"In your note, you remark—'If, at the proper time, the privilege of explaining had been allowed me, I should promptly and gladly have relieved myself from any erroneous impressions that my auditors might have derived from the substance and tone of my remarks; but, as that privilege was denied me, at the peril of having my hair pulled, or my throat cu I must be permitted to decline appearing again in public on the subject.' "Sir, when was the 'proper time' to which you refer? Was it when you had exhausted the patience of your audience on the 8th, after having given a personal challenge to any who would accept? Was it a proper time to challenge for single combat, before a general assembly of the people, convened especially for religious worship?
"How could you then have 'promptly and gladly relieved yourself from any erroneous impression your auditors might have derived from the substance and tone of your remarks' when you knew not from what source your auditors derived those impressions? And was it your boasted privilege, your proper time to fire and 'fight your battles o'er again,' as quick as you had given a challenge, without waiting to see if anyone accepted it? If so, who would you have been likely to hit—ladies or gentlemen?
"It was true, sir, what I said, at the close of your speech, and I repeat it here, that my expressions may not be mistaken—I said in reference to your speech, 'Judge Brocchus is either profoundly ignorant—or willfully wicked—one of the two. There are several gentlemen who would be very glad to prove the statements that have been made about Judge Brocchus, and which he has attempted to repel; but I will hear nothing more on either side at this Conference.' And why did I say it? To quell the excitement which your remarks had caused in that audience; not to give or accept a challenge, but to prevent any one (of which there were many present wishing the opportunity,) and everyone from accepting your challenge, and thereby bringing down upon your head the indignation of an outraged people, in the midst of a Conference convened for religious instruction and business, and which, had your remarks continued, must have continued the excitement, until there would have been danger "of pulling of hair and cutting of throats," perhaps, on both sides, if parties had proved equal—for there are points in human actions and events, beyond which men and women cannot be controlled. Starvation will revolutionize any people, and lead them to acts of atrocity that human power cannot control; and will not a mother's feelings, in view of her murdered offspring, her bleeding husband, and her dying sire, by hands of monocratic violence, and especially when tantalized to the highest pitch by those who stand, or ought to stand, or sit, with dignity on the judgment seat, and impart justice alike to all?
"Sir, what confidence can this persecuted, murdered, outcast people have in your decisions from the Bench, after you have tantalized their feelings from the stand, by informing them there is yet hope in their case, if they will apply to Missouri and Illinois. I ask you, sir, if you did not know, when you were thus making your plea, that this people have plead with the authorities of those States, which are doomed to irretrievable ruin by their own acts, from their lowest magistrate to their highest judge, and from their halls of legislature to their governors, times, and times, and times again, until they, with force of arms, have driven us from their midst, and utterly refused the possibility of the cries of murdered innocence from reaching their polluted ears? I ask, sir, did you know this? If not, you were profoundly ignorant; you were possessed of ignorance not to be tolerated in children of ten years, in these United States. But, on the other hand, if you were in possession of the facts, you were willfully wicked in presuming to tantalize, and rouse in anger dire, those feelings of frail humanity on one hand, and offended justice on the other, which it is our object to bury in forgetfulness, and leave the issue to the decision of a just God.
"Your motive, action, or design, you wholly concealed, or you could never have gained a hearing on such an occasion.
"As presiding officer in said Conference, did I permit any man to accept your challenge? No, sir, you know I did not; and could you, as a gentleman, ask the privilege to defend your challenge before it was accepted? Don Quixote should not be named in such a farce. No, sir, out of mercy to you I prohibited any man from accepting your challenge. And until the challenge was accepted you had nothing to reply to. When, then, was the proper time you refer to, when you would have replied, and the privilege was denied you? No such time as you supposed, existed.
"And now, sir, as it appears from the whole face of the subject, that tomorrow might have been the first 'proper time' that might have given you the 'privilege of explaining,' and as this courtesy you have utterly refused, and thereby manifest a choice to leave an incensed public incensed still, against your (as they now view it) dishonorable course, I shall take the liberty of doing my duty, by adverting still further to your reply of yesterday. Charity would have induced me hope, at least, that your speech, in part, was prompted by the impulse of the moment; but I am forbid this pleasing reflection by your note, wherein you state that 'my speech, in all its parts, was the result of deliberation and care, proceeding from a heated imagination or a maddened impulse.' 'I intended to say what I did say.' Now, if you did actually ' intend to say what you did say,' it is pretty strong presumptive testimony that you were not ignorant, for if you had been ignorant, from whence arose your intentions? And if you were not » ignorant you must have been willfully wicked; and I cannot conceive of a more charitable construction to put upon your conduct on that occasion than to believe you designedly and deliberately planned a speech to excite the indignation of your hearers to an extent that would cause them to break the bonds of propriety by pulling your hair or cutting your throat, willing, no doubt, in the utmost of your benevolence to die a martyr's death, if you could only get occasion to raise the hue and cry, and re-murder a virtuous people, as Missouri and Illinois have so often done before you. Glorious philanthropy this; and corresponds most fully with the declaration which, it is reported, on pretty good authority, that Judge Brocchus made while on his journey to the valley, substantially as follows: "If the citizens of Utah do not send me as their delegate to Washington, by God, I'll use all my influence against them, and will crush them. I have the influence and the power to do it, and I will accomplish it if they do not make me their delegate.' "Now, sir, I will not stop to argue the point whether your honor made those observations that rumor says you did; but I will leave it to an intelligent world, or so much of that world as are acquainted with the facts in the case, to decide whether your conduct has not fully proved that you harbored these malicious feelings in your heart, when you deliberately planned a speech calculated in its nature to rouse this community to violence, and that, too, on a day consecrated to religious duties, your declaration to the contrary notwithstanding, that you 'did not design to offer indignity or insult.' When a man's words are set in direct opposition to his acts, which will men believe? His acts all the time.' Where, then, is the force of your denial?
"One item more from your note reads thus: 'My sole design in the branch of my remarks which seems to be the source of offence, was to vindicate the government of the United States from those feelings of prejudice, and that spirit of defection which seemed to pervade the public sentiment, &c." Let me inquire what 'public sentiment' you referred to? Was it the sentiments of the States at large? If so, your honor missed his aim, most widely, when he left the city of Washington to become the author of such remarks. You left home when you left Washington. If such 'prejudice and defection' as you represent, there existed, there you should have thundered your anathemas, and made the people feel your 'patriotic allegiance;' but, if ever you believed for a moment—if ever an idea entered your soul that the citizens of Utah, the people generally whom you addressed on the 8th, were possessed of a spirit of defection towards the general government, or that they harbored prejudices against it unjustly, so far you proved yourself 'profoundly ignorant' of the subject in which you were engaged, and of the views and feelings of the people whom you addressed; and this ignorance alone might have been sufficient to lead you into all the errors and fooleries you were guilty of on that occasion. But had you known your hearers, you would have known, and understood, and felt that you were addressing the most enlightened and patriotic assembly, and the one furthest removed from ' prejudice and defection" to the general government that you had ever seen, that you had ever addressed, or that would be possible for you or any other being to