150 years ago today - Feb 13, 1871

Federal Justice James B. McKean writes to President Ulysses S. Grant: "For near twenty years the Mormon leaders packed the Grand and Petit juries of the United States Courts with their tools and instruments. But within a few months past we have decided against this system . . . to recognize only the U.S. Attorney and the U.S. Marshal as the proper officers of our courts. One of the consequences is that we have already indicted for capital offenses ten or twelve Mormons-some of them bishops and other influential men in the Mormon establishment."