NATIONAL INTELLIGENCER.
THE STATE OF DESERET?
Mention is frequently made of Deseret, as the name of a Territory settled by the people commonly called Mormons, and now praying to be admitted to the Union under the name just stated. It is a matter of suprise that this subject has not attracted a greater degree of public attention. This circum-stance can only be accounted for by the fact that other subjects of a more urgent nature have for the last few months occupied the time and thoughts of Congress and the People. Under ordinary cir-cumstances, there are many questions connected with the settlement of the Mormons and their pre-sent application to be admitted into the Federal Union, which would have been thought to require very serious consideration.
In the first place, who and what are Mormons? The answer is, they are a sect of fanatics, who have sprung up within the last few years, and who believe in the late Joe Smith as a divine prophet Since the cruel murder of Joe Smith, they believe that his gift and power of prophecy have passed to his successors, and that Divine revelations are re-gularly and even frequently made by them to their followers. The "Book of Mormon" is a pretend-ed revelation, which Joe Smith alleged was com-municated to him on golden plates, dug up in the State of New York, written in an unknown lan-guage, but translated into English by himself. In point of fact, the greater part of this pretended new Bible was a sort of religious romance, written by a clergyman of New York, not with any intention to deceive, but as an effort (a very ill-judged one) at an innocent exercise of the imagination. By some accident it fell into Joe Smith's hands, and was by him made the subject of the abominable fraud just named. The deluded followers of Smith, calling themselves "Latter-day Saints," emigrated, we believe, from New York to the West. Whether their first establishment there was in the State of Missouri, we are not accurately informed. They had not been long in that State before they incurred the ill-will and odium of their neighbors, and were illegally and violently driven out of the State. They took refuge in Illinois, founded the city of Nauvoo, built an abortion of architecture which they called a temple, and grew rapidly in numbers and wealth. Recruits of two descriptions flocked to them; first, simple fanatics, who believed in the pretensions of Joe Smith, a considerable number of whom were enlisted by his missionaries, not only in the Middle and Northern States, but in England; and, second, adventurers of every kind, who flocked to Nauvoo to speculate upon the credulity of the other portion.
To the disgrace of the age this wretched impos-ture flourished. As a specimen of its grossness we may mention a fact, stated by an extremely re-spectable gentleman of this city, as one within his personal knowledge. Being on a tour to the West, he visited Nauvoo from curiosity. In the temple he was shown a collection of curiosities, and among them were one or two mummies, which had been imported from Egypt by Joe Smith. The atten-tion of the visiter was called by Smith to the mummy clothes and the writing upon them. "There," said Smith, "that's the handwriting of the patriarch Abraham, and I am the only man that can read it," which he then proceeded to do!
In the course of a few years the scenes of vio-lence which had occurred in Missouri were re-peated, and with still more fatal results, in Illinois, and the Mormons were driven from the State by armed and organized bodies-not acting, however, with any legal authority. We do not, by any means, justify or palliate the manner in which the Mormons were treated, either in Missouri or Illinois. It was illegal and cruel, and this without any refer-ence to the character and conduct of the Mormons. What credit is to be given to the reports which circulated to their disadvantage we have no means of knowing. They were believed to be guilty of the grossest immoralities: it has been constantly stated that they professed and practised on the doctrine of community, or plurality of wives; and it was be-lieved in their neighborhood that they made up their separate and peculiar organization to screen each other in a general violation of the laws of the land and of good morals. Whether this is true, false, or exaggerated, we have no knowledge; but it seems scarcely possible that, unless there had been some foundation for the prejudice, they should in so short a time have become the object of such bitter hostility in Missouri and Illinois.
In the conflict between the Mormons and the neighboring population of Illinois, Joe Smith was murdered in the prison to which he had been com-mitted. His followers fled from the State and form-ed the resolution to emigrate to California, not then known to abound in gold. Having reached the re-gion of the Great Salt Lake, they halted there, and established a settlement, which has prospered, and is now said to contain twenty thousand persons, one-half of whom are unnaturalized foreigners, prin-cipally English. It is probable that their settle-ment has received a good many recruits from emi-grants who had started for California. Their pre-tended theocratic government is still kept up, and revelations are as regularly announced to them as the orders of the day by a commanding general in time of war.
Such is the people who, having thus founded a few straggling settlements on the public land of the United States-of which they do not own an inch; of which the Indian title has not been extinguish-ed-have formed a constitution of government, chosen a Delegate to Congress, and asked admis-sion into the Union as an organized Territory by the name of Deseret. As far as we can judge, the region modestly included within the boundaries which they have granted themselves is about as big as all New England and New York. This is "vote yourself a farm" with a vengeance. If Congress admits the pretensions of these people, they allow them to vote themselves to each adult male a do-main about as big as Rhode Island; or rather, Con-gress will, in so doing, grant its sanction to this most monstrous and unexampled appropriation, which has already been made by the Mormons.
Had the Mormons addressed a memorial to Con-gress praying for a small tract of land, say five or six townships-a quarter section for each head of a family (?)-our individual feeling might have been in favor of complying with their request, and thus allowing them a place of asylum from persecution. We very much doubt, however, whether Congress would have granted such a petition. It is entirely against the spirit of our legislation to bestow any such favor on large organized sects. It never has been done, and it may be doubted whether it ever ought to be. There are about twenty thousand Shakers in New York and the Eastern States; they own valuable tracts of land, honestly bought and paid for, or acquired by gift. Suppose they should (with or without reason) become odious to their neighbors, be the subjects of a general persecution, and finally be driven by violence from their present homes; does any man suppose for a moment that Congress would grant them an ample tract out of the public domain? Would such a grant be made to any sect-to Mennonites, Moravians, Rappists, to Trinitarians or Unitarians, Orthodox or Liberal? Is there any one of the hundred sects that fill the dictionary of denominations, to which Congress would grant an acre of land, or even a charter of incorporation? We think not.
But Congress is asked to make to this sect, not of Christians but of Mormons, of believers not in Jesus Christ but of Joe Smith, a more than impe-rial grant; to bestow upon them, not a township, but a region as large as Great Britain; not an act of incorporation, but an act of admission, on terms of equal membership, to this Union of States!
The name by which the Mormons have begun to call their new settlement, and propose to call their new State, is Deseret; and if there were no other objection to this name, it would be a sufficient and fatal objection that its adoption by Congress would be a direct recognition of the wretched fraud called the Book of Mormon. The following is the ac-count which we find cited from the Frontier Guardian: "The name selected for that country ' is borrowed from the Book of Mormon, where a ‘ description is given of a voyage of the ancient ' Jaredites, from the tower of Babel to the Ameri- ' can Continent, more than four thousand years ago. It is said that they brought with them seeds of all kinds, and also "Deseret," which by inter- pretation is the "honey-bee." The bee and the hive being emblems of industry, the citizens there, ' wishing ever to exhibit those qualifications, have chosen the above name, as being adapted to the character which they ever wish to sustain."
It is unnecessary to state that this whole attempt to connect the history of the Mormons-a sect of fanatics formed in our own day-with the disper-sion of mankind at the tower of Babel is pure fic-tion. It is a part of the romance to which we alluded above, and which Joe Smith adopted as his revelation. There is not the slightest reason for thinking that the word Deseret means Honey Bee in any language ever spoken by man. We have seen it stated, and that in a respectable journal, that Deseret is the ancient Egyptian word for Bee. Of this we have seen no proof. Sir GARDNER WIL-KINSON does not appear to have known the ancient Egyptian name of the bee, (see his Manners and Customs, second series, vol. 1, p. 81,) and if not known to him, it is not likely to have been known to any one else. It fact, we understand that the Mormons do not themselves pretend that Deseret is the ancient Egyptian word for bee; but that a certain ancient race called Jaredites (existing only in the imagination of Joe Smith and his followers) brought from the tower of Babel a something which they called Deseret, and which is, by Mormon in-terpretation, honey bee. The entire Book of Mor-mon being a forgery out of the whole cloth, it is of course idle to discuss the meaning of any thing con-tained in it. But we protest against the incorpo-ration of any of this jargon into the statute-book of the United States.
We have lately seen in the Washington papers handsome testimonials to the moral character of the Mormons in their present location; to their thrift, good conduct, and consequent general prosperity. How far these testimonials are well-founded we do not know. We do not at all enter into the question of the morality of the Mormons, nor in the slightest degree apologize for the treatment which they re-ceived in Missouri and Illinois. At the same time, however, there is reason for believing that they hold some dangerous principles of practical morality, which should make Congress pause before they constitute them a coequal sovereign member of this Union. If their future history is to resemble the past, Congress, in taking steps to organize them into a permanent political community, will be laying the foundation of convulsions of a most dangerous character. If they were, or were believed to be, a community which neither Missouri nor Illinois would tolerate, even to the number of a few thou-sands, is it likely that they can live in peace and harmony with neighboring States, when they them-selves have grown into a powerful State, wielded by artful chiefs who pretend to add Divine to human power?
It has been publicly stated by seceding members of the Mormon body that their leaders already threaten vengeance for the wrongs they have suffer-ed; and among the wild visions of Joe Smith's heated brain was that of acting over again the part of Mahomet, and founding a new Mormon caliphate on this continent. We may smile at the egregious absurdity of these delusions, and yet not think it prudent to assist his followers, already boasting of their tens of thousands, to plant themselves on the high-road to California, and give them complete control of our line of communication be-tween the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
FRANKLIN.
