155 years ago today - 155 years ago - Oct 6, 1863

Brigham Young prophesies to general conference: "Will the present struggle [of the U.S. Civil War] free the slave? No ... and men will be called to judgment for the way they have treated the negro." U.S. president Abraham Lincoln has already signed on 20 June 1862 the law which prohibits slavery in all federal territories, and this emancipates the few dozen slaves in Utah. On 1 Jan. 1863 Lincoln has also issued his proclamation which emancipated all slaves in the Confederacy but does not free slaves in Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri. The 13th Amendment legally ends slavery everywhere in the United States in 1865. ...

There are some of the sealing ordinances that cannot be administered in the house [Endowment House] that we are now using; we can only administer in it some of the first ordinances of the Priesthood pertaining to the endowment. There are more advanced ordinances that cannot be administered there; we would, therefore, like a Temple, but I am willing to wait a few years for it. I want to see the Temple built in a manner that it will endure through the Millennium. This is not the only Temple we shall build; There will be hundreds of them built and dedicated to the Lord. This Temple [in Salt Lake City] will be known as the first Temple built in the mountains by the Latter-day Saints. And when the Millennium is over, and all the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, down to the last of their posterity, who come within the reach of the clemency of the Gospel, have been redeemed in hundreds of Temples through the administration of their children as proxies for them, I want that Temple still to stand as a proud monument of the faith, perseverance and industry of the Saints of God in the mountains, in the nineteenth century.

[Brigham Young, Oct. 6, 1863 , Journal of Discourses, 10:251]

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