First Annual Message by President James Buchanan
President James Buchanan
December 8, 1857
On July 18, 1857, President James Buchanan dispatched the Tenth Infantry Regiment from Fort Leavenworth, soon to be joined by the Fifth Infantry, 1,200 American soldiers. He exaggerated in calling the circumstance a “rebellion,” but it is true that Brigham Young was both the head of the church and the governor of the territory, and the church had been routinely undercutting the authority of the territorial courts and administrators. Here is Buchanan’s message to Congress explaining his move.
Whilst Governor Young has been both governor and superintendent of Indian affairs throughout this period, he has been at the same time the head of the church called the Latter-Day Saints, and professes to govern its members and dispose of their property by direct inspiration and authority from the Almighty. His power has been, therefore, absolute over both church and State. The people of Utah, almost exclusively belong to this church, and believing with a fanatical spirit that he is governor of the Territory by divine appointment, they obey his commands as if these were direct revelations from Heaven. If, therefore, he chooses that his government shall come into collision with the government of the United States, the members of the Mormon church will yield implicit to his will. Unfortunately, existing facts leave but little doubt that such is his determination.
Source(s):
“First Annual Message by President James Buchanan, December 8, 1857,” in James Buchanan, The Works of James Buchanan, ed. John Bassett Moore (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1908), p. 152.