It was given the name of Utah, and Filmore, the President of the United States, appointed Brigham Young as governor. The latter, however, desired to become completely autonomous. He was soon in conflict with those under him, and his open hostility to the American constitution caused him to be deposed. His successor, Colonel Stepton, finding the situation untenable, resigned almost at once, and the Mormons, recovering their former militancy and independence, then sought to free themselves altogether from the guardianship of America, and to be sole masters in their own territory. In order to reduce them to submission, President Buchanan sent them a new governor in 1857 with some thousands of soldiers. The Mormons resisted for some time, and finally demanded admittance into the Union. Not only did Congress refuse this request, but it passed a law rendering all polygamists liable to be brought before the criminal courts. The War of Secession, however, interrupted the measures taken against the sect, which remained neutral during the military operations of the North and South. Brigham Young, who had remained the Mormons' civil and religious head, occupied himself only with the economic and worldly extension of his church, until in 1870, five years after the termination of the war, the attention of Congress was once more directed towards him. For the second time the Mormons were forbidden by law to practise polygamy, under penalty of deportation from America, but they resisted energetically and refused to obey. Defying the governor of Utah, General Scheffer, they rallied fanatically round Brigham Young, who was arraigned and acquitted--and the Mormon Church remained ruler of the colony.
After Young's death, government was carried on jointly by the twelve apostles, until on October 17th, 1901, George Smith was elected universal President of all branches.
A Frenchman, Jules Rémy, who visited the Mormons some time back, has given a striking description of them:--
"Order, peace and industry are revealed on every side. All these people are engaged in useful work, like bees in a hive, thus justifying the emblem on the roof of their President's palace. There are masons, carpenters, and gardeners, all carrying out their respective duties; blacksmiths busy at the forge, reapers gathering in the harvest, furriers preparing rich skins, children picking maize, drovers tending their flocks, wood-cutters returning heavily loaded from the mountains. Others again are engaged in carding and combing wool, navvies are digging irrigation canals, chemists are manufacturing saltpetre and gunpowder, armourers are making or mending firearms. Tailors, shoemakers, bricklayers, potters, millers, sawyers--every kind of labourer or artisan is here to be found. There are no idlers, and no unemployed. Everybody, from the humblest convert up to the bishop himself, is occupied in some sort of manual labour. It is a curious and interesting sight--a society so industrious and sober, so peaceful and well-regulated, yet built up of such divers elements drawn from such widely differing classes. . . .