and a record kept of the names of the electors with the
numbers attached, which, together with the ballots, shall be preserved
for reference; and which empower the county courts to impose taxes to
an indefinite amount on whomsoever they may please, for the erection
of fortifications within their respective jurisdictions. But the most
extraordinary and unconstitutional series of acts--no less than sixty
in number--exists with regard to the primary disposal of the soil, with
which the Territorial legislature is expressly forbidden by the Organic
Act to interfere. These pretend to confer upon Church dignitaries, and
especially on Brigham Young and his family, tracts of land probably
amounting in the aggregate to more than ten thousand square miles, as
well as the exclusive right to establish bridges and ferries over the
principal rivers in the Territory,--together with the exclusive use of
those streams flowing down from the Wahsatch Mountains which are most
valuable for irrigating and manufacturing purposes. The virtual control
of the settlement of the eastern portion of Utah is thus vested in
the Church; for these grants include almost all the lands which are
immediately valuable for occupation. After a glance at a list of them,
it is not hard to understand the causes of the great disparity in the
distribution of wealth among the Mormons. They have been so allotted as
to benefit a very few at the expense of the whole people; and they are
protected by a terrorism which no one dares to confront in order to
challenge their validity. The majority of the population are ignorant
of their rights,--and too pusillanimous to maintain them against the
hierarchy, if they were not. They therefore contribute to its coffers
not merely their tithing, but heavy exactions also for grazing their
cattle on pastures to which they themselves have just as much title as
the nominal proprietors, and for grinding their grain and purchasing
their lumber at mills on streams which are of right common to all the
settlers on their banks.

From the Utah Expedition, then, it has become patent to the world, if
it is not to ourselves, that the Mormons are unwilling to administer a
republican form of government, if not incapable of doing so. The author
of the letter recently addressed by "A Man of the Latin Race" to the
Emperor Napoleon, on the subject of French influence in America,
comments especially upon this fact as symptomatic of the disintegration
o