State of Deseret

Not to be confused with Deseret Nation.

State of Deseret 𐐝𐐻𐐩𐐻 𐐲𐑂 𐐔𐐯𐑅𐐨𐑉𐐯𐐻 (Deseret alphabet)
1849–1850
Flags of the State of Deseret
The boundaries of the provisional State of Deseret (orange with black outline) as proposed in 1849. Modern state boundaries are underlaid for reference.
Status	Unrecognized state
Capital	Great Salt Lake City
Common languages	English Deseret Alphabet (limited)
Religion	The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Government	Theodemocracy
• Governor	Brigham Young
• Lieutenant Governor	Heber C. Kimball
History
• Established	1849
• Disestablished	1850
Preceded by Succeeded by Centralist Republic of Mexico Utah Territory
Today part of	United States Arizona California Colorado Idaho Nevada New Mexico Oregon Utah Wyoming

The State of Deseret (modern pronunciation /ˌdɛzəˈrɛt/ DEZ-ə-RET, contemporaneously /dɛsiːrɛt/ dess-ee-ret, as recorded in the Deseret Alphabet spelling 𐐔𐐯𐑅𐐨𐑉𐐯𐐻) was a proposed state of the United States, promoted by leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) who had founded settlements in what is today the state of Utah. A provisional state government operated for nearly two years in 1849–50, but was never recognized by the United States government. The name Deseret derives from the word for "honeybee" in the Book of Mormon.

History

Proposed concept as territory, then state

When members of the LDS Church (the Mormon pioneers) settled in the Salt Lake Valley near the Great Salt Lake in 1847 (then part of the Centralist Republic of Mexico), they wished to set up a government that would be recognized by their home country back east of the United States.

Initially, second L.D.S. church president Brigham Young (1801–1877, served 1847–1877), intended to apply for status as a territory, and sent John Milton Bernhisel (1799–1881), to the national capital at Washington, D.C., with the petition for territorial status. Realizing that California and New Mexico were applying for admission as states, President Young changed his mind and decided to petition for statehood.

Realizing that they did not have time to follow the usual steps towards statehood, Young and a group of church elders formed a convention in the capital town of Salt Lake City, where they quickly drafted and adopted a state constitution on March 6, 1849. It was based on that of Iowa, where the Mormons had passed through and some had temporarily settled. The bicameral state legislature had 17 senators in its upper chamber and 35 representatives, in the lower chamber, all free white male citizens. The state government also had an elected governor, a lieutenant governor, and a supreme court with judges / justices. The state constitution was silent however on the burning political / social / economic issue ripping the nation apart in the 1850s on the matter of slavery. The state constitution went into effect on May 10.

They sent the legislative records and constitution back east to Iowa for printing, because no printing press existed in the Great Basin at the time. They then sent a second messenger with a copy of the state's formal records and constitution to meet up with Bernhisel in Washington, D.C., and to petition for statehood rather than territorial status.

Geography of the proposed state

The Deseret Stone used in the construction of the Washington Monument. The stone was donated by the territory in 1853 to represent the provisional state.

The provisional state encompassed most of the territory that had been acquired from Mexico the previous year as the Mexican Cession.

The Territory of Deseret would have comprised roughly all the lands between the mountain ranges of the Sierra Nevada in the west and the Rockies to the east, and between the first laid out southern border with Mexico and then northward to include parts of the Oregon Territory, (recently split along the 49th parallel of latitude by treaty with the British further north in western Canada), as well as the coast of northern California south of the Santa Monica Mountains (including the existing settlements / missions and pueblos of Los Angeles and San Diego). This included the entire watershed of the upper Colorado River (excluding the lands south of the 1854 new second border with Mexico), after the borderline Gadsden Purchase of 1854, as well as the entire area of the central Great Basin. The proposal encompassed nearly all of present-day Utah and Nevada, large portions of eastern California along with Arizona, and parts of western Colorado and New Mexico, southern Wyoming and Idaho, along with southeastern Oregon.

The proposal was crafted specifically to avoid disputes that might arise from existing settlements of white Euro-Americans. At the time of its proposal, the existing population of the Deseret area, including Southern California, was sparse, since most of the California settlement had been in the northern California gold rush areas of 1848 - 1849 around San Francisco Bay and Sacramento not included in the provisional state. Likewise, the border with New Mexico did not reach the Rio Grande, in order to avoid becoming entangled in the existing disputes of the western and northwestern borders of Texas after the old expansive Republic of Texas was admitted as the 28th state in 1846. Deseret state also avoided encroaching on the fertile Willamette Valley further north in western Oregon, which had been heavily traveled and settled by legions of wagon trains since the 1840s with the famous Oregon Trail. Planners utilized "a map drawn by cartographer Charles Preuss (1803-1854), and published by order of the United States Senate in 1848." This map was drawn by Preuss, based on survey data from famous military officer and Western explorer John C. Frémont (1813–1890), and published in 1848.

The Beehive symbol often associated with Deseret.

Since the proposal encompassed lands largely considered inhospitable for cultivation, it was hoped that it might avoid conflict over the issue of the expansion of slavery. Its size would make it easier to preserve the balance of power in the Senate, by decreasing the number of free states entered into the Union. However, the proposal for the state was seen as too ambitious to succeed in Congress, even setting aside controversy over the Mormons and the rumored but not yet publicly acknowledged practice of polygamy.

Political context for creation of Utah Territory

The California Constitutional Convention debates of 1849 in Monterey, California, mentioned the Mormons or Salt Lake a number of times along with the continuing and intensifying North–South political and social / economic conflict over the extension of slavery into the western territories of the United States.. Advocates of smaller boundaries to be laid out for the new 31st state to the east (such as the longitude meridian line of 116° west or the crest of the Sierra Nevada range of the western Rocky Mountains) argued that the Mormons were unrepresented at the constitutional convention, culturally different, and apparently planning themselves to be applying for their own territorial government to be formed further to the east They also argued that the Great Salt Lake was too far away for a single territorial or state government to be practical and that the American Congress would not agree to such a second huge state (after the experience, controversy and debates about boundaries of five years earlier with the admission of the Republic of Texas as the 28th state of the American Union in 1846). Those delegates for California advocating retention of all of the Centralist Republic of Mexico's former province along the Pacific Ocean coast of Alta California (Upper California), from the Mexican Cession of their northwestern territories in the negotiated peace treaty following the defeat in the Mexican–American War of 1846 - 1849 recently concluded. It resulted in extensive lands acquired in the current Southwestern United States.

With congressional action regarding Upper California's boundaries and status soon approaching, the provisional government to the east of Deseret sent Mormon apostle Amasa Lyman (1813–1877), and John Wilson, a federal Indian agent in California, as a delegation to the interim government of California, then situated in the temporary capital of the coastal ocean town of Monterey. The delegates sought to call a new statehood constitutional convention and include Deseret in the new state so as to settle the slavery question throughout the vast territory acquired from Mexico. However, the newly elected first Governor of California, Peter H. Burnett (1807–1895, served 1849–1851), rejected the proposal on the basis that the community in the Great Salt Lake area was too far away to the east beyond the Sierra Nevada mountains and Great Basin Desert (in future Nevada) to combine under a single western government even temporarily.

The Utah Territory is shown in blue, while the proposed State of Deseret is outlined by the dotted line. Modern state boundaries underlaid for reference.

On September 9, 1850, as part of the negotiated Compromise of 1850, in Congress in Washington, D.C., that the new Utah Territory was created by Act of Congress, encompassing a portion of the northern section of the earlier proposed state Deseret. The Representatives and Senators in the Congress decided that the question of whether slavery would be allowed in the newly erected territory would be decided by voting referendum of the territory's residents.

Lingering impact after territorial incorporation

The Beehive symbol used on Utah's state route shield.

On February 3, 1851, Brigham Young was inaugurated as the first governor of the Utah Territory. On April 4, 1851, the General Assembly of Deseret passed a resolution to dissolve the state. On October 4, 1851, the Utah territorial legislature voted to re-enact the laws and ordinances of the state of Deseret.

After the establishment of the Utah Territory, the Latter-day Saints did not relinquish the idea of a "State of Deseret". From 1862 to 1870, a group of Mormon elders under Young's leadership met as a shadow government after each session of the territorial legislature to ratify the new laws under the name of the "state of Deseret". Attempts were made in 1856, 1862, and 1872 to write a new state constitution under that name, based on the new boundaries of the Utah Territory.

The idea of creating a secular political state in the American Union based on the religious tenets of Mormonism began to fade away, especially after the coming of the trans-continental railroad, which opened up the territory to many non-Mormon settlers of other religious faiths, particularly in the western areas of the territory. Church President and first governor of the Territory, Brigham Young and the LDS Church leaders / bishops supported the massive construction project of the east–west railroad, even taking members that were working on the landmark monumental Salt Lake Temple and even helping by reassigning them to work on the Central Pacific Railroad heading east from the Pacific Ocean coast and Sacramento, California to the Rocky Mountains to link up with the Union Pacific Railroad driving westward from Missouri and Nebraska. The legendary driving of the famous golden spike just 66 miles northeast from the Great Salt Lake, completed the first transcontinental railroad across North America at Promontory Summit in the Utah Territory in May 1869, two decades after its establishment.

Government

Prior to the establishment of Utah Territory, in the absence of other authority, the provisional government of Deseret became the de facto government of the Great Basin. Three sessions of its General Assembly, a bicameral state legislature, were held. In 1850, the legislature appointed judges and established a criminal code. Taxes were established on property, and liquor and gambling were outlawed. The LDS Church was incorporated and a militia, based on the earlier Nauvoo Legion (from Nauvoo, Illinois where the Mormon pilgrims were formerly centered) was formed.

The legislature initially formed six counties, which covered only inhabited valleys. These "valley counties" initially encompassed only a small portion of the area of Deseret and were expanded as settlement grew.

Flags

According to most descriptions, the Deseret flag was similar to the historic Utah state flag. However, it was not standardized, and multiple other secular and religious alternatives were also used. Variants similar to the US Flag were also reported.

• 
  A modern attempt to recreate an unofficial flag used by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Based on an 1877 description by Don Maguire
• 
  Deseret Flag as depicted by the flag atop Ensign Peak and created by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
• 
  Remake of one of the flags that flew in Pikes Peak Colorado during the Pioneer Day Celebration, on July 24, 1856
• 
  This is recreation of a flag that flew on top of Livingston, Kinkead & Co building in Salt Lake City, on July 4th, 1855
• 
  Reconstruction of a flag, as described in contemporary newspapers

Deseret in fiction

• In Ward Moore's 1953 Alternate history novel Bring the Jubilee, set in an alternate timeline reality where the Confederacy won the U.S. Civil War and the United States in the North became a corrupt and dysfunctional rump state, Deseret is mentioned as being the only prosperous state in the Union's Far West (where polygamy is still practiced).
• In the Car Wars board game first published in 1980 (and fiction set in its near-future alternate universe), Utah secedes from the U.S. under the name the Republic of Deseret in the aftermath of a second Civil War, but eventually agrees to rejoin as an "autonomous region". More specific details are provided in Volume Seven: Mountain West of The AADA Road Atlas and Survival Guide. According to the Car Wars Sixth Edition first published in 2020, this will happen in 2065.
• In Harry Turtledove's Southern Victory series of post-Civil War alternate fiction books, published 1997 to 2007, the Mormons of Utah attempt to secede from the United States as Deseret during the supposed Second Mexican War and the First and Second Great Wars. This results in the LDS Church being banned by that futuristic U.S. government.
• In Paradox Interactive's grand strategy game Victoria II, as well as its sequel, Victoria 3, Deseret is a formable nation which may gain independence from Mexico or the United States.
• In Francis Spufford's 2023 alternative history novel Cahokia Jazz, Deseret is an independent republic, negotiating for admission to the Union in the slightly different 1920s.

See also

• Council of Fifty
• Deseret Alphabet
• Deseret News Publishing Company
• Deseret Book Company
• Deseret News
• Deseret Ranches
• Territories of the United States
• Territorial evolution of the United States
• List of United States territories that failed to become states
• Mormon colonies in Mexico
• Mormon Corridor
• Theodemocracy
• Utah War (1857–1858)

Works cited

• Allen, James B. and Leonard, Glen M. The Story of the Latter-day Saints. Deseret Book Co., Salt Lake City, UT, 1976. ISBN 0-87747-594-6.
• Crawley, Peter (Fall 1989). "The Constitution of the State of Deseret". BYU Studies. 29 (4): 7–22. JSTOR 43041402.
• Leonard, Glen M. (1992), "The Mormon Boundary Question in the 1849–50 Statehood Debates", Journal of Mormon History, 18 (1): 114–136, archived from the original on April 14, 2012.
• 4th of July "CELEBRATION OF THE ANNIVERSARY OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE, AT GREAT SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH TERRITORY" Historical Department journal history of the Church 1855 July-September, LDS archives. Page 15
• "PIKE'S PEAK" Historical Department journal history of the Church 1856 May-September, LDS archives. Page 409

Further reading

• (1994) "Coins and Currency" article in the Utah History Encyclopedia. The article was written by Leonard J. Arrington and the Encyclopedia was published by the University of Utah Press. ISBN 9780874804256. Archived from the original on March 21, 2024, and retrieved on April 12, 2024.
• (1994) "Deseret" article in the Utah History Encyclopedia. The article was written by Richard D. Poll and the Encyclopedia was published by the University of Utah Press. ISBN 9780874804256. Archived from the original on March 21, 2024, and retrieved on April 16, 2024.
• (1994) "Statehood for Utah" article in the Utah History Encyclopedia. The article was written by Edward Leo Lyman and the Encyclopedia was published by the University of Utah Press. ISBN 9780874804256. Archived from the original on April 2, 2024, and retrieved on April 12, 2024.

External links

• 1849 Constitution of the State of Deseret (PDF scans of 1849 printing)
• State of Nevada: Utah Territory
• Struggle For Statehood Chronology Archived September 23, 2006, at the Wayback Machine Compiled by Linda Thatcher