People's Party (Utah)

In fact, the initial slate of candidates for the 1870 Salt Lake City election was approved on February 9 by citizens who had swarmed into the first meeting of Liberals in order to hijack and disrupt it.

Historian Ronald W. Walker states that the party's name was selected to combat the notion that Brigham Young, himself not an elected official since 1857, was a tyrant.

The People's Party, as the name intentionally suggested, claimed to speak for the Latter-day Saints, vast majority of citizens, in Utah Territory.

Most non-Latter-day saints in the territory were men, often miners, and so the People's Party gained a distinct advantage.

Two years later Liberals, also eager for statehood, followed suit, and Utah became the 45th state in the Union on January 4, 1896.