The battle for the Promised Land. Mormons’ attempts to create a theocratic state in the American West

Abstract

Western colonization played a huge role in the formation of the American state. The development of a border strip of vacant land in the interior of the country, called the “frontier”, had created a kind of socio-cultural environment, different from the habitable and civilized Northeast. A specific feature of the social evolution of the West was the attempt by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (briefly called Mormons) to create the theocratic state of Deseret in the second half of the 19^th century. In a vast territory, stretching from Western Colorado to the southern coast of California, they wanted to establish a socio-political order that combined the foundations of theocratic government with traditional Republican-democratic principles provided by the US Constitution. In practice this meant giving clerical and secular authorities to church elders who through the prism of religious beliefs influenced the way of their flock lives. And since citizenship in the newly formed state was granted exclusively to Mormons, there were their parishioners who massively elected to the institutions of state power. The Mormon’s faith, incompatible with the principal U.S. denominations, had long prevented its integration into American society. However, the Mormon spiritual heritage contributed to the maintenance of a stable myth among Americans about the possibility of alternative development of individual regions.