From American Moses: Brigham Young by Leonard Arrington, page 281, a response written to someone who "wrote that the deed 'rests with a heavy weight upon my mind'":
QUOTE
There are courts of law and officers in the Terriotry. Appeal to them. They would be happy to attend to your case. If you are innocent you give yourself a great deal of foolish trouble...Why do not all the Latter-day Saints feel as you do? Simply because it does not concern them. As to your faith being shaken, if the Gospel was true befoe the Mountain Meadow Massacre, neither that nor any other event that may transpire can make it false.
When Gov. Cumming was here, I pledged mysel to lend him every assistance in my power, in men and means to throughly investigate that matter, but he declined to take any action. This offer I have made time and again, but it has never been accepted. Yet I have neither doubt nor fear on my mind but the perpetrators of that tragedy will meet their reward. God will judge this matter and on that assurance I rest perfectly satisfied.
If you are innocent, you may safely do the same; if you are guilty, better try the remedy.
The remedy referring to his comment "If you want a remedy, a rope around the neck taken with a jerk would be very salutary."
Seems to me he viewed the deaths as murder.
And how would you suggest that he go that when his offers of assistance to those who have the power to enforce justice were refused?
Have you read about any of the investigation that was done by the church leadership?
Really. I suggest you do some decent research before making...well, rather idiotic comments like this. One of the problems with being 'held in high regard' is that some people lie to you so that you won't think less of them. That on top of they are risking being prosecuted if they confess...I think there's a lot of motivation here for them to keep silent.
He sent George A. Smith down to do an investigation and lo and behold everyone involved claimed that Indians did it.
I think you overestimate the ability for him to put aside their self-preservation instinct.
Even so he was not satisfied and attempted another investigation. He offered time and time again to assist the federal officers in doing an investigation.
He told the individuals who were confessing to him to turn themselves in...what more did you want him to do? Drag them in there himself?
People complain about it being a theocracy with BY having total power and how horrible that he should have such...yet they complain when he doesn't exercise this alleged power by instituting an illegal investigation and illegally arresting people and possibly even executing them for the crime of murder. I can just imagine what would happen to their criticism if he actually did just that though.
You do know what vigilantism is and about duly appointed legal representives are? You know, federal investigators and marshals...not the bishops, high priests or even any GA.
Hardly surprising though that he didn't go so far as to help them convict himself...did you know that federal prosecutors offered Lee--pretty much the one guy they knew was guilty--not only freedom, but money for implicating Young? So much for caring about justice for the victims.... (Arrington, American Moses, pg 384)
If you are so concerned about the innocent, I suggest you actually do some research before making accusations as that tends to tar the innocent as much, if not more, than the guilty.
Severian, I'm not going to bother typing out several pages of material on investigations and what BY knew and when and his reactions when you should be getting off your bum and doing the research for yourself, but I'll at least go this far:
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Dr. Alexander discussed five investigations that Brigham Young and the Twelve conducted. He presents them as receiving mixed information about the massacre especially as to whether it was done just by Indians or to what extent Mormons were involved. He compares versions of John D. Lee's initial report given through his attorney named W.W. Bishop to that of Wilford Woodruff’s contemporary diary. After careful source weighing he came out on the side of Woodruff, showing that Lee downplayed and lied about the Mormon role in the massacre instead of being forthcoming like he later claimed. Dr. Alexander also produced part of Lee’s diary on his slides. During a later period of investigation conducted by some members of the Twelve, it looks like Lee tampered with his diary, recording a meeting on the wrong day and writing in a smaller print to cram the text in available space.
Soon after the massacre Brigham realizes that justice needed to sought after in court. However, Alexander discussed the problems the Mormons had with the "ultras" or the radical anti-mormon element that included Judge Cradlebaugh, who was abusive in holding court in Provo. A more moderate wing included Gov. Cummings who would often counter reports to the government that the Mormons were out of control. However the ultra-wing refused to hire a Mormon marshall and complained about not having sufficient funds despite a sizeable amount ($1500 -- which Dr. Alexander explained was equivalent to the governor’s yearly salary back then) being offered as a donation. They wanted to go after Brigham Young and George A. Smith. Dr. Alexander observed that many Mormons were indignant about the crime and wanted to see justice done. Brigham Young offered to go to southern Utah and help prosecute the perpetrators three times, but no one took him up on it.
Dr. Alexander compared how the Twelve's investigations came to nearly the same conclusion as Forney's, a moderate governmental investigator. However he questioned whether it influenced Brigham Young, who seems to have independently realized the facts gradually over time and through his five investigations. Like later prosecutors he was willing to forgive the rank and file (while going after the leaders) members of the Iron County militia because they were acting under duress both from military superiors and church superiors. Most of these men were tricked to go to the scene of the massacre under the guise they were going to bury the dead left from an already concluded Indian massacre or some such pretense.
He detailed how the Church engaged in some disciplinary counsels, reformed the local leadership with non-participants, and how ticked off Brigham was at John D. Lee. He read some correspondence where Brigham told Lee, in effect, to do all the good he could, but he would never dwell where God and his Son do. Haight's supporters misled Brigham towards thinking Haight was less responsible. Haight would have been prosecuted but he was not caught, which Dr. Alexander attributes to the vastness of the open range of southern Utah and further south.
http://www.millennialstar.org/index.php ... 9/23/p1797 (and thank you to Clark Goble and David Keller for the summary)
Found another relevant quote in the blog:
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I will tell the Latter-day Saints that there are some things which transpire that I cannot think about. There are transactions that are too horrible for me to contemplate.
The massacre at Haun's mill, and that of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, and the Mountain Meadow's massacre and the murder of Dr. Robinson are of this character. I cannot think that there are beings upon the earth who have any claim to the sentiments and feelings which dwell in the breasts of civilized men who could be guilty of such atrocities; and it is hard to suppose that even savages would be capable of performing such inhuman acts.
see the blog for the references please
And another:
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Alexander also explained that the people of Utah were not all followers of Brigham Young and that Young did not, as many assume, have absolute power.
"We should understand, also, something about the LDS leadership in the 19th century. For some reason, some historians have concluded that Utah was a totalitarian dictatorship under Brigham Young," Alexander said. "Utah was, in fact, a theodemocracy. Brigham Young could propose things to people in Utah, but they didn't always do what he wanted."
http://nn.BYU.edu/story.cfm/63076Also from above:
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Oscar Jesperson, a professor of history at UVSC, discussed the hatred of federal officials that led to the lack of investigation.
Jesperson said he had learned things about the names of individuals, the sequence of events that occurred and the investigation that was conducted by church leadership independent of an investigation that, supposedly, was going to be conducted by the federal officials.
"To learn that these federal officials had thwarted an investigation which had anything to do with church leadership simply demonstrated in my mind what I had thought was happening all along," Jesperson said. "There was so much hatred in a lot of federal officials for the Mormons."