It is stated by an apologist for the Mormons that Joseph Smith knew the "rightfulness" of "plural marriage" as early as 1831, the same having been shown to him by revelation. But in the early days of the church, with converts drawn chiefly from the ordinary families of the frontier where the sanctity of the marriage vows ranked high, it was no time to practice it. He did not take his first plural wife until 1841, and the scant evidence that exists raises a doubt as to whether this act was that of an inspired prophet or merely of a lustful man. On July 12, 1843, he announced in secret the text of a revelation concerning plurality of wives and celestial marriage, making it incumbent upon single women to be bound to some man during life in order to enjoy the full pleasures of salvation after death. The revelation included a special message directed to his first wife, Emma, bidding her not to interfere with the additional wives that the prophet brought into her household; and unbelievers have thought that perhaps the jealousy of Emma may have been the real occasion of the revelation. The church membership was by this date growing rapidly and among the converts there was a preponderance of women; unusual on the frontier where single women were extremely scarce and where the demands of husbands-elect shortened to a minimum the widows' period of mourning. After the secret revelation, Smith and Young, and their intimate counselors, availed themselves of it to build up plural families in private. But they sternly denied both the families and the revelation in public. In at least one case an indiscreet missionary who preached the doctrine was driven out of the church by excommunication.

The rumor that the leaders were living immoral lives persisted in spite of all denials, and asserted that the bishops and other dignitaries were practically compelled to take plural wives in order to fasten them more firmly to the church. In August, 1852, the dogma was publicly announced at a special conference of the church, and Brigham Young took the offensive in defending its morality and spiritual soundness. From this date there was no concealment. When Young died in 1877 he left seventeen wives housed in a row of dwellings in his capital city. It does not appear that polygamy was ever universal among the Mormons, and there is much evidence that many women detested it, but most of the study and interpretation of the meaning of the church has halted around this fact, and has thus missed seeing the success of the order as a colonizing agent.

With the planting of the Mormon settlement in the midst of the desert in 1847, another objective was created to direct and stimulate migration over the trails. Every year since 1843, this had flowed by thousands. In Oregon, spontaneous local government was started in 1843; in the Salt Lake basin it assumed the name of the State of Deseret and took shape in 1849.

There is no evidence that shows whether Brigham had received a grant of land from Mexico authorizing his settlement of 1847. When he framed his plans, he sought to get outside the United States and away from chronic persecution on the border. But the conditions that had pursued the Mormons from their foundation continued to follow them. While they were on the march through Iowa, Polk led the United States into the Mexican War, and sent an army across the plains to Santa Fé. Before they left winter quarters in 1847 the actual conquest of California was over; and before they had finished their new home the United States had taken title to the land they occupied. There was nothing to do but make the best of the facts and to seek from the United States the same sort of autonomy they had received from Illinois. In March, 1849, a convention met in the City of the Great Salt Lake to frame a government.

The Mormon Church itself performed what functions of government were indispensable prior to 1849. The population included none but willing members of the faith who were ready to accept church leadership, and who had lost the American passion for separation of church and state. The convention of 1849 followed a call directed to "all the citizens of that portion of upper California lying east of the Sierra Nevada Mountains." It agreed to send a memorial to Congress to create a territorial government and framed a constitution for the region under the name of Deseret. The boundaries of the projected State were generous enough to include Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and southern California as far as the harbor of San Diego. The form of government was substantially that of the States of the Mississippi Valley. The provisional officers were elected in March, 1849, and left the control exactly where it had been before the framing of the constitution, for Young was chosen as governor, and church officials were placed in every elective office. It was an efficient government; more so than the spontaneous governments of Oregon or Franklin had been. And non-Mormons passing through its jurisdiction often had reason to be glad of its existence. The legislature of

Deseret sent a delegate to Congress that summer. But antiMormon influences were already at work, and members of the other branch of the Mormon Church (the non-polygamous group who were expelled while the church resided at Nauvoo) were pointing out the evil influence of Brigham Young. No action was taken by Congress for another year; but in Deseret the people lived safely and happily under a government of their own creation. Oregon and Deseret were two spontaneous colonies beyond the Rocky Mountains that owed nothing to Congress for their foundation. They were joined in the autumn of 1849 by a third, California, which framed a constitution for itself at the old Spanish village of Monterey, and demanded immediate admission as a State.

CHAPTER XXXIX

THE WAR WITH MEXICO

THE Republic of Texas remained independent for nine years after 1836 because of the unwillingness of President Martin Van Buren to risk its annexation to the United States, and the inability of President John Tyler to bring it about. Its secession from Mexico at the moment when slavery became the controlling issue in American politics was an unfortunate accident, from the standpoint of speedy admission to the Union. There was no northern territory ready to be admitted with it, after the admission of the Arkansas-Michigan pair; and there was a growing disinclination on the part of northern leaders to admit more slaveholding States upon any basis. The leading nations of Europe recognized the independence of the Texas Republic, but the mother country, Mexico, remained resentful and refused to admit that the insurrection of 1836 had been successful. The Mexican relations with the United States, strained on their own account, were made more difficult because of the Mexican belief that the loss of Texas was the result of a deliberate American conspiracy.

The first serious attempt to accomplish the admission of Texas was made by President Tyler after the reorganization of his cabinet. The presidential election of 1840, at which William Henry Harrison and John Tyler were elected by the Whig voters, was a successful revolt of dissatisfactions that had accumulated during the twelve years of Jackson and Van Buren. The Whigs carried all the northern States except New Hampshire, Illinois, and Missouri, and overturned the Jackson forces even in Kentucky and Tennessee. The revolt was inspired by much the same spirit as that with which Jackson himself had been victorious, and the personnel of the winning ticket indicated the price that the Whig leaders were willing to pay for insurance of success. Tyler, the

1 Justin H. Smith, The War with Mexico (1919), will be a landmark in the historiography of this period for a long time. He, and all other writers on the Southwest, owe a debt to the great collector and preserver of local records, Hubert Howe Bancroft of San Francisco, who wrote, edited, or signed nearly forty great volumes of Pacific Coast history between 1874 and 1890. From his collections, now owned by the University of California, there come frequent volumes in the Publications of the Academy of Pacific Coast History, directed by Herbert E. Bolton.

Vice President, was a southern Democrat in every sense except in his personal hostility to Andrew Jackson. He had nothing but this in common with such of the Whigs as were inspired by real ideas. When the Hero of Tippecanoe, his chief, died after a month in the White House, the Whig victory was substantially nullified, for Tyler thought in terms of southern ascendency. Most of the cabinet of Harrison left Tyler at the first opportunity. Webster, Secretary of State, remained longest, for he was engaged upon an intricate negotiation with England that was completed only in the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842. When he resigned at last, and Calhoun finally became Secretary of State, the way was open to advance the Texas question.

Calhoun's desire to annex Texas was based upon his determination to insure the safety of slave labor in the South. Not only was an additional slave State to be desired, but there was a danger in allowing an independent nation to be slipped in between Mexico and the United States. He feared that England and France might carry on projects of their own in Texas, and that their influence might lead to an abolition of slavery there. The Texan leaders encouraged this fear by talk of their inability to live without connection with some larger nation, and spoke freely of the possibility that they might be compelled to seek either an alliance with Europe or incorporation as a colony. Texas had no desire to enter upon such a course, but found that American interest in annexation was stimulated by the thought of rivalry.

In April, 1844, Calhoun concluded a treaty of annexation with Texas. Before the Texas minister would sign it, he had to be assured that if Mexico made the treaty a cause for further war the United States would do everything in its power to protect Texas against punishment. England was trying to compel Texas to abolish slavery, but Calhoun was not quite frank when he asserted that this attempt was the cause of American action. The treaty failed of ratification by the Senate in June, but the Democratic Party had by this time nominated James K. Polk and made Texas and Oregon a party issue.

All through the autumn of 1844 the United States resounded with cries for the "reannexation of Texas," and "fifty-four forty or fight." The Texans, said Tyler, in his message on the treaty, "are deeply indoctrinated in all the principles of civil liberty and will bring along with them in the act of reassociation devotion to our Union and a firm and inflexible resolution to assist in maintain