The Lincoln Myth(87)
Sons owed their father obedience.
“I’ll do what you say,” he mouthed. “I promise. We’ll all do exactly what you say.”
FIFTY
7:30 A.M.
ROWAN STEPPED FROM THE CAB AT 9900 STONEYBROOK DRIVE and paid the driver. Four colleagues waited for him, each representing one of the four congressional districts within Utah. He was the fifth representative, in the Senate. The sixth congressmen, his fellow senator, was not part of the plan, as that man’s election six years ago had been a fluke. All five men were Saints, and he was the senior member for both the delegation and the church. He wore an overcoat buttoned tight, but the brittle dawn air was more invigorating than uncomfortable. He’d called the meeting by an email sent out in the early-morning hours after he returned from the Library of Congress.
They stood before the Washington, D.C., temple, a soaring edifice sheathed in Alabama white marble, topped by six golden spires. It stood ten miles north of the U.S. Capitol. Its distinctive shape and size, centered within fifty-two wooded acres, had become a landmark along the Capital Beltway, easily spotted from the air in the Maryland countryside each time he flew in and out of Reagan National.
They exchanged greetings and walked toward a reflection pond and fountain that adorned the main entrance. He’d chosen this locale since he knew that no one would be here this early on a Friday morning. The building itself was locked. Which was fine. They would talk outside, with the house of the Lord in sight, so all of the prophets could hear. Both the House and Senate met today, but roll call was not for another two hours.
“We’re almost there,” he told them, controlling his excitement. “It’s finally happening. I need to know that we’re ready in Salt Lake.”
“I checked,” the 4th District representative said. “The count hasn’t changed. We have 95 of 104 votes, between the state House and Senate, solid for secession.”
What was about to happen had to be done with precision. Utah would be the test case, whose aim would be to overturn the 1869 legal precedent Texas v. White. The battle would be fought entirely in the U.S. Supreme Court, and the last thing he wanted was for some minor procedural error to derail the attack. This fight was about a state leaving the union , not whether a vote here or there had been properly taken.
“And the governor? Is he still okay?”
“Absolutely,” the man from the 2nd District made clear. “He and I have discussed it at length. He’s as fed up as we are.”
He knew what that meant. Reformism did not work. Elections offered no real choices, and third-party alternatives had no chance to succeed. Revolt? Revolution? The federal government would crush either. The only logical way to effect a lasting change was secession. That route offered the most direct path for a state to regain some semblance of control over its destiny. It was nonviolent—a peaceable rejection of policies and practices deemed unacceptable—fitting to the American way. After all, that was precisely what the Founding Fathers had done to England.
He stared up at the grand temple.
One hundred and sixty thousand square feet under the roof. Six ordinance rooms. Fourteen sealing rooms. Its white exterior symbolized purity and enlightenment. Some of the stone had been shaved to just over half an inch thick, which allowed the glow of sunlight to pass through to the interior at certain times of the day.
He loved it here.
“A bill has already been drafted, ready for the state legislature,” another of the congressmen said, “that will call for Utah’s withdrawal from the union and an immediate referendum from the people of Utah affirming the act. There’ll be opposition, but the overwhelming majority in the legislature will vote for it.”
And its terms would be reasonable.
The act of secession would recognize that there were federal properties within the state for which there would need to be reimbursement, most prominent of which were the massive federal land-holdings. Some citizens of Utah might not want to be a part of the new nation, so allowances for them to leave would be made, perhaps even compensation offered for any personal or property losses they would suffer. The same would be true of corporations and businesses, though the new nation of Deseret would offer an environment far more friendly to them than did the United States. Some arrangement for repaying Utah’s portion of the national debt—up to the date of secession—would also be detailed, but that would be countered by a credit for Utah’s portion of the remaining federal assets spread across the other forty-nine states. His team had studied this ratio and discovered that assets outweighed debt and Utah might actually be entitled to a claim on assets, which would be waived, of course, provided the federal government relinquished its claim on all assets in Utah. To solidify it all, the referendum would pronounce in no uncertain terms what a majority of the people in the state of Utah wanted.