Purse Strings Quotes
See {617208} his grandfather’s related statement.
While this is a common complaint in the American political dialogue at the beginning of the 21st century, it is interesting that this was the conclusion of a foreign political scholar studying that period—one who was generally a great admirer of America.
The use of “despotic” did not imply cruelty or even poor management of the society. The term was used to indicate that Brigham Young, the then Mormon Leader, had the powers and authority of a dictator. At the time most Americans in the East knew little about the Mormons. Ludlow was one of the early observers of Mormon society in Utah who wrote about the Mormons in popular—albeit intellectual—magazines. Ludlow regarded Mormonism as it was then practiced as incompatible with, and dangerous for, America, not because of the plural marriage, but the conflicts with the concepts of democracy and self-government. The authority that Brigham Young and the church then exercised over civil life was what distressed him and many other Americans.
