Young was an uneducated man, but with a deep insight into human nature.  A shrewd practical ability and a rugged intelligence, combined with absolute cold-blooded unscrupulousness in attaining his ends, were qualities amply sufficient to put Young in the front rank of the class of people who composed the Mormon Church.  He early established a hierarchy of sufficient powers so that always he was able to keep the strong men of the Church loyal to the idea he represented.  He paid them well, both in actual property and in power that was dearer to them than property.  Furthermore, whether or not he originated polygamy, he not only saw at once its uses in increasing the population of the new state and in taking care of the extra women such fanatical religions always attract, but also, more astutely, he realized that the doctrine of polygamy would set his people apart from all other people, and probably call down upon them the direct opposition of the Federal Government.  A feeling of persecution, opposition, and possible punishment were all potent to segregate the Mormon Church from the rest of humanity and to assure its coherence.  Further, he understood thoroughly the results that can be obtained by cooeperation of even mediocre people under able leadership.  He placed his people apart by thoroughly impressing upon their minds the idea of their superiority to the rest of the world.  They were the chosen people, hitherto scattered, but now at last gathered together.  His followers had just the degree of intelligence necessary to accept leadership gracefully and to rejoice in a supposed superiority because of a sense of previous inferiority.

This ductile material Brigham welded to his own forms.  He was able to assume consistently an appearance of uncouth ignorance in order to retain his hold over his uncultivated flock.  He delivered vituperative, even obscene sermons, which may still be read in his collected works.  But he was able also on occasions, as when addressing agents of the Federal Government or other outsiders whom he wished to impress, to write direct and dignified English.  He was resourceful in obtaining control over the other strong men of his Church; but by his very success he was blinded to due proportions.  There can be little doubt that at one time he thought he could defy the United States by force of arms.  He even maintained an organization called the Danites, sometimes called the Destroying Angels, who carried out his decrees.[5]

[5:  The Mormon Church has always denied the existence of any such organization; but the weight of evidence is against the Church.  In one of his discourses, Young seems inadvertently to have admitted the existence of the Danites.  The organization dates from the sojourn of the Mormons in Missouri.  See Linn, The Story of the Mormons, pp. 189-192.]