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Show 59 earthly power, and now they naturally concluded that 'the long-expected blessed day* had arrived, when they beheld on the one side of the mountains the national army advancing to their homes, and on the other side the Prophet with the armies of Israel determined to dispute their entrance into the valleys."33 But despite their hostile stand toward the government, the Mormons in no way considered themselves to be rebels. In fact, they vehemently denied it. It was not the Mormons who had cut the thread; it was the United States. When the government declared war on a peaceful segment of its own society, it had effectually broke the bands of union between them, according to the Mormon point of view. It was no flaw in the constitution that precipitated the separation; it was the wicked administrators of the law who had perverted the constitution. "It is a pretty bold stand for this people to take," declared the prophet, to say that this people will not be controlled by the corrupt administrators of our General Government. We will be controlled by them, if they will be controlled by the Constitution and laws; but they will not.... I do not lift my voice against the great and glorious Government guaranteed to every citizen by our Constitution, but against those corrupt adminstrators who trample the Constitution and Just laws under their reet,... And now to come out in open opposition to their cursed, corrupt practices, will of course be counted treason. But let me tell you that the real, actual treason is committed in Washington, by the administrators of our Government sending an army to take the lives of innocent citizens.3*1 The Mormons were not so much declaring their independence from the United States as they were announcing that independence was occurring. By the actions of the government, the liberation of the kingdom was inevitable, if |