their hasty departure,
the army disposed of everything outside of actual necessities in
the way of acoutrements and camp equipage. It is said that dur-

ing the army's two years' camp in Utah, over four million dollars
worth of goods were disposed of. The army found the people in
poverty and left them in comparative wealth.

*A lecture delivered by invitation at the University of Michigan
at Cornell University, and elsewhere.

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906 IMPROVEMENT ERA.

And what was the cause of this hurried departure of the mili-
tary? For many menths, ominous rumblings had been heard, in- —
dications of the gathering storm which was soon to break in the
awful fury of civil war. It could not be doubted that war was im-

minent; already the conflict bad began, and a picked part of the
army was away in the western wilds, doing nothing for any phase
of the public good. But a word further concerning the expedition
in general. The sending of troops to Utah was part of a foul
scheme to weaken the government in its impending struggle with
the secessionists. The movement has been called not inaptly "Bu-
chanan's blunder," but the best and wisest men may make blunders,
and whatever may be said of President Buchanan's short-sightedness
in taking this step, even his enemies do not question his integrity
in the matter. He was unjustly charged with favoring secession;
but the charge was soon disproved. However, it was known that
certain of his cabinet were in league with the seceding states; and
prominent among them was John Floyd, secretary of war. The
successful efforts of this recreant officer to disarm the North,
while accumulating the munitions of war in the South; to scatter
the forces by locating them in widely separated and remote sta-
tions; and in other ways to dispose of the regular army in the
manner best calculated to favor the anticipated rebellion, are mat-
ters of history. It is also told how, at the commencement of the

rebellion, he allied himself with the confederate forces, accepting
the rank of brigadier- general. It was through Floyd's advice that

Buchanan ordered the military expedition to Utah; ostensibly to
install certain federal officials and to repress an infantile rebellion

which in fact had never come into existence; but in reality to
further the rebellion of the South. When the history of that
great struggle with its antecedents and its consequent circum-
stances is written with a pen that will indite naught but truth,
when prejudice and partisanship is lived down, it may appear that
Jefferson Davis rather than James Buchanan was the prime cause
of the great mistake.
And General Johnston who commanded the army in the West;
he who was so vehement in his denunciation of the rebel "Mor-
mons," and who rejoiced in being selected to chastise them into
submission; who because of his vindictiveness incurred the ill-

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THE STORY OF "M0RM0N1SM." 907

favor of the governor, whose posse comitatus the army was what ;

became of him, at one time so popular that he was spoken of as
a likely successor to Winfield Scott in the office of general-in-chief
of the United States army? He left Utah in the early stages of
the rebellion, turned his arms against the flag he had sworn to de-
fend, doffed the blue, donned the grey, and fell a rebel on the field
of Shiloh.
Changes many and great followed in bewildering succession in
Utah. The people were besought to take sides with the South in
the awful scenes of cruel strife; it was openly stated in the East
that Utah had allied herself with the cause of secession; and by
others that the design was to make Salt Lake City the capital of
an independent nation. And surely such conjectures were pardon-
able on the part of all whose pitiable ignorance and prejudice still
nursed the delusion of "Mormon" disloyalty. Moreover, had
the people been inclined to rebellion what greater opportunity
could they have wished. Already a North and a South were talked
of—why not set up also a West? A supreme opportunity had
come and how was it used? Itwas at this very time that the
Overland Telegraph line, which had been approaching from the
Atlantic and the Pacific, was completed, and the first tremor felt
in that nerve of steel carried these words from Brigham Young:

Utah has not seceded, but is firm for the constitution and laws of our
country

The "Mormon" people saw in their terrible experiences, and
the outrages to which they had been subjected, only the mal-ad-
ministration of laws and the subversion of justice through human
incapacity and hate. Never even for a moment did they question
the supreme authority, and the inspired origin of the constitution
of their land. They knew no North, no South, no East, no West;
they stood positively by the constitution, and would have nothing
to do in the bloody strife between brothers, unless indeed they
were summoned by the authority to which they had already loyally
responded, to furnish men and arms for their country's good.
Following the advent of the telegraph, came the railway; and
the land of "Mormondom" was no longer isolated. Her resources
were developed, her wealth became a topic of the .world's wonder;

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908 IMPROVEMENT ERA.

the tide of immigration swelled her population, contributing much
of the best from all the civilized nations of the earth. Every
reader of current news has heard of her rapid growth; of her re-
peated appeals for the recognition to which she has so long been
entitled in the blessed sisterhood of states; of the prompt refusals
with which her pleas were persistently met, though other terri-
tories with smaller and more illiterate populations, more restricted
resources, and in every way weaker claims, were allowed to assume
the habiliments of maturity, while Utah, lusty, large and strong,
has been kept in swadling clothes. But the cries of the vigorous
infant were at length heeded, and in answer to the seventh appeal
of the kind, Utah's star was added to the nation's galaxy.
But let us turn more particularly to the history of The Church
itself. For a second time and then for a third, the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was deprived of its president,
and on each occasion were repeated the prophecies of disruption
uttered at the time of Joseph Smith's assassination. Calm ob-
servers declared that now the shepherd had left, the flock would
soon be dispersed; whilst others, comparable only to wolves, think-
ing the fold unguarded, sought now to harry and scatter the sheep;
but "Mormonism" died not; every added pang of grief served but
to unite the people.
When Brigham Young passed from the earth, he was mourned
of the people as deeply as was Moses of Israel. And had he not
proved himself a Moses, aye and a Joshua, too? He led the people
into the land of holy promise, and had divided unto them inherit-
ances. He was a man with a clear claim to title as one of the
small brotherhood we call great. As carpenter, farmer, pioneer,
capitalist, financier, preacher, apostle, prophet — in everything, he

was a leader among men. Even those who opposed him in politics
and in religion, respected him for his talents, his magnanimity,
his liberality, and his manliness, and today men who refused him
honor while alive, come to give their mites and their greater sums
to erect a monument of stone and bronze to the memory of this
man who needs it not. With his death closed another epoch in
the history of this people, and a successor was raised up capable of
leading and judging under the changed conditions.
But perhaps you censure me for having forgotton or for hav-

<!-- page:909 -->

THE STORY OF "MORMONISM." 909

ing intentionally omitted reference to what popular belief regards
as the chief feature of "Mormonism," the corner-stone of the
structure, the secret of its influence over its members, and of its
attractiveness to its proselytes, viz: the peculiarity of the "Mor-
mon" institution of marriage. The Latter-day Saints were long
regarded as a polygamous people. That plural marriage has been
practiced by a limited proportion of the people, under sanction of
Church ordinance, has never since the introduction of the system
been denied. But that plural marriage is a vital tenet of The
Church is not true. What the Latter-day Saints call celestial
marriage is characteristic of The Church, and is in very general
practice; but of celestial marriage, plurality of wives was an in-
cident, never an essential. Yet the two have never been segre-
gated in the popular mind. We believe in a literal resurrection
and an actual hereafter, in which future state will be recognized
every sanctified and authorized relationship existing here on earth
—of parent and child, brother and sister, husband and wife. We
believe further, that contracts as of marriage, to be valid beyond
the vail of mortality must be sanctioned by a power greater than
that of earth. With the seal of the holy Priesthood upon their
wedded state, these people believe implicitly in the perpetuity of
that relationship on the far side of the grave. They marry not
with the saddening limitation "Until death do you part" but "For
time and jor all eternity." This constitutes celestial marriage.
The thought that polygamy has ever been the head and front of
"Mormon" offending, that to it is traceable as the true cause the
hatred of other sects and the unpopularity of The Church, is not
tenable to the earnest thinker. Sad as have been the experiences
of the people in consequence of this practice; deep and anguish-
laden as have been the sighs and groans, hot and bitter as have
been the tears so caused, the heaviest persecution, the crudest
treatment of their history began before polygamy was known in The
Church. There is no sect or people that sets a higher value on
virtue and chastity than do the Latter-day Saints, nor a people
that visits surer retribution upon the heads of offenders against
the laws of sexual purity. To them marriage is not, can never
be, a civil compact alone; its significance reaches farther than
earth; its obligations are eternal; and the Latter-day Saints are

<!-- page:910 -->

910 IMPROVEMENT ERA.

notable for the sanctity with which they invest the marital state.
It has been my privilege to tread the soil of many lands, to ob-
serve the customs and study the habits of more nations than one;
and I have yet to find the place and hear of the people, where and
with whom the purity of man and woman is held more precious
than among the maligned "Mormons" in the mountain valleys of
the West. There I find this measure of just equality of the sexes
— man shall not be visited upon the head of woman.
that the sins of
At the inception of polygamy among the Latter-day Saints,
there was no law national or state against its practice. This state-
ment assumes, as granted, a distinction between bigamy and the
"Mormon" institution. In 1862, a law was enacted with the purpose
of suppressing polygamy; and, as had been predicted in the national
Senate prior to its passage, it lay for many years a dead letter.
who were not "Mormons" nor lovers of
Federal judges in Utah,
"Mormonism," and United States attorneys, refused to entertain
complaints or prosecute cases under the law, because of its mani-
fest injustice and inadequacy.
But other laws followed, most of which, as the Latter-day
Saints believe, were aimed directly at their religious conception of
the marriage contract, and not at social impropriety or sexual
offense.
At last the Edmunds-Tucker law took effect, making not the
marriage alone but the subsequent acknowledging of the contract
an offense, punishable by fine or imprisonment or both. Under
the spell of unrighteous zeal, the federal judiciary of Utah an-
nounced and practiced that most infamous doctrine of segregation
of offenses, with accumulating penalties.
I who speak to you have listened to judges instructing grand
juries in such terms as these: that although the law of Con-
gress designated as an offense the acknowledging of more living
wives than one by any man, and prescribed a penalty therefor, as
Congress had not specified the length of time during which this
unlawful acknowledging must continue to constitute the offense,
the grand juries might indict separately for every day of the
period during which the forbidden relationship existed. This meant
that for an alleged misdemeanor —for which Congress prescribed a
maximum penalty of six months' imprisonment and a fine of three

<!-- page:911 -->

THE STORY OF "MORMONISM." 911

hundred dollars — a man might be imprisoned for life, aye, for many
terms of a man's natural life did the court's power to enforce its

sentences extend so far, and might be fined millions of dollars.
Before this travesty on the administration of the law could be
brought before the court of last resort, and there meet with the
reversal and rebuke it deserved, men were imprisoned under sen-
tences of years' duration.
The people contested these measures one by one in the courts;
presenting in case after case every phase of the subject, urging
the unconstitutionality of the measure; then The Church was disin-
corporated, the real estate and personal property confiscated and
escheated to the government of the United States, and although
the property of the latter type was first restored, real estate of
great value long lay in the hands of the court's receiver, and the
"Mormon" Church had to pay to the government high rental on its
own property. But the people have suspended the practice of
polygamy; the testimony of the governors, judges, and district
attorneys of the territory, and later that of the officers of the state
have declared the sincerity of the step.
As The Church had adopted the practice under what was be-
lieved to be divine approval, they suspended it when they were
justified in so doing. In whatever light this practice has been re-
garded in the past, it is today a dead issue, forbidden by ecclesias-
tical rule as it is prohibited by legal statute. And the world is
learning to its manifest surprise that polygamy and '
'Mormonism"
are not synonymous terms.
And so the story of "Mormonism" runs on; its finale has not
yet been written; the current press presents continuously new
stages of its progress, new developments of its plan. Today the
Church of Latter-day Saints is stronger than ever before; and the
people are confident that it is at its weakest stage for all time to
come. It lives and thrives because within it are the elements of
thrift and the forces of life. It embraces a boundless liberality of

belief and practice; true toleration is one of its essential features;
it makes love for mankind second only to love for Deity. Its creed

provides for the protection of all men in their rights of worship
according to the dictates of conscience. It contemplates a mil-

lenium of peace,when every man shall love and respect his neighbor