INTERESTING FROM UTAH.
RESIGNATION OF CHIEF-JUSTICE DRUM-MOND.
From The New-Orleans Courier April S.
We had the gratification yesterday morning of a call from Judge W. W. Drummond, of Chicago, late Chief-Justice of Utah Territory. He was in that condition of fine health and spirits in which we always rejoice to see good, sturdy, manly Democrats. He entertained us for a considerable time with an account of his per-sonal and judicial experience among the saints, and of their manners, habits, history, notions and purposes. Although we were disgusted with this set of miserable fanatics, from accounts which had already reached us, some relations given by Judge Drummond, in addition to those contained in his letter to Attorney-General Black, added many revolting shades to the picture.
The Judge's position, as administrator or civil and criminal law in the Territory, has been such as to give him a better and probably more intimate knowledge of the workings of the whole Mormon system than is possessed now by any one out of Utah or in it. His duties as the representative of federal judicial author-ity have shown him where the supreme rule of that superstition-fettered host rests, whose is the will that sways the destinies of a considerable nation, what the motive that binds a hundred thousand inhabitants to the girdle of Brigham Young, and what the use made of their power by that astute, capable and bold hypo-crite and his subordinates.
A leading characteristic of the followers of the mo-dern Mahomet seems to be a settled and abiding hatred of all "Gentiles," as they are pleased to style all who do not subscribe to their dogmas and conform to their unique and revolting creed. Although they come mainly from the northern portion of this repub-lic, they look upon the United States with no other feeling than hatred. Patriotic love of the country which gave them birth, and which they disgrace, has no place in their bosoms. They have been taught to look upon the United States Government as an op-pressive one, whose authority they have a right to re-sist. All who are without the pale of the Church of Latter-Day Saints, whether in or out of the Territory which they have usurped, they regard as their ene-mies. They either set at open defiance the decrees of our courts, or dictate to Grand or Petit Juries the in-dictments they shall report or the verdicts they shall render. In notable cases, where the guilt of criminals has been as apparent as the noon day sun, Young and his fellow prophets have forbidden Mormon juries to render a verdict of conviction. In one instance, where a poor helpless dumb boy was tortured in many ways for months, barbarously beaten, and then, while in the agony of his mortal wounds, was fettered and drowned in a brook, when his brutal murderer was sentenced to the Penitentiary, Brigham Young took him from the hands of the officers, led him into the tabernacle, proclaimed his absolute pardon, forbade any one to arrest him, and gave him a seat at his right hand!
If Indians commit depredations upon Mormons they are punished without delay or scruple; but if they rob or murder “Gentiles," the Prophet extends his pro-tection, and forbids juries to pronounce them guilty. No law, except what emanates from the supreme hierarchy, receives the slightest regard.
The right of private property among the Mormons is almost unknown. Whatever the rulers need they always find means to obtain. "The Lord needs it," is a wan- ant sufficient to enable Young and his Coun-cil to seize upon any property in Utah, and remon-strance or resistance is not only useless but danger-ous. If a wealthy disciple arrives from the States, the Church (Young) immediately lays hold of just such a share of his goods as he pleases. The portion, of which the former owner is suffered to retain nomi-nal possession, he is compelled to manage according to the dictation of some prophet or priest. If the prophet says to his neighbor, "Plant that field with potatoes," the former would lose his lands, and per-haps his life, were he to Refuse. The counsel he is thus obliged to obey, he is also compelled to ask. The result is, that the actual possession of the great mass of all the real personal property in Utah is in the foul oligarchy of Young and his immediate subordi-dates.
But if the control over the property of Mormons is tyrannical, that exercised over their most sacred pri-vate and family affairs is still more so. If a father has a child, fair and innocent, whom he loves and cherishes, and if she captivates the fancy of some leading Mor-mon, she will be taken from her home by the decree of the elders, and given up by the ceremony of "sealing" to become the fortieth or fiftieth wife of an old villain, while her predecessors, who have grown old in the same guilty and abominable connection, become his household or cornfield servants. It often happens that a man is sealed to two women at the same ceremony, and cases are not rare when one of the wives so ac-quired is lost by a divorce before breakfast the next morning.
The account given by Judge Drummond of many of these connections, where a mother and two or three of her daughters were all sealed to the same man, pre-sents a picture of beastly barbarity. Could a correct idea of these horrible transactions be made known throughout the country, a crusade would be preached against this foal horde that would soon put an end to their sway.
We were not a little gratified to learn that none or but very few of these Mormons are natives of South-ern States. Such a fact speaks volumes in refutation of the mean slanders of abolitionists against Southern society. We would congratulate our fellow-citizens of the Northern States upon being rid of so many of their fanatics by emigration to Utah, did we not know that for every one that has left there are hundreds more whose superstitution and bigotry are equal in degree if different in form. Mormonism, communism, Maine-Liquor-Lawism, agrarianism, Millerism, spirit-ualism, woman's-rights-ism and abolitionism, are all obscenae volucres of the same plumage, none of which are made less odious by any mutual hatred that may exist among them.
RESIGNATION OF JUDGE DEUMMOND.
To the Hon. JEREMIAH S. BLACK, Attorney-General of the
United States, Washington City, D. C.
My DEAR SIR: As I have concluded to resign the office of Justice of the Supreme Court of the Territory of Utah, which position I accepted in A. D. 1854, under the administration of President Pierce, I deem it due to the public to give some of the reasons why I do so. In the first place, Brigham Young, the Governor of Utah Territory, is the acknowledged head of the "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints," com-monly called "Mormons," and as such head the Mor-mons look to him, and to him alone, for the law by which they are to be governed; therefore no law of Congress is by them considered binding in any manner.
Second: I know that there is a secret oath-bound organization among all the male members of the Church, to acknowledge no law save the law of the "Holy Priesthood," which comes to the people through Brigham Young, direct from God, he, Young, being the vicegerent of God and prophetic successor of Joseph Smith, who was the founder of this blind and treasonable organization.
Third: I am fully aware that there is a set of men set apart by special order of the Church to take both the lives and property of persons who may question the authority of the Church (the names of whom I will promptly make known at a future time.)
Fourth: That the records, papers, &c. of the Su-preme Court have been destroyed by order of the Church, with direct knowledge and approbation of Gov. B. Young, and the Federal officers grossly in-sulted for presuming to raise a single question about the treasonable act.
Fifth: That the Federal officers of the Territory are constantly insulted, harassed and annoyed by the Mormons, and for those insults there is no redress.
Sixth: That the Federal officers are daily compelled to hear the form of the American Government tra-duced, the chief executives of the nation, both living and dead, slandered and abused from the masses, as well as from all the leading members of the Church, in the most vulgar, loathsome and wicked manner that the evil passions of man can possibly conceive.
Again: That after Moroni Green had been convicted in the District Court before my colleague, Judge Kin-ney, of an assault with intent to commit murder; and afterward, on appeal to the Supreme Court the judg-ment being affirmed and the said Green sentenced to the penitentiary, Brigham Young gave a full pardon to the said Green before he reached the penitentiary; also, that the said Gov. Young pardoned a man by the name of Baker, who had been tried and sentenced to ten years' imprisonment in the penitentiary for the murder of a dumb boy by the name of White House, the proof showing one of the most aggravated cases of murder that I ever knew being tried; and to insult the Court and Government officers this man Young took this pardoned criminal with him in proper person to church on the next Sabbath after his conviction, Baker is the meantime having received a full pardon from Gov. Brigham Young. These two men were Mormons.
On the the other hand, I charge the Mormons, and Governor Young in particular, with imprisoning five or six young men from Missouri and Iowa, who are now in the penitentiary of Utah, without those men having violated any criminal law in America; but they were anti-Mormons, poor uneducated young men, on their way for California; but because they emi-grated from Illinois, Iowa or Missouri, and passed by Great Salt Lake City, they were indicted by a Probate Court, and most brutally and inhumanly dealt with, in addition to being summarily incarcerated in the saintly prison of the Territory of Utah. I also charge Governor Young with constantly interfering with the Federal Courts, directing the Grand Jury whom to indict and whom not; and after the Judges charge the Grand Juries as to their duties, that this man, Young, invariably has some member of the Grand Jury advised in advance as to his will in rela-tion to their labors, and that his charge thus given, is the only charge known, obeyed, or received, by all the Grand Juries of the Federal Courts of Utah Ter-ritory.
Again, Sir, after a careful and mature investigation, I have been compelled to come to the conclusion—heart-rending and sickening as it may be—that Capt. John W. Gunnison and his party of eight others were murdered by the Indians in 1853, under, the order, ad-vice and directions of the Mormons; that my illus-trious and distinguished predecessor, the Hon. Leoni-das Shaver, came to his death by drinking poisonous liquors, given to him under the order of the leading men of the Mormon Church in Great Salt Lake City; that the late Secretary of the Territory, A. W. Bab-bitt, was murdered en the Plains by a band of Mor-mon marauders, under the particular and special or-der of Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball and J. M, Grant, and not by the Indians, as reported by the Mormons themselves, and that they were sent from Salt Lake City for that purpose and that only; and as members of the Danite band, they were bound to do the will of Brigham Young, as the head of the church, or forfeit their own lives.
These reasons, with many others that I might give, which would be too heart- rending to insert in this communication, have induced me to resign the office of Justice of the Territory of Utah, and again return to my adopted State of Illinois. My reason, Sir, for making this communication thus public is, that the Democratic party, with which I have always strictly acted, is the party now in power, and therefore is the party that should now be held responsible for the trea-sonable and disgraceful state of affairs that now exist in Utah Territory. I could, Sir, if necessary, refer to a cloud of witnesses to attest the reasons I have given, and the charges, bold as they are, against those despots, who rule with an iron hand their hundred thousand souls in Utah, and their two hundred thou-sand souls out of that notable Territory, but shall not do so for the reason that the lives of such gentlemen as I should designate in Utah and in California would not be safe for a single day.
In conclusion, Sir, I have to say that in my career as Justice of the Supreme Court of Utah Territory, I have the consolation of knowing that I did my duty; that neither threats nor intimidations drove me from that path; upon the other hand, I am pained to say, that I accomplished little good while there; that the Judiciary is only treated as a farce. The only rule of law by which the infatuated followers of this curious people will be governed is the law of the Church, and that emanates from Gov. Brigham Young, and him alone.
I do believe that if there were a man put in office as Governor of that Territory who is not a member of the Church (Mormon), and he supported with sufficient military aid, that much good would result from such a course; but, as the Territory is now governed, and has been since the Administration of Mr. Fillmore, at which time Young received his appointment as Gov-ernor, it is noon-day madness and folly to attempt to administer the law in that Territory. The officers are insulted, harrassed and murdered for doing their duty, and not recognizing Brigham Young as the only law giver and law maker on earth. Of this every man can ear incontestable evidence who has been willing to accept an appointment in Utah, and I assure you, Sir, that no man would be willing to risk his life and property in that Territory, after once trying the sad experiment.
With an ardent desire that the present Administra-tion will give due and timely aid to the officers that may be so unfortunate as to accept situations in that Territory, and that the withering curse which rests upon this nation by virtue of the peculiar and heart-rending institutions of the Territory of Utah may be speedily removed, to the honor and credit of our un-happy country, I now remain your obedient servant,
W. W. DRUMMOND, Justice of Utah Territory.
March 30, A. D., 1857.
19th Century Mormon Article Newspaper Index
