The Fugitive Slave Law

ALLUSION has been made to the Mormons in Utah. Their history is a most remarkable one. About fifty years ago, a young man named Joseph Smith, a native of Vermont, pretended to have revelations from heaven. In one of these he was directed to go to a hill near Palmyra, New York, where he would find a record of the ancient inhabitants of America and a new gospel for mankind, written centuries before on plates of gold, in unknown characters and languages. From these plates (it was alleged) Smith, sitting behind a blanket to prevent their being seen by profane eyes, read the inscriptions, which were written down by a scribe who was not permitted to see the "leaves of gold." This copy was published under the name of "The Book of Mormon." The true story, as ascertained by investigation, appears to be, that the Rev. Solomon Spaulding, many years before, wrote a work of fiction, founded upon the theory that our continent was peopled by the "lost tribes of Israel;" that the manuscript came, by accident, into the hands of Smith, and that he read to his scribe from the manuscript, and not from any plates containing mysterious characters.

Smith found dupes and followers, and in 1830 he established a "church" with thirty members. He was assisted in his work by Sidney Rigdon, who, it was said, had become possessed of Spaulding's manuscript, and placed it in the hands of Smith. The latter pretended to be governed by continual revelations from heaven; and in accordance with one of them, he led his deluded followers to Kirtland, Ohio, where they built a temple and remained several years, until the conduct of the leaders became so obnoxious that they were compelled to leave. They established themselves in Hancock county, Illinois, where they founded the city of Nauvoo, and built a temple. Meanwhile they had attempted to plant themselves in Missouri, but they were expelled by the exasperated people, who were assisted by the civil and military powers. At Kirtland, they were joined by a shrewd young man named Brigham Young, a native of Vermont, who has now been president of the Mormon church more than thirty years. It was at Nauvoo that the system of polygamy was first practised among them, and Young has ever been foremost among its defenders. That system was established in consequence of the jealousy of Smith's wife because of his intimacies with other women. In justification of his immoral conduct, Smith had a special revelation from heaven, authorizing polygamy, and declaring that the greater number of wives a man possessed, the greater would be his future rewards; also that the women who consented to share the honors of wifehood with others, would thereby be assured of eternal happiness.

This "revelation" led to events which resulted in the imprisonment of Smith and some of his most intimate associates. The "prophet" and his brother were shot dead by a mob at the prison; and their followers, in 1845, prepared for an exodus, led by Brigham Young, who had succeeded to the presidency of the Mormon church, on the death of Smith. They finally crossed the Mississippi and penetrated to the valley of the Great Salt Lake, where, in 1848, they seated themselves in a most picturesque region, founded a city, and built a temple. Their numbers have long entitled their domain (which was organized into a Territory with the name of Utah) to admission into the Union as a State. In 1849, President Fillmore appointed Young governor of that Territory; but because of the practice of polygamy by the Mormons, that Territory has never been permitted to enter the Union as a State. The Mormons now number, in our own and other countries, probably, more than two hundred thousand souls. They have, from time to time, given our government considerable trouble, by their defiance of its laws. The speedy extinguishment of their system is probable.

It was believed by superficial thinkers and observers that the Compromise Act of 1850 had quieted, forever, all controversy on the subject of slavery; and during his entire administration, President Fillmore gave his support to all the measures embraced in that act. When his administration closed in the spring of 1853, there seemed to be very little uneasiness in the public mind on the subject of slavery. But it was only the ominous calm that precedes the bursting of a tempest. The moral sense of the people in the free-labor States (and of thousands in the slave-labor States) had been shocked by the passage of the Fugitive-Slave Law, which compelled every person to become a slave-catcher, under certain circumstances, willing or not willing. That law was so much at variance with Christian ethics and the civilization of the age, that a multitude of persons in all parts of the Union yearned to see it wiped from our national statute-books as an ugly blot; and, pondering upon it, many persons who had been indifferent, felt a desire to have a check put upon the further expansion of the system of slavery in our republic. This feeling, and the avowed intention of the supporters of that system to make it a national and not a mere sectional institution, produced violent collisions in speech, and, finally, a most sanguinary civil war. The Fugitive-Slave Law, framed by James M. Mason of Virginia, had much to do with bringing on that terrible crisis in our history.