THE CASE REVERSED - Godbeite Transcription

 As found in the Mormon Tribune on April 9th, 1870

THE CASE REVERSED

By Edward W. Tullidge

Do our orthodox brethren realize how much to-day they reverse their own case from what it was a quarter of a century ago? It is changed in almost every particular and they themselves seem not the same men, touching the principle and object of their lives and mission. Indeed it is only when they open one of the proper chapters of their former Gospel, for some special purpose to be applied to some other case and to win their own point, that you can recognize anything of the Mormon Apostle in them. I will take, for instance, the nearest and latest illustration of this from that mastery document (doubtless from the pen of Elder George Q. Cannon) addressed to the Senate in “Remonstrance” to the Cullom Bill. His strongest clauses are against the absolute and irresponsible rule of one man clothed with supreme governmental power. He says, truly, that such a power assumed by Congress, and vested in its appointee, “takes away the right of conscience.” “It not only subverts religious liberty and true Republicanism, in that it bestows upon the Governor the sole authority to govern jails and prisons, and to remove their wardens or keepers, to appoint and remove probate judges, justices of the peace, judges of all elections, notaries public and all sheriffs–clothing one man with despotic, and, in this Republic, unheard-of powers.

“It thus deprives the people of all voice in the government of the Territory, reduces them to abject vassalage, creates a dangerous, irresponsible and centralized despotism from which there is no appeal, and leaves their lives, liberties, and every human right subject to the caprice of one man.

“It strikes at the foundation of all republican government, in that it dictates opinions and belief, prescribes what shall and shall not be believed by citizens, and assumes to decide on the validity of revelations from Almighty God, the Author of our existence.”

Now I do not wish to turn these strong points in malice against my brethren, nor speak reproachfully of that supreme Governor of Utah in whom this and much more has been vested. As men who respect their manhood and their conscience in such points (and thus far nearly all men do respect themselves) we must maintain our rightful positions in the same and be fearless in battling for the common rights of man. Did we not we should be unworthy the name of men–unworthy the privilege to petition or remonstrate. And how strongly every human being of thought and spirit can and should feel upon such points, especially those who have been reared in republican America or in liberty-loving England whose people, for generations, battled unflinchingly for the rights of conscience in religion and self-government in the state, this manifesto from Utah to the Senate is designed to set forth. Gentlemen and brethren, I say let us then be honest with ourselves, and in thus remonstrating with Congress upon these important points thus also remonstrate one with another; in our case that touches us so nearly home. We have a deeper, far deeper, cause than that upon which we are now petitioning Congress. It is a hundred-fold more thorough and ramified than that set forth touching this absolute and supreme one-man power, for we have made it to extend to every individual soul of us, ranging in the scale of our own affairs, from the lowest hell to the highest heaven.

This is not a statement of an abstract case, but a matter of fact as it stands between the one supreme man of Utah and all who have ever been members of the Mormon Church. It is true, a number of thinking men have dared to “remonstrate” and break through this terrible soul-servitude, but that which is esteemed noble and manly in the case of the Apostles who remonstrate with Congress is rebelious and devilish in that before us. But do not my brethren of the old Church appreciate that the case reverses itself on every side against them, through their own inconsistency?

My intellect, my conscience, and my will endorse, without reserve, that very noble and masterly document denominated a 

REMONSTRANCE

and addressed “To the Honorable the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States, in Congress assembled.” It is sound in point of statesmanship and just in its general principles and applications. Had I been in England, and unacquainted with the fact that Utah is under a priestly absolutism and her leaders subject to nearly every clause of the remonstrance addressed to the Senate, I should have deemed Utah a State of patriots who dared to speak boldly to the Congress of a mighty nation in the maintenance of their religious conscience, and of their rights as citizens and their rights as men.

 Concerning this remonstrance, I am proud of my brethren and friends of other days. It is worthy of them, as I once viewed them, and as they are still in their earnest and genuine character, when not blinded by fanaticism and perverted by ambition and love of absolute power. There were no greater lovers of religious liberties in the world than the Mormons and their leaders; no men would more boldly than they stand up for the rights of conscience and free thought. Brigham Young was chief amongst us once in this, and he led them to the Rocky Mountains to maintain with them the integrity of their religious faith. It was patriotism with our leaders then and heroism almost beyond parallel, and, when a great case like the present comes uppermost to bring them out for a moment, they are themselves again. Who, reading that document of remonstrance, unacquainted with the facts, would think that the men who drew it up were the apostles and pillars of the most absolute despotism in Church and State that the modern world has seen? Who could believe that they were the upholders of the one-man power against which they remonstrate with Congress for attempting to set up in Utah? Indeed, it is precisely at such a power that Congress aims to break down and establish its own supremacy, and that is the only point of justification of Congress in passing a bill so violent against nearly every human and divine right. The Cullom Bill, if pressed to its ultimates, would deprive “the people of all voice in the government of the Territory, reduce them to abject vassalage, create a dangerous, irresponsible and centralized despotism, from which there is no appeal, and leave their lives, liberties, and every human right subject to the caprice of one man.”

But now, mark, there is not a man connected with the general Government of the United States, from President Grant downward, who will not affirm that it is just to cure such a case as the one drawn by the writer of that document that the Cullom Bill was adopted by the House of Representatives. Even the thirty-two Representatives who voted against that Bill are of the same opinion thus far. That Bill, in an ordinary case and viewed as an abstract instrument, would be deemed by all of them as most unsound in its statesmanship and in nearly all its aims, while they would heartily endorse the noble and statesmanlike “Remonstrance” taken also in the abstract. There are but few, even to Mr. Cullom himself, in America who, excepting in the present extraordinary case, would approve of this Bill; but the legislators and the nation generally would most emphatically apply the two strongest clauses of the Remonstrance to Utah under its present hierarchical rule. Here is the actual fact as it appears to them: The government and priestly power which has prevailed in Utah for the last twenty-two years “not only subverts religious liberty and true Republicanism, in that it bestows upon the Governor [President Young] the sole authority to govern jails and prisons, and to remove their wardens and keepers, to appoint and remove probate judges, justices of the peace, judges of all elections, notaries public and all sheriffs–clothing one man with despotic, and, in this Republic, unheard-of powers. It thus deprives the people of all voice in the government of this Territory, reduces them to abject vassalage, creates a dangerous, irresponsible and centralized despotism, from which there is no appeal, and leaves their lives, liberties and every human right subject to the caprice of one man.”

These passages cannot be too often repeated, for Brother Cannon (who I presume wrote the Remonstrance) was certainly inspired to expose the exact case of Utah in its past and present. To address those clauses to Congress as an exposé of its intentions and genius of government would be supremely farcical was it not so designed in so serious a mood, whereas addressed to the President, Apostles and Bishops concerning the hierarchy of Utah those clauses would be pertinent to the very word and spirit. It is this which the entire American nation realizes, and its Government proposes to remedy, and not to establish a rule similar in its genius and aims. Indeed the very circumstance of a few leaders of a little religious body sending to the foremost nation in all the world such a remonstrance and rebuke for its anti-republicanism and injustice is of itself a glorious compliment (though not designed as such) to the magnanimity and thorough Republican character of the United States. It is very much like man daring to trifle with God or daring to parade his own excellence in his Maker’s presence. What, my brethren, are your past actions and intentions concerning the men who dare break their abject vassalage at length and assert their manhood and right of thought and conscience? I wish you would act as nobly and magnanimously as the American nation does, and grant to us and your people generally what the United States have granted you. No government besides ever existed in any age which would have granted you as much and borne with you as long as the American Government has, for you know in what light they have viewed us all, while there is not a government in modern times, Protestant or Catholic, which would grant so little and deny so much as does your government, especially to those who dissent from you either in thought, word, or action. To-day even Spain dares to revolutionize herself in arms, whereas in Utah all we ask is to be allowed to be men, as we were in our native land, with the commonest privileges granted to dissenters everywhere, and not slaves body and soul, with the claim of the Master over us to our very lives. 

E.W.T.