Description

"In late 1866, when Salt Lake City attorney Robert Baskin looked down at the mutilated body of a client, he resolved he would do all in his power to increase federal authority in Utah to ensure that perpetrators of such crimes would not go unpunished. He became the Assistant U.S. Attorney, Salt Lake City mayor, and a Utah Supreme Court justice. Through all this, he was seen as a thorn in the side of the Utah establishment. Even so, readers should appreciate his measured tone and lawyerly objectivity, as well as his graceful prose, indicative of a Harvard education, and his solid documentation intended to convince skeptics. After Reminiscences was published in 1914, Baskin sparred with prominent Mormon writer Orson E Whitney, who wrote that 'doubtless the fear, well-founded it seems, that judges would be sent to Utah as an engine of oppression' was the reason for mistreatment of federal officials. Baskin countered, 'Yes, without doubt it was "fear" that inspired disloyal acts—fear the federal government would send judges here to execute impartiality as the law of the land.' " (From back cover.)

Table of Contents

Forward by Brigham D. Madsen
Preface

Chapter

1. The Conditions in Utah which Caused the Opposition of the Gentiles
2. the Organization of the Liberal Party
3. Outline of the Cullom Bill
4. The Englebrecht Case
5. Bill Hickman's Confession; Conviction of Hawkins; the Law of Marital Relations Defined; the Uprise and Downfall of Tom Fitch; Vindication of Judge Zane
6. Indictment of Brigham Young and others
7. The Case of Ferris v. Higley, in Which it Was Decided that the Probate Courts of the Territory did not have Civil or Criminal Jurisdiction
8. The Reynolds Case, in which the Validity of the Act of 1862 Against Polygamy was Sustained by the Supreme Court of the United States
9. Marked Ballots and the Absurd Election Law
10. The Mountain Meadows Massacre and its Resulting Investigation; Shadowy Glimpses of the Endowment House Rites and Atonements by Blood, Proven by Church Authority
11. The Danites, or Destroying Angels
12. The Alleged "Revelation" on Polygamy
13. The Policy of the Priesthood Was to Prevent Gentiles from Settling in the Territory or to Acquire Property
14. The Edmunds-Tucker Bill and its Effect
15. The Cullom-Struble Bill; The "Last Straw"
16. The Effort for the Admission of Utah that Failed
17. A Reference to the Mormon Battalion
18. Securing Free Schools in Utah
19. The Mormon Business System
20. C. S. Varian's Statement

Conclusion
Appendix
Index

Reply to Certain Statements by O. F. Whitney

• Contents
• Review of Whitney's Recent History
• Mormon Battalion
• Cause of Factional Strife
• From President Buchanan's Annual Message
• From President Grant's Third Annual Message
• From President Grant's Special Message
• From the Annual Message of President Hayes
• From President Cleveland's Annual Message
• Local Self Government
• Mountain Meadow Massacre
• Reynolds Case
• Another of Whitney's Malicious Falsehoods
• Answer to Whitney's Note