By RONALD G. WATT
S
peeches, sermons, or addresses are some excellent sources for historians who write biographies or who write about groups of people in a place and time. Often in the United States in the nineteenth century one could find summaries of speeches and sermons in newspapers. For historians researching Brigham Young and other early Utah Mormon church leaders, many of their complete sermons and speeches can be found in a multi-volume publication called the Journal of Discourses. For example, Mormon church apostle George A. Smith delivered a Sunday sermon in the old bowery in July 1856 wherein he was critical of the corruption rampant among members of Congress he witnessed during a visit to Congress the previous year. “It was the principle and almost the only business of every man there to invent some scheme, or find some means or contrivance to make a draw on the treasury.”1 When one wants to discover how Brigham Young felt about soldiers coming to Utah in 1857, a good source for his public stated views can be read in a talk given in the bowery in Salt Lake City on September 13, 1857, which was then published in the Journal of Discourses.Young said, “We have borne enough of their oppression and hellish abuse and we will not bear any more of it….I am not George D. Watt
Ronald G.Watt is a senior archivist at the LDS Church Historical Department. 1 Journal of Discourses Delivered by Brigham Young, His Two Counsellors,The Twelve Apostles and others. 26 Vol.s. (Liverpool, England: Franklin D. Richards and others, 1853-1886), 5: 60-63.
134
UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
The Beginnings of The Journal of Discourses: A Confrontation Between George D. Watt and Willard Richards