Governor, and addressed to the legislature the customary annual message, reviewing the condition of the Territory.  This document was prepared in reality by Taylor, and was worded with considerable ingenuity.  Not the slightest allusion was made to the declarations of independence that had been reiterated throughout the summer and autumn, but the relations of Utah to the United States were discussed as those of a Territory to the Union.  The President was himself charged with treason in his action towards the Mormons, the Governor and Judges whom he had appointed were reviled as depraved and abandoned men, and the army was again proclaimed a mob,—­while Utah was lauded as the “most loyal Territory known since the days of the Revolution.”  The theory of Squatter-Sovereignty was the basis of the argument, and Mr. Buchanan was accused, and with some reason, of inconsistency in his application of that doctrine.

In response to this message, the legislature passed a series of resolutions, pledging itself to sustain “His Excellency Governor Young” in every act he might perform or dictate “for the protection of the lives, peace, and prosperity of the people of the Territory,”—­asserting that the President had incurred the “contempt and decided opposition of all good men,” on account of the “act of usurped authority and oppression” of which he was guilty, in “forcing profane, drunken, and otherwise corrupt officials upon Utah at the point of the bayonet,”—­expressing a determination to “continue to resist any attempt on the part of the Administration to bring the people into a state of vassalage by appointing, contrary to the Constitution, officers whom the people have neither voice nor vote in electing,”—­avowing the purpose not to suffer “any persons appointed to office for Utah by the Administration either to qualify for, or assume, or discharge, within the limits of the Territory, the functions of the offices to which they have been appointed; so long as the Territory is menaced by an invading army,”—­and declaring that the people of Utah would have their voice in the selection of their officers.  These were sweet-scented blossoms to blow so early on the tree of Squatter-Sovereignty, at that time scarcely four years old!

The only acts of the legislature were one disorganizing the County of Green River, in which the army was encamped, and attaching it for legislative and judicial purposes to Great Salt Lake County; another divesting the Governor of power to license the manufacture of ardent spirits, and conferring that authority upon the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints; and several others in pursuance of the system of granting away large tracts of public domain to private persons, in direct contravention of a clause in the Organic Act of the Territory, which provides that “no law shall be passed interfering with the primary disposal of the soil.”  To these acts Brigham Young attached his signature as Governor, and affixed the Territorial seal.