h, the spirit of which the
Endowed carry into their daily life and all their relations with
the Gentile world. In it lies the root of the evasion, and finally
subversion, of Federal authority which occasioned the recent military
expedition to Utah.

When the Territory was organized in 1850, the government at Washington,
acting on an imperfect knowledge of the nature of Mormonism, conferred
the office of Governor upon Brigham Young. For this act Mr. Fillmore has
been unjustly censured. It appeared to him, at the time, a proper, as
well as politic, appointment. But before the succession of General
Pierce to the Presidency, its evil results became apparent, in the
expulsion of civil officers from the Territory and the subversion of
all law. A feeble, and of course unsuccessful, attempt was then made to
supplant Young with Lieutenant-Colonel Steptoe, a meritorious, but too
amiable officer of the regular army,--the same whose defeat by the
Cayuses, Spokans, and Coeur d'Alenes, last May, occasioned the Indian
war in Washington Territory. During the summer of 1855, he led a
battalion overland, wintering in Salt Lake City. It was at his option,
at any time during his sojourn, to have claimed the supreme executive
authority. He did not do so, but even headed a recommendation to
President Pierce for the reappointment of Brigham Young. This was the
result of his winter's residence, during which he and some of his
fellow-officers were feasted to their stomachs' content, and entirely
careless concerning the political condition of the Territory. Late in
the spring, he marched away to California, after having expressed to
the President that it was "his unqualified opinion, based on personal
acquaintance, that Brigham Young is [was] the most suitable person for
the office of Governor." Brigham's views of the winter's proceedings, on
the other hand, were expressed in a sermon preached in the Tabernacle,
the Sunday after the departure of the Lieutenant-Colonel, in which he
repeated his declaration of three years previous:--

"I am, and will be, governor, and no power can hinder it, until the Lord
Almighty says, 'Brigham, you need not be governor any longer.'" And he
added,--"I do not know what I shall say next winter, if such men make
their appearance here as some last winter. I know what I think I shall
say; if they play the same game again, let the women be ever so bad, so
help me God, we will slay them."

Most of the other civil of