It was my pleasure a few months since to have a conversation with Mr. Cooper of Dubuque, Iowa, one of the manufacturers of the famous Cooper wagons, in which he stated that, on the very day the Prophets Joseph and Hyrum were martyred, he, being then a deck hand on a Mississippi steamer, on arriving at the wharf at Nauvoo with his companions, were afraid of their lives, by reason of what had happened and the rumors afloat. We spoke of those Nauvoo days, and I found he was very conversant with conditions on the Mississippi River at that time, as he has been since, and his testimony to me was that those charges against the morality and uprightness of the Mormon people were totally false, that, in fact, the people were driven out of that State by reason of religious intolerance. In like fashion, after coming here, untruthful charges were made, resulting in repressive laws being formulated against us. At one time, we were practically deprived of the right of trial by jury. Congress, led by aspersions falsely made against our characters, spurred by malicious statements that came from here, enacted a law that the district clerk and the probate judge should have the selection of all jurors, in violation of the right of jury trial, as it is known among the Anglo-Saxon race, under conditions as they existed here. There came an army against us, sent out as a result of lying statements made by a mail contractor, who had an axe to grind; absolutely without any justification for such action by the government. And so, throughout the whole breadth and length of our history, we have been the objects of bitter slander, misrepresentation, vile abuse, and persecution to a large extent.

And have we returned this character of treatment? I would ask anyone to point to any law passed in the legislative history of this people and this state wherein we have returned injustice for injustice, or persecution for persecution. Away back in the early days of the history of this Territory when our people were in the majority, when there were very few non-"Mormons," in fact, when we made all the laws, and the whole public sentiment was our way, there was not passed, and there is not to be found in the statutes of the Territory of Utah, one law that in any way discriminated against those who were not of our faith and in favor of our co-religionists. There has never been any intolerance toward such as were not of our faith or belief. So far as religion is concerned, they have even been encouraged; they have at least been treated with perfect toleration; and their schools have not been molested. It is possible that occasionally windows of their churches have been broken, by mischievous urchins, but I doubt if this has happened more frequently than with the meeting-houses of our own people. Outside of such trivialities as this, non"Mormons" have been treated with a true spirit of charity. So far as political rights are concerned, consider those who in olden days made fierce attacks against us, with vituperation and determination, some of them unscrupulously--since the division upon party lines was made, what has been the treatment of those men? They have been given many of the chief political positions within the gift of the "Mormon" people. Thus have we returned good for evil; and I desire to say that, in the whole line of our ministrations, politically, morally, and every other way, we have accorded those not of our faith fair, just and square treatment. We do believe, then, my brothers and sisters, in the perfect law of liberty, and our lives prove it.

We demand for ourselves the right to worship God as we see fit, as guaranteed by the Constitution. This sentiment is a fundamental characteristic of Mormonism; and it is to our credit and honor that we have always been willing to extend this privilege to others, and defend their right thereto, though very often we have been made the objects of intolerance and vituperation.