unanswered and ignored. They have been served with "small-fry" politicians and "one-horse" officials: hitherto the phrase has been, "Any thing is good enough for Utah!" They return the treatment in kind.
"The Old Independence," the "glorious" 4th of July, '76, is treated with silent contempt: its honors are transferred to the 24th of July, the local Independence Day of their annus mirabilis 1847, when the weary pioneers, preceding a multitude, which, like the Pilgrim fathers of New England, left country and home for conscience' sake, and, led by Captain John Brown, whose unerring rifle saved them from starvation when the Indians had stampeded their horses, arrived in the wild waste of valley. Their form of government, which I can describe only as a democratic despotism with a leaven of the true Mosaic theocracy, enables them to despise a political system in which they say—quoting Hamilton—that "every vital interest of the state is merged in the all-absorbing question of 'who shall be the next president.'" There is only one "Yankee gridiron" in the town, and that is a private concern. I do not remember ever seeing a liberty-pole, that emblem of a tyrant majority, which has been bowed to from New York to the Rhine.[1] A favorite toast on public occasions is, "We can rock the cradle of Liberty without Uncle Sam to help us," and so forth. These sentiments show how the wind sets. In two generations hence—perhaps New Zion has a prophet-making air—the Mormons in their present position will, on their own ground, be more than a match for the Atlantic, and, combined with the Chinese, will be dangerous to the Pacific States.
The Mormons, if they are any thing in secular politics, are Democrats. It has not been judged advisable to cast off the last rags of popular government, but, as will presently appear, theocracy is not much disguised by them. Although not of the black or extreme category, they instinctively feel that polygamy and slavery are sister institutions, claiming that sort of kindness which arises from fellow-feeling, and that Congress can not attack one without infringing upon the other. Here, perhaps, they may be mistaken, for nations, like individuals, however warmly and affectionately they love their own peculiar follies and prejudices, sins and crimes, are not the less, indeed perhaps they are rather more, disposed to abominate the follies and prejudices, the sins and crimes of others. The establishment of slavery, however, though here it serves a humanitarian rather than a private end,
- ↑ The first liberty-pole was erected on the open space between the Court-house and Broadway, New York. It is a long flag-staff, often of several pieces, like the "mast of some tall ammiral," surmounted by a liberty-cap, that Phrygian or Mithridatic coiffure with which the Goddess of Liberty is supposed to disfigure herself. With a peculiar inconsequence, "the whole is" said to be "an allusion to Gesler's cap which Tell refused to do homage to, leading to the freedom of Switzerland."—Bartlett. The French soon made of their peuplier a peuple lié. The Americans, curious to say, still believe in it.
