On one side, it is proposed to
leave each community to work out its own destiny, trusting to Providence
for the result. On the other, it is contended, that the only safe
doctrine is, that supreme authority over the Territories resides in
Congress, which it is its duty to assign to such hands and in such
degrees as it may deem expedient, with a view to create homogeneous
States; that the same influences which moulded Minnesota into a State
homogeneous to Massachusetts might operate on Cuba, or Sonora and
Chihuahua, without avail; and that to various districts the various
methods should be applied which a father would employ to secure the
obedience and welfare of his children.
At the very outset, the Territory of Utah now presents itself as a
subject for the application of the one system or the other. To all
intents and purposes, the Mormons are proved to be a people more foreign
to the population of the States than the inhabitants of Cuba or Mexico.
Alien in great part by birth, and entirely alien in religion, there
never can occur in the history of the country an instance of a community
harder to govern, with a view to adapt it to harmonious association
with the States on the Atlantic and the Pacific.
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