Defense Before Congress

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Defense Congress - Mormon Doctrine Studies - Posted: 24th Dec, 2007 - 5:39pm

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Defense Before Congress

Defense Before Congress

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DEFENSE
before
CONGRESS
and
DEFIERS
of the
LAW
by
BRIGHAM H. ROBERTS

[1] B. H. ROBERTS' DEFENSE
BEFORE THE U. S. CONGRESS

Said Mr. Taylor of Ohio: "Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the
member-elect from Utah be heard for an hour and a half."

Brother Roberts stood up and said: "I ask you if, without a violation of
the Constitution of our country, you can deny the member from Utah the right
to be called back to the bar of this house, from which he was improperly
turned away, and permit him to be sworn?

A breach in the Constitution of our country is a very serious and
important matter-@much more important than anything personal can be to this
member from Utah. To drive him forth from this assembly without recognizing
his right to take the seat may be in and of itself an insignificant thing; but
if by doing it you make a breach in the fundamental law that was meant to
prescribe a limit to your powers, then that is serious. It is by such
actions--such breaches in the Constitution, insiduously introduced and
repeated-@that led to the downfall of Republics. Let us not be too confident
in our ability to survive such violations of the Constitutional limitations.

[2] We are standing in the midst of great temptations to indulge in actions
of this description--that is to say, actions involving the disregard of
Constitutional limitations.

A man would be open to the charge of disloyalty almost if he were to
intimate that there is a possibility of this Great Republic of the West
crumbling into pieces, and yet we know from the graveyard of nations, which is
described in history, that nations quite as proud, and people equally as
patriotic for their systems of government have fallen into decay, and naught
remains but rivers to mark the place which they once occupied. Nations melt
from powers high pinnacle after they have felt the sunshine for a moment, then
downward go like avalanches loosened from the mountains belt.

And so I call your attention to the seriousness of departing from the
Constitution to respond to the clamor of misled people. What is it that
invoked as an excuse for this proposed action?

What mighty emergency has arisen that demands this disregard of
Constitutional limitations? What vital force or principle of our government is
threatened? Who is in arms against our institutions, that you should resort to
such methods as never were resorted to except in the midst of Civil War and
when the life of the Nation was at stake? It is alleged that a man guilty of
having married under sanction of his church a plurality of wives has been
elected to the House of Representatives, and hence that the American home is
in danger and that extraordinary proceedings must be invoked against it. This
crime and the circumstances under which it was com-[3]mitted is supposed to
make his a more direful offense than murder or robbery, and hence you must be
rid of him. The report says: "The case of the bride-taker or of a burglar or a
murderer is trivial, is a mere ripple on the surface of things, compared with
this far-reaching, deep-rooted, audacious lawlessness."

Just for a few moments I want to pay attention to the nature of this
crime of polygamy, not with a view of showing that the American people have
not the right to establish monogamy as a system of marriage that shall
prevail, and not for the purpose of defending polygamy either--but I want to
call attention to the nature of this crime, in order that we may ascertain
whether it is as awful as the description of it in the Committee's report and
if it warrants a more lawless act than polygamy itself in order to rebuke a
man supposed to be guilty of it who has been elected to the House of
Representatives.

The Jewish people were made the depository of God's revelation to
humanity. You will not find the crime of polygamy referred to regarded among
that people as of the character that it is described here in the report of the
committee. Evidently it is not from its nature a sin or a crime. If it were,
you would not find the Jewish law enforcing it under some circumstances,
regulating it under other circumstances, and men after God's own heart
sustaining those relations which are now supposed to justify you in closing
the doors against the member from Utah. If you go to the teachings of the
Great Master, whom, I take it, we all revere, although He denounced every
crime, every sin that man can commit, you shall find no word of His
condemnation of the [4] conduct of the law relating to this matter as it was
given by Moses to ancient Israel. I say what I have here remarked for the
purpose of fixing it in the minds of members that polygamy is merely a crime
because prohibited by law, and not by its nature a crime.

In order that we may better judge this case, I desire to call your
attention to the origin of this institution of plurality of wives in the
Mormon Church. It began under sanction of a revelation purporting to have been
received by Joseph Smith at Nauvoo in 1840. Subsequently the Church was
expatriated, not, however, on account of polygamy, but for other reasons,
because of the religious intolerance of the people in the northwestern part of
the state of Illinois. They went a thousand miles from the frontiers of the
United States and established themselves upon Mexican soil.

In 1852 they publicly announced to the world their belief in this form of
marriage, and openly and boldly defended it from the platform and from the
pulpit as well as the public press of the country. There was nothing secret in
their conduct. It was part of their religion, and they considered themselves
protected alike in their belief, in the practice thereof under the provisions
of the Constitution--that provision which said: "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof."

In 1862, however, the Congress of the United States in the exercise of
its powers over the territories, enacted a law against this system of
marriage; but the people did not surrender this [5] practice, for the reason
that they believed that they were protected by the clause in the Constitution
I have just quoted.

In 1876, desiring to put the matter to a test and not to be under the
odium of violating the laws of the country, and being confident that the
courts would sustain the views that they had held, the Mormon Church
themselves furnished a case before the courts, carrying it from one court to
another, until in 1878, as already related here, on the floor of the House,
the law against this form of marriage was sustained by the Supreme Court of
the United States.

It has been recited as the chief offense both of the Mormon people and of
the member from Utah, that notwithstanding this decision they still continued
to maintain the rightfulness of that institution. The argument seems to be
that as soon as the decision of the Supreme Court was rendered, these people
should have dropped their hands and instantly conformed to the law of the
land. Limited indeed would be that person's understanding who thinks that
controversies of this character and magnitude would be so easily disposed of,
and who would think a great religious conviction of a people would be
immediately given up on the decision of a court.

Worthy of all respect as the Supreme Court of the United States
unquestionably is, and held in high esteem, amounting almost to veneration by
my people, still we could not forget the fact that the Court was still human
and liable to error. The people called to mind that judicial tribunals in
other lands and in other ages had rendered decisions that were not altogether
in keeping with righteousness. Going back [6] no further in history than the
commencement of the Christian era, we in Utah could not forget the great
peasant of Judea was condemned under all the forms of the law by a judicial
tribunal--the Sanhedran of the Jews. We could not forget the Inquisition of
Spain was a judicial tribunal, the Supreme Court of the land, though it sent
men to the rack and filled the land with the groans of suffering martyrs. We
could not forget the fact that thousands and tens of thousands of patriots in
France were sent to the guillotine by the decisions of judicial tribunals. We
could not forget the fact that this Supreme Court of ours, high and exalted as
it is, had frequently reversed itself. We remembered that its decision had
been overturned by the people by revolution through arms. I can see upon the
floor of this House a man who, because of his race, if absolute submission to
the decisions of the Supreme Court has been allowed to be the last of any
controversy, would now be but a piece of goods or chattels in this country,
instead of being a member of the House of Representatives.

So, believing the righteousness of our doctrine, knowing that it came
from a divine source to us, we hoped there would be such a revolution in
public sentiment as would result in the reversal of the decision. The
hoped-for revolution did not come; the sentiment grew harder and stronger the
other way. But such violations of the law after the decision of the Supreme
Court in 1878--did not occur because we supposed that we could subsist were
that proposition obtained among the people. We were not so ill-instructed in
civil government as that. But where such violations of the law took place,
they were in preservance of a deep conviction of duty and to maintain what we
believed to be a divine institution. [7] So may I say that such violations of
the enactments of Congress as occurred must not be interpreted too hard
against the people of Utah or the man that they sent here to represent them.

But let us proceed to the history of this matter. In 1882 additional
legislation was passed. Special funds were granted to the Court in Utah and a
judicial crusade started. Extra judicial powers were invoked against this
particular crime, until a perfect reign of terror existed throughout the
territory. Women and children were driven to exile. Thirteen hundred men
passed through prison out of a small community of less than 200,000, not more
than 2% of whom were at any time involved in the violation of the law; and out
of that small number, more than 1300 passed through prisons of the
territory--the member from Utah, among the number. And these men, let me say,
but for the mercy of the courts and for the justification of the right
intentions of the heart of the condemned--these men could have escaped this
indignity by speaking a word, that was "to agree to give up this institution."
I remember that the day I myself stood before the court, a gentleman, now a
district judge of Salt Lake City, a personal friend of mine now, said to the
court, "This man need not go to prison if he will obey the law of the land and
give up this institution." I refused to say the word, because I felt at that
time that it would have been like deserting the cause of God to do it.

Hence, I stood true to the conviction that had been instilled into my
heart from boyhood, and so far as I was personally concerned in the matter I
felt as if I could have stood to have the flesh hewed piece by piece from my
body rather than to have been [8] untrue to that religious conviction. It was
this conviction which led to such lawlessness as I may have been guilty of,
and that only.

It is part of the complaint, if not the charge against the member from
Utah, that to this attack made upon him, not by the opposing political party
or any of its candidates, by a Salt Lake newspaper, it is claimed he made no
answer, and that is true. I made no answer, except insofar as about twice or
three times, at most, I said to the people whom I addressed during the
campaign: "These charges are made against me, but you know me; you know the
conditions that prevail here in Utah. I have been in public life before you
for some twenty years. I am not driven to the necessity at this late date of
undertaking to defend my moral character. I refer the question to you for an
answer. You shall answer these charges." And they answered them by rolling up
a plurality of 65,665 votes for the member from Utah, out of a total vote of
67,805.

And here let me say that the plurality was not given by the Mormon
people. You make a mistake if you suppose that I am here the representative of
the Mormon Church and that it was the Mormon vote that sent me here as against
the protesting Gentile vote of the State. I call your attention to the figures
and to some local facts that are very interesting in regard to this question.
I carried every Gentile stronghold in the State of Utah. So it goes throughout
the state, losing almost every Mormon stronghold, but sweeping every
non-Mormon stronghold, and I stand here today, elected by the Gentile votes of
Utah, rather than by the Mormon vote, and that too as reported here by your
committee.

[9] They knew Roberts. Yes, perhaps many of them knew of his struggle from
boyhood, knew how he came of an obscure family without prestige, without
property, himself bareheaded and barefooted when he came into the state; from
his boyhood, he made every effort at acquiring something of book knowledge.
They knew of him in the mining camps and by the flaming forge when upon the
anvil he earned by the sweat of his brow the bread that he ate, and all the
while making efforts in the midst of untoward circumstances to acquire an
education. They knew how he persisted in his efforts until his anvil was left
behind and he found his way into the forum of the people, becoming the editor
of newspapers and of magazines.

They knew him as an advocate of his religious faith, and the defender of
his political principles, until every platform in the state rang with his
voice in the maintenance of what he believed to be right. You knew him, also
as a member of the Constitutional Convention which helped to settle this vexed
question of polygamy upon the basis of its settlement under that Constitution.

What do you propose in the rejection of the member from Utah? Why, you
suppose to teach the inhabitants of Utah a lesson! You propose to discipline
them--you suppose to summon them before the bar of this house and administer a
rebuke.

These people, however, to whom you have proposed to administer the
reproof are worthy of better treatment. They are the same pioneer pre-eminent
of the western half of the United States. They have redeemed a desert, and
gave a state to [10] civilization. It is part of the misrepresentation
concerning them, that when they left the confines of the United States, it was
for the purpose of establishing an independent government. That accusation is
proven to be false from the fact that they had scarcely settled in the Salt
Lake Valley and provided themselves with temporary homes, when they sent
delegates here, knocking for admission into the Union. They asked for the
bread of statehood; you gave them the stone of territorial government, and
kept them under it until the year 1896. But in the meantime, they were loyal
to this government; and I ask your attention to a time when they were invited
to be otherwise than loyal, when the great states from the South were seceding
from the Union, the delegate from Utah was approached here in Washington and
invited Utah into participation in that secessation. About this time, the fall
of 1861, the transcontinental telegraph line reached Salt Lake City. The first
message sent out from Salt Lake was: "Utah has seceded, but is firm for the
Constitution and laws of our once happy country, and is interested in such
useful enterprises as the one so far completed." This is signed by Brigham
Young.

Congress Defense

Continue...

QUOTE

Here, also is the utterance of one of the grandest men our state has
known--a man at whose feet I almost say I learned something about the
institutions of our country. I refer to Daniel H. Wells. On the occasion of a
public gathering in Salt Lake City at which some of the wrongs endured by the
Mormon people were referred to, he said: "It has been thought by some that
this people, abused, maltreated, insulted, robbed, plundered, murdered, and
finally disfranchised and expatriated, would naturally feel reluctant to again
invite their destiny with the [11] American Republic. No wonder that it was
thought by some that we would not again submit ourselves to return to our
allegiance to our country. Remember that it was by the act of our native
country, not ours, that we were expatriated, and then consider the opportunity
we had of forming other ties.

"Let this pass while I lift the veil and show the policy that dictated
us. That country, that Constitution, those institutions were all ours; they
are still ours. Our fathers were heroes of the Revolution; under the master
spirit of an Adams, a Jefferson, and a Washington, they declared and
maintained this independence, and under the guidance of the spirit of truth,
they fulfilled their mission wherewith they were sent from the presence of the
Father. Because demagogues have arisen and seized the reigns of power, shall
we relinquish our interest in the country made dear to us by every tie of
association and courageousness? Those men who have indulged such sentiments
concerning us have not read Mormonism aright, for never will we be found
arrayed by the side of her enemies, although she may cherish them in her own
bosom. Never, no never, will we permit the weakness of human nature to triumph
above our love of country, our devotions to her institutions, handed down to
us by honored sires made dear to us by a thousand recollections."

I challenge you from the archives of the Republic to produce language
that breathes a purer sentiment of patriotism than is to be found in this
passage I have read from one of Utah's grand old men; and I can fill your
record with such utterances as this. The Mormon people are not disloyal, but
they are true to their country, and history will yet [12] vindicate them. They
do not deserve the rebuke that is proposed here in the measure pending before
this house.

At whose behest are you called upon to administer this rebuke? What is
the cause of it? Why? Sectarian preachers from the State of Utah made formal
protest before the last Congress, and I understand, before this House, against
the admission of the member from Utah.

I am not here begging the question; I am not here asking for favors; I am
not here on my own behalf, but on behalf of my people, to demand for myself
and for them our Constitutional rights. Clear your vision; look to the charter
that should guide your action; find warrant in it for your proposed action of
exclusion or expulsion if you can; and if you find it, I will walk out without
complaint.

Some of the papers in discussing the Roberts case have said, "Brand this
man with shame and send him back to his people." Mr. Speaker, I thank God that
the power to brand me with shame is something quite beyond the powers of this
House, great as this power is. The power to brand with shame rests with each
man and nowhere else. The Almighty God has conferred it upon none else. I have
lived up to this day in all good conscience in harmony with the moral
teachings of the community in which I was reared, and am sensible of no act of
shame in my life. Brand me or expel me, I shall leave this august chamber with
head erect and brow undaunted and walk God's earth as the angels walk the
clouds, with no sense of shame upon me."

[13] (Applause from the floor, and hisses from the gallery)

And, if in response to the sectarian clamor that has been invoked against
the member from Utah, you violate the Constitution of your country, either in
excluding or expelling me, the shame that there is in this case will be left
behind me and rest with this House."

(Applause)

Congressional Record Volume 33, Part 2 pp. 1101-1104

[14] DEFIERS OF THE LAW
(Contributor, 1886, 7:14-16)

The circumstances in which the Latter-day Saints are at the present time
placed, are such as call forth the highest degree of heroism, or, on the other
hand, the most craven cowardice. For it is true as the wisest has said, "no
man can serve two masters."

A certain law has been given to the Church which must be obeyed, or
penalties great and terrible will be the result. For more than thirty years
that law has been preached and practiced by the Saints. Our Elders have
everywhere proclaimed that God has given this commandment to the Church and
that He will sustain those who obey it. A certain law of man is now placed in
direct opposition to this law of God, and the question is thereby put straight
to every Latter-day Saint (male or female) "which master do you intend to
serve--which law will you elect to defy?" One or the other you must ignore.
Your enemies have placed you in that unpleasant position, that you are forced
to become "defiers of the law;" it is only left for you to choose, which law.
For one or the other@-God's or man's--you must set at defiance.

[15] The Latter-day Saint who has lived his religion-@attended to his prayers,
his meetings, his every little duty, honestly, conscientiously, humbly, before
God--such a Saint will not be long in making up his mind which; but those who
have neglected these little duties will find it more difficult. And now if we
examine closely into the history of the past, who will we find most honored
and honorable--the heroes at whose shrine we all love to fall down and
worship? They are those who in their day and time were "defiers of the law."

Christ himself was the greatest of these. The judge before whom he was
tried was anxious to extort a promise from Him that He would renounce His
claims and obey the law. But He would not promise; "He opened not his mouth."
He suffered on the cross, but Pilate and the "fifty-five millions," (mostly
fools, I fancy) did not succeed in grinding the institution to powder, as they
thought. No, it was the Roman Empire that was "ground to powder" that time,
and the cause of those hated, law defiers, flourishes to this day.

Later on we have a Luther standing up before all the world "defying the
laws." All Luther was required to do was "simply to come back within the
laws." "Fool" that he was, did he not see more than "fifty-five millions"
opposed to him. To the average looker on it must have appeared certain that
Luther must do one of three things, "obey the laws, whip the whole Christian
world, or emigrate." We all know what Luther did. He went to that Diet of
Worms with a firm determination that he could not recant@-that he could not
obey their laws. And why? Because [16] their laws were unjust. As he journeyed
on his way to that memorable Diet, the people who "sympathized with the
law-breakers" and who, therefore, "were not in sympathy with the prosecution,"
reminded Luther how much depended on his being firm in his resistance to law.
From many a window or door as he journeyed along, he heard these words: "He
that denies me before men, him will I deny before my Father." Thank God!
Luther did not "deny Him," but was firm in his law defying.

And still later we have a Cromwell with his little band of Puritan
brethren, "defying the laws". Some of these law defiers did have to
emigrate--they came over in the Mayflower in 1620. Singular that we should be
so proud of these "law breakers," that we are anxious to trace our lineage
back to law breaking, Puritan stock! Oliver Cromwell with his cousin John
Hampden had the audacity to believe that certain "ship money" laws were
unconstitutional. The case was taken to the Supreme Court and decided against
Hampden. The law was declared constitutional. But Cromwell with his band of
Puritans "defied the law." He used to say, "There is a company of poor men
that will spend all their blood, rather than see it settled so." They did
"spend their blood," and settled it, not as the Supreme Court had decided; and
all the world is today glad that Cromwell was a valiant "law breaker," and
that the decision of that Supreme Court went for what it was worth.

Something more than a hundred years after Cromwell's time, there grew up
a strong band of "law breakers" on this side of the Atlantic, with George
Washington at their head. The government had passed [17] certain laws which
these people considered unjust. It is true the Courts of the country were
against these defiers of the law, but that made no difference. If the
government levied too high a tax on tea, those law breakers quietly dumped the
tea into the Boston Harbor, and defied the government. Doubtless the press of
the mother country was busy in those days showing up the follies of resisting
the laws; "are not the majority, the great majority by many millions, against
you Yankees? What folly for you to think that you can overpower us, with our
money, our ships, our men; `come back within the laws' and let us be friends."
The Yankees answered! "See you damned first." That contest was settled as we
all know. And the millions of men and money with injustice on their side, went
for nothing, when patched against justice and a few impoverished Yankees. So
all history teaches:

Thrice is he armed who hath his quarrel just,
But he quite naked, though locked up in steel,
Whose cause with base injustice is corrupted.

Latter-day Saints, one thing only be sure of--make sure that the laws you
are compelled to defy are unjust laws. If they are, then you are sure of
success. Fight on, my brother, though there were a hundred times fifty-five
millions against you, so far as your cause is a just and true one, so far
shall the victory be yours. All the millions beneath the sun cannot hinder it.
We know in our inmost heart, in spite of all earthly courts to the contrary,
that the laws made and operated specially against the Latter-day Saints are
cruel, oppressive and unjust. The testimony of a large minority in the Senate,
in the [18] House, and also outside of Congress--mostly a democratic
minority--was that the Edmunds law was a cruel and heartless piece of special
legislation. The Secretary of the Interior (Lamar), one of the chief officers
of the present Administration, said in his place in the Senate, when the
Edmunds bill was on its passage, that he considered it a cruel and oppressive
piece of legislation. We know how cruel it is; we know with what malice it is
executed; I hope we sense the dangers and difficulties ahead of us in
resisting it, and I hope the examples of the heroes, the law breakers, of
other ages, whom I have mentioned, will cause us the clearer to see, that
these dangers and difficulties are most certain to be surmounted.

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Defense Congress - Mormon Doctrine Studies - Posted: 24th Dec, 2007 - 5:39pm

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