As Lyman details better than anyone has before, even as Mormon Utah worked to be admitted to the Union in its earliest attempts, the illegal shadow state of Deseret was operating at a high level. Brigham Young so deeply believed in the imminent return of Jesus Christ that he made sure that the government of Deseret was in place to rule if that happened. Federal authorities were bound to be suspicious given that Young and others ran political affairs through an undisclosed secret state and did not always hide their actions. One of the attractions of this book is its rich introduction to the large cast of characters from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, territorial appointments, U.S. Congress, presidential administrations, railroad barons, and, perhaps most intriguing, lobbyists, journalists, and other influencers of public opinion. Lyman discusses the different strengths and weaknesses of those who led Utah’s repeated statehood battles in Washington—from the diplomatic, suave, and educated John M. Bernhisel, whose efforts were sometimes undermined by Utah’s legislature, to the rougher William H. Hooper,
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Professor Lyman presents hobgoblins of the Saints in Utah Territory such as James McKean, Robert Baskin, and George Maxwell with insight and aplomb, but he also explores national leaders’ criticism of these local antagonists of the Mormons, who sometimes took things too far. He is equally critical of unreasonable positions and actions taken by Latter-day Saint leaders.
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In 1999, Davis Bitton referred to the work of Edward Leo Lyman as “fundamental” to understanding how Utah became a state. Professor Lyman’s voluminous work in this area is must reading. His groundbreaking Political Deliverance: The Mormon Quest for Utah Statehood, published by University of Illinois Press in 1986, along with articles published in various journals remain important, but his new volume, Finally Statehood! Utah’s Struggles, 1849–1896, is his most significant contribution yet. Lyman provides the reader with a firehose of new information, insights, and analysis into the issues and controversies of Utah Territory’s seven statehood attempts.
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Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2019, xii + 470 pp. Cloth $34.95
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By Edward Leo Lyman
who would become discouraged and largely ineffective. Though unsuccessful in achieving statehood or stopping passage of all anti-polygamy legislation, the territorial delegate and high-ranking church official George Q. Cannon made many friends and built many bridges in Congress that eventually bore fruit in the late 1880s and 1890s. The later delegates—John T. Caine, Joseph Rawlings, and Frank J. Cannon— are also covered well. More groundbreaking, Lyman introduces us to many of the important characters in Washington who influenced federal policy toward Utah, some highly critical of the Mormons and Utah, but many others far friendlier than generally acknowledged.
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Finally Statehood! Utah’s Struggles, 1849–1896
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Finally Statehood! makes clear that Mormon leaders were sometimes willing to bend to further statehood ambitions, as evidenced by the election in 1864 of a non-Mormon (though friendly) territorial delegate. In the late 1880s, as the Edmunds-Tucker Act threatened to undermine and perhaps even destroy the Church of Jesus Christ, church leaders quietly encouraged monogamists within their ranks to assert they did not believe in polygamy to avoid being prevented from voting and exercising other civil rights. Perhaps the book’s most important contribution is an extended discussion of how church leaders, with the encouragement and direction of prominent railroad owners, found a way to radically alter public opinion toward Mormons in the late 1880s. This involved relatively widespread “boodling” (an amusing nineteenth-century term for bribery). Central Pacific railroad barons Collis Huntington and Leland Stanford, with substantial financial
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