Severe strictures, however, were passed upon President Fillmore by a portion of the American press, for appointing Brigham Young Governor of Utah, which called forth the following correspondence between the President and Colonel Thomas L. Kane:
"Washington, July 4, 1851.
"My Dear Sir:—I have just cut the enclosed slip from the Buffalo Courier. It brings serious charges against Brigham Young, Governor of Utah, and falsely charges that I knew them to be true. You will recollect that I relied much upon you for the moral character and standing of Mr. Young. You knew him and had known him in Utah. You are a democrat, but I doubt not will truly state whether these charges against the moral character of Governor Young are true.
"Please return the article with your letter.
"Not recollecting your given name, I shall address this letter to you as the son of Judge Kane.
"I am, in great haste, truly yours,
Millard Fillmore.
"Mr. Kane, Philadelphia:"
"Philadelphia, July 11th, 1851.
"My Dear Sir:—I have no wish to evade the responsibility of having vouched for the character of Mr. Brigham Young of Utah, and his fitness for the station he now occupies. I reiterate without reserve, the statement of his excellent capacity, energy and integrity, which I made you prior to his appointment.
I am willing to say I volunteered to communicate to you the facts by which I was convinced of his patriotism, and devotion to the interests of the Union. I made no qualification when I assured you of his irreproachable moral character, because I was able to speak of this from my own intimate personal knowledge.
"If any show or shadow of evidence can be adduced in support of the charges of your anonymous assailant, the next mail from Utah shall bring you their complete and circumstantial refutation. Meanwhile I am ready to offer this assurance for publication in any form you care to indicate, and challenge contradiction from any respectable authority.
"I am, Sir, with high respect and esteem, your most obedient servant,
"Thomas L. Kane.
"The President."
Captain Stansbury, in his official report to the government, giving his views and testimony relative to Brigham Young, both as the leader of the Mormon people and the Governor of Utah, said: "Upon the personal character of the leader of this singular people, it may not, perhaps, be proper for me to comment in a communication like the present.
I may, nevertheless, be pardoned for saying, that to me, President Young appeared to be a man of clear, sound sense, fully alive to the responsibilities of the station he occupies, sincerely devoted to the good name of the people over whom he presides, sensitively jealous of the least attempt to under-value or misrepresent them, and indefatigable in devising ways and means for their moral, mental, and physical elevation. He appeared to possess the unlimited personal and official confidence of his people; while both he and his councilors, forming the Presidency of the Church, seem to have but one object in view, the prosperity and peace of the society over which they preside.
"Upon the action of the Executive in the appointment of the officers within the newly-created Territory, it does not become me to offer other than a very diffident opinion. Yet the opportunities of information to which allusion has already been made, may perhaps justify me in presenting the result of my own observations upon this subject. With all due deference, then, I feel constrained to say, that in my opinion the appointment of the President of the Mormon Church, and the head of the Mormon community, in preference to any other person, to the high office of Governor of the Territory, independent of its political bearings, with which I have nothing to do, was a measure dictated alike by justice and by sound policy. Intimately connected with them from their exodus from Illinois, this man has indeed been their Moses, leading them through the wilderness to a remote and unknown land, where they have since set up their tabernacle, and where they are now building their temple. Resolute in danger, firm and sagacious in council, prompt and energetic in emergency, and enthusiastically devoted to the honor of his people, he had won their unlimited confidence, esteem and veneration, and held an unrivaled place in their hearts. Upon the establishment of the provisional government, he had been unanimously chosen as their highest civil magistrate, and even before his appointment by the President, he combined in his own person the triple character of confidential adviser, temporal ruler, and prophet of God. Intimately acquainted with their character, capacities, wants, and weaknesses; identified now with their prosperity, as he had formerly shared to the full in their adversities and sorrows; honored, trusted,—the whole wealth of the community placed in his hands, for the advancement both of the spiritual and temporal interest of the infant settlement, he was, surely, of all others, the man best fitted to preside, under the auspices of the general government, over a colony of which he may justly be said to have been the founder. No other man could have so entirely secured the confidence of the people; and the selection by the Executive of the man of their choice, besides being highly gratifying to them, is recognized as an assurance that they shall hereafter receive at the hands of the general government that justice and consideration to which they are entitled. Their confident hope now is that, no longer fugitives and outlaws, but dwelling beneath the broad shadow of the national aegis, they will be subject no more to the violence and outrage which drove them to seek a secure habitation in this far distant wilderness.
"As to the imputations that have been made against the personal character of the Governor, I feel confident they are without foundation. Whatever opinion may be entertained of his pretensions to the character of an inspired prophet, or of his views and practice of polygamy, his personal reputation I believe to be above reproach. Certain it is that the most entire confidence is felt in his integrity, personal, official, and pecuniary, on the part of those to whom along and intimate association, and in the most trying emergencies, have afforded every possible opportunity of forming a just and accurate judgment of his true character.
"From all I saw and heard, I am firmly of the opinion that the appointment of any other man to the office of governor would have been regarded by the whole people, not only as a sanction, but as in some sort a renewal, on the part of the General Government, of that series of persecutions to which they have already been subjected, and would have operated to create distrust and suspicion in minds prepared to hail with joy the admission of the new Territory to the protection of the supreme government.'"
Very pertinent to the closing paragraph of this testimony of Captain Stansbury is the following passage of an epistle of the Presidency of the Mormon Church announcing to "the Saints abroad" the event of the organization of the Territory of Utah: "We anticipate no convulsive revolutionary feeling or movement, by the citizens of Deseret in the anticipated change of governmental affairs; but an easy and quiet transition from State to Territory, like weary travelers descending a hill nearby their way side home.
"As a people, we know how to appreciate, most sensibly, the hand of friendship which has been extended towards our infant State, by the General Government. Coming to this place as did the citizens of Deseret, without the means of subsistence, except the labor of their hands, in a wilderness country, surrounded by savages, whose inroads have given occasion for many tedious and expensive expeditions; the relief afforded by our mother land, through the medium of the approaching territorial organization, will be duly estimated; and from henceforth, we would fondly hope the most friendly feelings may be warmly cherished between the various States and Territories of this great nation, whose constitutional charter is not to be excelled."
CHAPTER X.
ARRIVAL OF THE FEDERAL JUDGES. FIRST APPEARANCE OF THE UNITED STATES OFFICIALS BEFORE THE CITIZENS AT A SPECIAL CONFERENCE. JUDGE BROCCHUS ASSAULTS THE COMMUNITY. PUBLIC INDIGNATION. CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN JUDGE BROCCHUS AND GOVERNOR YOUNG. THE "RUNAWAY" JUDGES AND SECRETARY. DANIEL WEBSTER, SECRETARY OF STATE, SUSTAINS GOVERNOR YOUNG AND REMOVES THE OFFENDING OFFICIALS. FIRST UNITED STATES COURT.