[Brigham Young]
While I am making my remarks I sincerely request the attention of the congregation; I desire them to keep silence, let there be no whispering, nor talking to each other, nor moving of feet; and if the babies can outnoise me, why it will be because my lungs have grown weak. ... . While on our way to the Missouri river some kind of a spirit; whether it was intuitive knowledge, prescience or promptness of intellect, no matter. Something told me, that the government of the United States would make a demand on the camp of Israel for troops to go into the Mexican war. If the God of Heaven did not reveal it to me I should like to know who did. ... if the Government of the United States hunt us here and afflict our families while we are gone to find an asylum for them, I will hunt them all the rest of my life, so help me God.'" (Applause.) ... [The Mormon Battalion] fought no battles in all their career. But they were the first ones that ever raised the American flag on Mexican territory and preserved it there. (Applause.) ... I will say right here that of all men who ever did live upon the earth lawyers are the worst. Doctors and priests are bad enough, but lawyers will ruin everybody and send all to hell. They are the worst and the most unfit for human society of any beings that live... could we not live as other men do? Is it not my privilege to lead about a wife or a sister, a neighbor's wife or any female as much as any other man's? Certainly; but when I do it, I do it legally and lawfully, not clandestinely. This is the curse that is upon this nation, and one of the greatest curses in the sight of heaven and justice that now rests on the United States. It is their abuse of females; millions of them are wasted. According to their own showing thousands of females have perished in the streets of New York since we have been in these valleys, proba- bly double and almost treble the entire number of females we have in this Territory...
[Manuscript Addresses of Brigham Young. 7 Vols. Elden J. Watson, ed. Salt Lake City: Smith Secretarial Service, 1979-84. 6:30-35, quoted in The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young, Ed. Richard S. Van Wagoner, Smith-Pettit Foundation, Salt Lake City (2009), http://bit.ly/BY-discourses]
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