![]() ![]() The stormy relationships climaxed when Utah lawyers broke into Stiles’ office in protest and pretended to burn court documents and law books in the privy out back. Kinney, all sought to recoup federal jurisdiction from Utah’s probate courts, which the Mormons had been creatively using to circumvent federal authority. Of even greater irritation, Drummond, along with Judges George P. He lectured polygamists for their immoral lifestyle while he was cohabitating with another man’s wife. Drummond was particularly obnoxious to Salt Lake society. President Millard Fillmore had made a small concession, appointing Brigham Young as Utah’s territorial governor. On the other hand, the federally appointed judges and other agents chosen from outside their community were an annoyance to the Mormons, whose petition for statehood was repeatedly refused. Mormon polygamy and theocratic tendencies were viewed by much of the country as peculiar and un-American. Utah was a difficult post for federal territorial appointees. It was, curiously, 10 years to the day–on July 24, 1857–that Young received word that an American army was on its way to Utah Territory. By the time the Latter-day Saints sought refuge in the Rocky Mountain wilderness, some members had been driven from their homes as many as four times. The young religion that taught continuing revelation had already experienced a turbulent 17-year history. When Brigham Young, with the first Mormon pioneers, set foot on the spacious Salt Lake Valley floor on July 24, 1847, he boasted that if they could have just 10 years of peace, they would ask no odds of the devil or Uncle Sam. ![]() When President James Buchanan decided to flex federal muscle against Utah Territory and ‘the Mormon problem,’ he ignited a full rebellion that, before it was all over, embarrassed the military arm of the young republic and confounded the president. The incident of 1857-58 known as the Utah Expedition, the Utah War or Buchanan’s Blunder was a collision of territorial self-determination against a federal government already faced with insubordination in Kansas and its Southern states. ‘Killed, none wounded, none fooled, everybody,’ reported a correspondent of the New York Herald. ![]()
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