By CHRISTOPHER B. RICH, JR.
O
n February 4, 1852, the first annual session of the Utah Territorial Legislature passed a law entitled "An Act in Relation to Service." Although this statute was little noted outside of Utah, it quietly took part in a dispute which was nudging the United States ever closer toward a bloody civil war. Less than two years earlier, Congress had formally organized the Mormon communities of the Great Basin into a territory under the principle of "Popular Sovereignty."1 Significantly, this permitted the Utah legislature to decide whether or not Utah would allow African slavery within her borders without interference from Washington. Over the years, many histor ians have asserted that after receiving this new authority, Photograph of Green Flake, who the Utah Legislature drafted "An Act in was born a slave and came to Relation to Service" in order to legalize slavery Utah in 1847. The author received a B.A. in history from Brigham Young University and a J.D. from the University of Virginia. He is currently serving in the U.S. Army JAG Corps. This article is the author’s personal work and in no way represents the official position of the United States Army or the JAG Corps. 1 Popular sovereignty generally refers to the proposition that the people are the ultimate sovereigns of a nation, and it is therefore the basis of American republicanism. However, in the mid-nineteenth century, Senators Lewis Cass and Stephen Douglas formulated a policy for territorial self-governance (particularly in regard to slavery) which was also known as "Popular Sovereignty." 2 See, Nathaniel R. Ricks, “A Peculiar Place for a Peculiar Institution: Slavery and Sovereignty in Early Territorial Utah ( Master’s Thesis, Brigham Young University, 2007); Dennis L. Lythgoe, “Negro Slavery in Utah,” Utah Historical Quarterly 39 (Winter 1971): 40-54; Newell C. Bringhurst, Saints, Slaves, and Blacks: The Changing Place of Black People Within Mormonism (Westport, CN.: Greenwood Press, 1981).
54
UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
The True Policy for Utah: Servitude, Slavery, and “An Act in Relation to Service”