Brigham explains slave law in Utah.
Brigham Young, Speech, January 5, 1852, Governor's Office Files, Church History Library
It is unnecessary perhaps for me to indicate the true policies for Utah in regard to slavery. Restrictions of laws and government made all servants, but layman, flesh to be dealt in property is not consistent or compatible with the true principles of Government. My own feelings are that no property can or should be recognized as existing in slaves either Indian or African. No person can purchase them without their becoming as free, so far as natural rights are concerned as persons of every other color, under the present low and degraded situation of the Indian. so long as the practice of gambling away, selling, and otherwise disposing of their children: as also sacrificing prisoners obtains among them, it seems indeed that any transfer would be to them a relief and a benefit. Many a life by this means is saved: many a child redeemed from the thraldom of savage barbarity, and placed upon an equal footing with the more favored portions of the human race. If in return for favors and expense which may have been incurred on their account, service should be considered due, it would become necessary that some law should provide the suitable regulations under which all such indebtedness should be defrayed. This may be said to present a new feature in the traffic of human beings; it is essentially purchasing them into freedom, instead of slavery.