Unpopular sovereignty : Mormons and the federal management of early Utah Territory / Brent M. Rogers.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Charles Redd Center Phi Alpha Theta Book Award for the Best Book on the American West
2018 Francis Armstrong Madsen Best Book Award from the Utah State Historical Society
2018 Best First Book Award from the Mormon History Association

Newly created territories in antebellum America were designed to be extensions of national sovereignty and jurisdiction. Utah Territory, however, was a deeply contested space in which a cohesive settler group--the Mormons--sought to establish their own "popular sovereignty," raising the question of who possessed and could exercise governing, legal, social, and even cultural power in a newly acquired territory.

In Unpopular Sovereignty , Brent M. Rogers invokes the case of popular sovereignty in Utah as an important contrast to the better-known slavery question in Kansas. Rogers examines the complex relationship between sovereignty and territory along three main lines of inquiry: the implementation of a republican form of government, the administration of Indian policy and Native American affairs, and gender and familial relations--all of which played an important role in the national perception of the Mormons' ability to self-govern. Utah's status as a federal territory drew it into larger conversations about popular sovereignty and the expansion of federal power in the West. Ultimately, Rogers argues, managing sovereignty in Utah proved to have explosive and far-reaching consequences for the nation as a whole as it teetered on the brink of disunion and civil war.

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CHOICE Review

During the summer of 1857, President James Buchanan sent 2,500 US Army soldiers to the Utah Territory to establish unambiguous federal authority throughout the Great Basin region. In addition to the soldiers' deployment, a new governor was assigned to the territory, as were other executive and judicial officials. It was intended that henceforth, local laws previously established through Mormon authority would be subject to veto by these federal representatives. Brigham Young and other leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints resisted the advance of these troops in what became known as the Mormon War. In this tumultuous era, when Americans were growing more divided over the issues of sectionalism and slavery expansion, the issue of States' Rights guided much of the national debate. Although a majority of southern whites supported the principles of limiting federal power and strengthening state sovereignty, they supported this military operation to corral a perceived sense of Mormon independence. This excellent interpretation of the causes and results of the Mormon War is presented within the larger context of national events, which, in turn, led to the American Civil War. For all adult readers and researchers. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. --Michael L. Tate, University of Nebraska at Omaha