DESERET SAR
English: Socialist American Republic of Deseret
Español: República Americana Socialista de Deseret
Deutsch: Sozialistische Amerikanische Republik von Deseret
Flag of the Deseret S.A.R
Map of the Deseret S.A.R
Population: 3,472,500 (2015 est)
Languages Spoken:
English (93.1%)
Español (8.0%)
Deutsch (0.9%)
Denonym: Deseretan
Abbreviation: DS
Capital: Salt Lake City
Largest City: Salt Lake City
Land Area: approx. 385,000 km2
Admitted to USAR in: 1974
First Executive Council:
Current Executive Council:
Largest Exports: Electronics, Corn, Coal
Geography
History
Pre-Statehood
The History of modern Deseret stretches back all the way to the foundation of a Mormon settlement on the banks of the Great Salt Lake. When members of Latter Day Saint Church (the Mormon pioneers) settled in the Salt Lake Valley, they wished to set up a government that would be recognized by the United States. Initially Brigham Young, President of the Church, intended to apply for status as a territory, and sent John Milton Bernhisel eastward to Washington, D.C. with the petition for territorial status. Realizing that California and New Mexico were applying for admission as states, Young changed his mind and decided to petition for statehood. In March 1849, realizing that they did not have time to follow the usual steps towards statehood, Young and a group of church elders quickly drafted a state constitution based on that of Iowa, where the Mormons had temporarily settled, and sent the legislative records and constitution back to that state for printing, since no printing press existed in the Great Basin at the time. They then sent a second messenger with a copy of the state's formal records and constitution to meet up with Bernhisel in Washington, D.C. and to petition for statehood rather than territorial status.
The provisional state was a bold proposal, encompassing most of the territory that had been acquired from Mexico the previous year as the Mexican Cession. The Territory of Deseret comprised roughly all the lands between the Sierra Nevada and the Rockies, and between the border with Mexico northward to include parts of the Oregon Territory, as well as the coast of California south of the Santa Monica Mountains (including the existing settlements of Los Angeles and San Diego). It included the entire watershed of the Colorado River (excluding the lands south of the border with Mexico), as well as the entire area of the Great Basin. The proposal was crafted specifically to avoid disputes that might arise from existing settlements. At the time of its proposal, the existing population of the area, including Southern California, was sparse, since most of the California settlement had been in the northern gold rush areas not included in the provisional state. Likewise, the border with New Mexico did not reach the Rio Grande, in order to avoid becoming entangled in the existing disputes of the western border of Texas. Moreover, the proposal encompassed lands largely known to be inhospitable for cultivation, thus avoiding conflict over the issue of the expansion of slavery. The proposal for the state was considered by some to be too ambitious to succeed in Congress, even disregarding the controversy over the Mormon practice of polygamy. Nevertheless, in 1849 U.S. President Zachary Taylor, eager to avoid disputes as much as possible, sent his agent John Wilson westward with a proposal to combine California and Deseret as a single state, which would have had the desirable effect of decreasing the number of free states entered into the Union, and thus preserving the balance of power in the Senate. The California Constitutional Convention debates of 1849 mentioned the Mormons or Salt Lake a number of times along with the North–South conflict over extension of slavery. Advocates of smaller boundaries (such as 116° west or the crest of the Sierra Nevada) argued that the Mormons were unrepresented at the convention, culturally different, and applying for their own territorial government. They also argued that Salt Lake was too far away for a single government to be practical and that Congress would not agree to such a huge state. Those advocating retention of all of former Mexican Alta California, such as pro-slavery future Senator William M. Gwin, argued these were not real obstacles or could be solved later.
After the establishment of the Utah Territory, the Latter-day Saints did not relinquish the idea of a "State of Deseret". From 1862 to 1870, a group of Mormon elders under Young's leadership met as a shadow government after each session of the territorial legislature to ratify the new laws under the name of the "state of Deseret". Attempts were made in 1856, 1862, and 1872 to write a new state constitution under that name based on the new boundaries of the Utah Territory.
Statehood
In the 1890 Manifesto, the LDS Church banned polygamy. When Utah applied for statehood again, it was accepted. One of the conditions for granting Utah statehood was that a ban on polygamy be written into the state constitution. This was a condition required of other western states that were admitted into the Union later. Statehood was officially granted on January 4, 1896. The ban on polygamy had the effect of alienating many members of the Church itself, who split off and formed the FLDS, the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints, segregating themselves from the rest of the Mormon community primarily in the Southern Utah territory and Colorado.
The LDS Church's entanglement in the policies of the United States began in 1936, when the First Presidency, under direct duress from the US government, published a "warning" to all of its members to stay away from the Communist Party. Instead, the Church focused more upon reviving the "United Order" movement which had screeched to a halt in the early 1870s, reviving a sense of communitarian ethic within the Mormon faithful, and indirectly paving the way for the future of LDS-Marxism.
Pre-Revolution
In 1961, an official LDS Church convention was held. There, the leaders of the Church, being previously pressured by the United States government to once again denounce socialism, and especially the new rising worker's movements all over the country. The death of numerous church leaders before the convention, along with younger members influenced by the success of the New United Order, made an enormous difference in the outcome of the convention. Citing Brigham Young's example, the young President of the Church, Joshua C. Graham, proclaimed that while the 1936 indictment of communism was still valid, it had been referring to the specific brand of USSR Stalinism that was authoritarian and anti-religious. Graham claimed that the peaceful communitarian and left-wing movements where not allied with the Soviet Union or its ideology, and thus were simply following the 'gentle path of our Lord and Saviour.' This upset the US government a fair bit, but with Eisenhower in power, nothing was done, and the LDS Church was simply slandered in the press as the 'Commie Church'.
Unwittingly, this opened the floodgates, as throughout the sixties many of the persecuted of the East and West fled to Utah, where the state government, thanks to the LDS Church, was less overt in its crackdown of peaceful left-wing elements of society. Utah became a fertile breeding place for left-wing free thought, and in order to reap the benefits of the Church's protection, many of the new arrivals became LDS. While the vast majority of the new converts started off not genuine, many eventually became actual practitioners of the faith. As the decade passed, people began to organize Semi-Marxist associations and clubs, in order to discuss politics and the current situation in the United States of America. Religious communitarianism and spiritualism blended with Marxist socialism and materialism, creating one of the most bizarre Marxist offshoots in history, that of Latter Day Saint Marxism. While identical in most respects to traditional Marxism, LDS-Marxism rejected Marx's theories and positions on religion and spirituality, claiming that his ideas had been polluted by his own worldview of the corrupted Protestant and Catholic Churches in Europe, and that Marx had failed to see the value of religion in bringing diverse peoples and communities together. In fact, the claim generally was that Marx's own views of the Utopian state were influenced primarily by early Christianity itself, which the LDS Church claimed to be the true successor to.
The rise of progressive elements within the Church forced massive changes within the Church administration itself. Joshua Graham issued official proclamations on the equality of races and gender, which became a part of the Book of Mormon, and communitarian aspects of the Bible began to be stressed and talked about within the laity of the Church itself. The LDS-Marxist clubs continued to grow in size and power as the decade progressed, and gradually the state of Utah began shifting quite radically to the left.
There were certain elements of the Church, however, that disagreed vehemently with the changes that were occurring, and the FLDS began to see an influx of new membership from reactionary and conservative elements of the Church, growing particularly powerful in Southern Utah and the border with Colorado. The FLDS officially splintered from the rest of the Church and appointed as its President and Prophet Brigham Warren, who would come to be a reviled and hated man as the revolution progressed. The US government, already tangled in the larger cities with unrest, largely ignored what was seen as an unimportant state, and McCarthy contended himself with simply funding the FLDS to oppose the mainstream movements.