Proposed concept as territory, then state When members of
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (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 establish a government that would be recognized by the United States. Initially, second LDS
Church president Brigham Young intended to apply for status as a
territory and sent
John Milton Bernhisel to
Washington, D.C. with a petition for territorial status. Realizing that
California and
New Mexico were applying for admission as states, Young changed his mind and decided to petition for statehood. Realizing that they did not have time to follow the usual steps toward 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, a state through which the Mormons had passed, with some having temporarily settled there. The
bicameral state legislature had 17 senators in its upper chamber and 35 representatives, in the lower chamber, all free white male citizens.
Geography of the proposed state . 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 of the lands between the mountain ranges of the
Sierra Nevada in the west and the
Rockies to the east, and between the initial southern border with Mexico and 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 southern 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 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, areas not included in the provisional state. The border with
New Mexico did not reach the
Rio Grande, an intentional decision to avoid becoming entangled in the disputes of the western and northwestern borders of
Texas after the former
Republic of Texas was admitted as the 28th state in
1846. Deseret 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. As the proposal encompassed lands largely considered inhospitable for cultivation, it was hoped that Deseret 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, social and economic conflict over the extension of
slavery into the
western territories of the
United States. Advocates of smaller boundaries 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 to apply for their own territorial government to be formed further to the east. They also argued that the
Great Salt Lake was too distant for a single territorial or state government to be practical and that Congress would not agree to such a large state (after the controversy over boundaries five years earlier with the admission of the
Republic of Texas as the 28th state in
1846). California delegates advocated 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 Mexico's northwestern territories in the peace treaty following the defeat in the
Mexican–American War of
1846—
1849. 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, 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 to settle the slavery question throughout the vast territory acquired from Mexico. However, the newly elected first
governor of California,
Peter H. Burnett, rejected the proposal on the basis that the community in the
Great Salt Lake area was too far east beyond the Sierra Nevada mountains and
Great Basin Desert (in future
Nevada) to combine under a single western government, even temporarily. On September 9, 1850, as part of the negotiated
Compromise of 1850, the new
Utah Territory was created by an act of
Congress, encompassing a portion of the northern section of the earlier proposed state of Deseret. The slavery question would be decided by a voting referendum of the territory's residents. 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 American political state based on the religious tenets of
Mormonism began to weaken, especially after the advent of the transcontinental railroad, which made the territory available to many non-Mormon settlers, particularly in the western areas of the territory. Young and the church leaders supported the massive construction project of the east–west railroad, even reassigning workers from the monumental
Salt Lake Temple to work on the
Central Pacific Railroad heading east from the Pacific Ocean to the Rocky Mountains to link 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==