Inspired Prophetic Warnings To All Inhabitants of the Earth

Mr. Douglas based his remarks upon these rumors against the saints in the course of which he said: "Let us have these facts in an official shape before the president and congress and the country will soon learn that, in the performance of the high and solemn duty devolving upon the executive and congress, there will be no vacillating or hesitating policy. It will be as prompt as the peal that follows the flash--as stern and unyielding as death. Should such a state of things actually exist as we are led to infer from the reports --and such information comes in an official shape--the knife must be applied to this pestiferous, disgusting cancer which is gnawing into the very vitals of the body politic. It must be cut out by the roots and seared over by the red hot iron of stern and unflinching law. Should all efforts fail to bring them (the Mormons) to a sense of their duty, there is but one remedy left. Repeal the organic law of the territory, on the ground that they are alien enemies and outlaws, unfit to be citizens of a territory, much less ever to become citizens of one of the free and independent states of this confederacy. To protect them further in their treasonable, disgusting and beastial practices would be a disgrace to the country--a disgrace to humanity--a disgrace to civilization, and a disgrace to the spirit of the age. Blot it out of the organized territories of the United States. What then? It will be regulated by the law of 1790, which has exclusive and sole jurisdiction over all the territory not incorporated under any organic or special law. By the provisions of this law, all crimes and misdemeanors, committed on its soil, can be tried before the legal authorities of any state or territory to which the offenders shall be first brought to trial, and punished. Under that law persons have been arrested in Kansas, Nebraska and other territories, prior to their organization as territories, and hanged for their crimes. The law of 1790 has sole and exclusive jurisdiction where no other law of a local character exists, and by repealing the organic law of Utah, you give to the general government of the United States the whole and sole jurisdiction over the territory."

The speech of Mr. Douglas was of great interest and importance to the people of Utah at that juncture. Mr. Douglas had it in his power to do them a great good. Because of his personal acquaintance with Joseph Smith and the great body of the Mormon people then in Utah, as well as their leaders (for he had known both leaders and people in Illinois, and those whom he had known in Illinois constituted the great bulk of the people in Utah, when he delivered that Springfield speech)--he knew that the reports carried to the east by vicious and corrupt men were not true. He knew that these reports, in the main, were but a rehash of the old exploded charges made against Joseph Smith and his followers in Missouri and Illinois; and he knew them to be false by many evidences furnished him by Joseph Smith in the interview of the 18th of May, 1843, and by the Mormon people at sundry times during his association with them at Nauvoo. He had an opportunity to befriend the innocent; to refute the calumnies cast upon a virtuous community; to speak a word in behalf of the oppressed; but the demagogue triumphed over the statesman, the politician over the humanitarian; and to avoid the popular censure which he feared befriending the Mormon people would bring to him, he turned his hand against them, with the result that he did not destroy them but sealed his own doom--in fulfillment of the words of the prophet, he felt the weight of the hand of the Almighty upon him.

"It was impossible for any merely human sagacity to foresee the events predicted in his prophecy. Stephen A. Douglas was a bright, but comparatively an unknown man at the time of the interview, in May, 1843. There is and can be no question about the prophecy preceding the event. It was published, as before stated, in the Deseret News of the 24th of September, 1856; about one year before the Douglas speech at Springfield, in June, 1857; and about four years before Douglas was nominated for the presidency by the Charleston Democratic Convention. "Moreover, a lengthy review of Mr. Douglas' speech was published in the editorial columns of the Deseret News in the issue of that paper for September 2nd, 1857, of which the following is the closing paragraph, addressed directly to Mr. Douglas: "In your last paragraph (of the Springfield speech) you say, "I have thus presented to you plainly and fairly my views of the Utah question;" with at least equal plainness and far more fairness have your views now been commented upon. And inasmuch as you were well acquainted with Joseph Smith and his people, also with the character of your maligners, and did know their allegations were false, but must bark with the dogs who were snapping at your heels, to let them know that you were a dog with them; and also that you may have a testimony of the truth of the assertion that you did know Joseph Smith and his people and the character of their enemies, (and neither class have changed, only as the saints have grown better and their enemies worse); and also that you may thoroughly understand that you have voluntarily, knowingly, and of choice sealed your damnation, and by your own chosen course have closed your chance for the Presidential chair through disobeying the counsel of Joseph, which you formerly sought and prospered by following, and that you in common with us may testify to all the world that Joseph was a true prophet, the following extract from the history of Joseph Smith is again printed for your benefit, and is kindly recommended to your careful perusal and most candid consideration."

Here follows the interview with Judge Douglas. "I have been careful to state in full all the circumstances connected with this remarkable prophecy, in order that there might be no question in relation to the prophecy itself, that is, no question as to the prediction preceding the event, and its complete and miraculous fulfillment. And now I have reached the point for the argument. "The prophecy is a fact. Its fulfillment is a fact. God gloriously fulfilled the prediction of His servant Joseph Smith, the prophet. Stephen A. Douglas did aspire to the presidency of the United States. He received the nomination for that high office, from a great political party. But he had raised his hand against the Latter-day Saints, the people of the prophet Joseph Smith; and as a consequence he did feel the weight of the hand of the Almighty upon him; for all his hopes were blasted; he never reached the goal of his ambition; he failed miserably, and died wretchedly, when his life had but reached high noon. Could anything be more clear than that Stephen A. Douglas felt the weight of the hand of the Almighty upon him? But mark you, these calamities came upon him for striking the saints of God in Utah. It was for turning his hand against them that he was disappointed in his hopes, blasted in his expectations, and died heartbroken. And when the Almighty thus vindicated the predictions of His prophet upon the head of this great man, He also did something more--He acknowledged the saints in Utah as His people, The Church in Utah as His Church, and there is no escaping the conclusion."(Elder B.H. Roberts)

Under the date of November 27, 1860, Orson Hyde, wrote to Judge Douglas, from Ephraim, Utah Territory, as follows: "Will the Judge now acknowledge that Joseph was a true Prophet? If he will not, does he recollect a certain conversation had with Mr. Smith, at the house of Sheriff Backenstos, in Carthage, Illinois, in the year 1843, in which Mr. Smith said to him, "You will yet aspire to the Presidency of the United States. But if you ever raise your hand, or your voice against the Latter-day Saints, you shall never be President of the United States." "Does Judge Douglas recollect that in a public speech delivered by him in the year 1857, at Springfield, Illinois, of comparing the Mormon community, then constituting the inhabitants of the Utah Territory, to a "loathsome ulcer on the body politic;" and of recommending the knife to be applied to cut it out? "Among other things the Judge will doubtless recollect that I was present and heard the conversation between him and Joseph Smith, at Mr. Backenstos' residence in Carthage, before alluded to. "Now, Judge, what think you about Joseph Smith and Mormonism?"

"I went forth before my beard was gray, before my hair began to turn white, when I was but a youth of nineteen, now I am fifty-eight, and from that time on I published these tidings among the inhabitants of the earth. I carried forth the written revelation, foretelling this great contest, some twenty-eight years before the war commenced. This prophecy has been printed and circulated extensively in this and other nations and languages. It pointed out the place where it should commence in South Carolina. That which I declared over the New England States, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and many other parts of the East, when but a boy, came to pass twenty-eight years after the revelation was given. When they were talking about a war commencing down here in Kansas, I told them that was not the place; I also told them that the revelation had designated South Carolina, "and," said I, "you have no need to think that the Kansas war is going to be the war that is to be so terribly destructive in its character and nature. No, it must commence at the place the Lord has designated by revelation"

What did they have to say to me? They thought it was a Mormon humbug, and laughed me to scorn, and they looked upon that revelation as they do upon all others that God has given in these latter days--as without divine authority. But behold and lo! in process of time it came to pass, again establishing the divinity of this work, and giving another proof that God is in this work, and is performing that which he spoke by the mouths of the ancient prophets, as recorded in the Book of Mormon before any Church of Latterday Saints was in existence.

-- J. of D. Vol. 13, p. 135