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Show Page 197 philosophically. His license was to "preside and also to write and publish ...illustrative of the principles and doctrines of the Church."19 Orson required three weeks only to prepare for the eastward journey, and on September 21 was already on his way through Echo Canyon. Accompanying him were Orson Spencer and William Clayton; as chief apostle, Orson was elected leader of the eastering camp at Black's Fork. By November the party were on the Missouri en route to St. Louis, where Orson paused to lecture on plural marriage at the Concert Hall,22nd within the month Orson had arrived in Washington and established a printing office. To the Millennial Star he wrote: "We expect to establish a book Agency. We shall publish a monthly periodical which will be entitled THE SEER... In this advanced state of the Church, there are many doctrines, highly important, but partially understood, which we hope more fully to develop; among which may be mentioned the doctrine of patriarchal or celestial marriage...the sealing of the marriage covenant for time and for all eternity...We also...have in manuscript...a treatise entitled CELESTIAL MARRIAGE or the PEOELING OF WORLDS..." 21 The capital city flurried with change. The Whigs were out, the Democrats were in, and an ephemeral "hero" of the Mexican War named Franklin Pierce was about to be sworn in as chief executive. Utah's delegate to Congress, Dr. John Bernhisel, invited Orson along to the inaugural ceremonies, which took place March 4, 1853, and to an evening "levee" at' the White House, where Orson, presumably, for the second time shook the hand of a President of the United States. Pierce, they discovered, was not deeply interested in the Mormon question, but Orson and his fellows were gratified at the President's appointments to Utah - for the most part competent and unprejudiced. The Mormons were to have 22 no real friction with Pierce. Washington did not rise to Orson's challenges. A sleepy Southern --:«-,, nroncninied with parties and protocol, the capital yielded no conversions |