The challenge is to have the State of Deseret with these borders.
Well, that's almost impossible, but this wiki article says that Zachary Taylor wanted to combine (a presumably cut down) Deseret and California, so cut it down a little, and have Zachary Taylor live, and it's possible.
Unless you make it independent, you'd have to cut it down a lot. That looks about the size of the original thirteen states put together!The challenge is to have the State of Deseret with these borders.
Unless you make it independent, you'd have to cut it down a lot. That looks about the size of the original thirteen states put together!
Utah War happens and Is more violent. Mormons declare independence. US south secedes as OTL and the central government is willing to allow deseret autonomy or even polygamy to get them back in.
Also what would be the effects of a Polygamist semiautonomous Mormon society in that timeline, and how would you envision the Utah War?
How about this? Utah War gets more violent. The US sends enough troops to virtually wipe out the Mormons. By the time they are through there are maybe 100 Mormons left in the area with many of them fleeing to Canada and others leaving the Mormon faith as they feel "God must be against them". Hardly a "nice" way of doing it but possible.
And how would this create a Deseret State?
And how would this create a Deseret State?
I agree, seems more like a scenario plotted out with the explicit intent to be cruel towards the Mormons.
What did the Mormons ever do to you, except to wake you up at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday morning to tell you the good news of the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and how a 19th century farm boy saw-...
On second thought, they are kind of annoying.
Send in the armies! Make them pay for what their descendants will do in 150 years!
Disclaimer: Obviously, I am joking. I love you, Mormons!
(Especially you, Prof. Henry Eyring!)
Not really, like I said it wasn't "nice". However the Mormons weren't exactly popular at the time so handing over such a huge area is far fetched. Getting rid of them gets rid of that "problem". I don't have any particular problems with Mormons but the people of that time period did and that has to be taken into account. Remember this, as late as 1887 "A Study in Scarlet" was written where Sherlock Holmes first case involves "Evil Mormons" who force a woman into marrying one of them presumably raping her and she dies some time later. Although it was controversial and Doyle seems to regret it some time later it was a popular story partly because that is what a lot of people thought about Mormons at the time. To a lot of people it wasn't too far fetched.
Not really, like I said it wasn't "nice". However the Mormons weren't exactly popular at the time so handing over such a huge area is far fetched. Getting rid of them gets rid of that "problem". I don't have any particular problems with Mormons but the people of that time period did and that has to be taken into account. Remember this, as late as 1887 "A Study in Scarlet" was written where Sherlock Holmes first case involves "Evil Mormons" who force a woman into marrying one of them presumably raping her and she dies some time later. Although it was controversial and Doyle seems to regret it some time later it was a popular story partly because that is what a lot of people thought about Mormons at the time. To a lot of people it wasn't too far fetched.
The point would be that without the Mormons why would it be called Deseret?
I thought you meant the area not the name itself.
No, the area really doesn't matter without the name. The only people who proposed it were the Mormons.
I'm surprised MormonMobster hasn't jumped into this thread, he's usually very efficient at sorting these things out.
Putting that aside, regarding the idea suggested above of Taylor living... it simply won't work out. Taylor's presidency was weak, the real power lay in the Senate at the time. At best you'll see Taylor vetoing some sort of southern-favoring compromise in 1850, and a more moderate won appearing in 1851. You're highly unlikely to get Deseret out of that POD.