The Story of the Mormons, from the Date of Their Origin to the Year 1901 Part 74

In the spirit of these recommendations, Senator Edmunds introduced in the Senate, on December 12, 1881, a comprehensive measure amending the antipolygamy law of 1862, which, amended during the course of the debate, was pa.s.sed in the Senate on February 12, 1882, without a roll-call,*and in the House on March 13, by a vote of 199 to 42, and was approved by the President on March 22. This is what is known as the Edmunds law--the first really serious blow struck by Congress against polygamy.

* Speeches against the bill were made in the Senate by Brown, Call, Lamar, Morgan, Pendleton, and Vest.

It provided, in brief, that, in the territories, any person who, having a husband or wife living, marries another, or marries more than one woman on the same day, shall be punished by a fine of not more than $500, and by imprisonment, for not more than five years; that a male person cohabiting with more than one woman shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and be subject to a fine of not more than $300 or to six months' imprisonment, or both; that in any prosecution for bigamy, polygamy, or unlawful cohabitation, a juror may be challenged if he is or has been living in the practice of either offence, or if he believes it right for a man to have more than one living and undivorced wife at a time, or to cohabit with more than one woman; that the President may have power to grant amnesty to offenders, as described, before the pa.s.sage of this act; that the issue of so-called Mormon marriages born before January 1, 1883, be legitimated; that no polygamist shall be ent.i.tled to vote in any territory, or to hold office under the United States; that the President shall appoint in Utah a board of five persons for the registry of voters, and the reception and counting of votes.

To meet the determined opposition to the new law, an amendment (known as the Edmunds-Tucker law) was enacted in 1887. This law, in any prosecution coming under the definition of plural marriages, waived the process of subpoena, on affadavit of sufficient cause, in favor of an attachment; allowed a lawful husband or wife to testify regarding each other; required every marriage certificate in Utah to be signed by the parties and the person performing the ceremony, and filed in court; abolished female suffrage, and gave suffrage only to males of proper age who registered and took an oath, giving the names of their lawful wives, and promised to obey the laws of the United States, and especially the Edmunds law; disqualified as a juror or officeholder any person who had not taken an oath to support the laws of the United States, or who had been convicted under the Edmunds law; gave the President power to appoint the judges of the probate courts;* provided for escheating to the United States for the use of the common schools the property of corporations held in violation of the act in 1862, except buildings held exclusively for the worship of G.o.d, the parsonages connected therewith, and burial places; dissolved the corporation called the Perpetual Emigration Company, and forbade the legislature to pa.s.s any law to bring persons into the territory; dissolved the corporation known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and gave the Supreme Court of the territory power to wind up its affairs; and annulled all laws regarding the Nauvoo Legion, and all acts of the territorial legislature.

* The first territorial legislature which met after the pa.s.sage of this law pa.s.sed an act practically nullifying such appointments of probate judges, but the governor vetoed it. In Beaver County, as soon as the appointment of a probate judge by the President was announced, the Mormon County Court met and reduced his salary to $5 a year.

The first members of the Utah commission appointed under the Edmunds law were Alexander Ramsey of Minnesota, A. B. Carleton of Indiana, A.

S. Paddock of Nebraska, G. L. G.o.dfrey of Iowa, and J. R. Pettigrew of Arkansas, their appointments being dated June 23, 1882.

The officers of the church and the Mormons as a body met the new situation as aggressively as did Brigham Young the approach of United States troops. Their preachers and their newspapers reiterated the divine nature of the "revelation" concerning polygamy and its obligatory character, urging the people to stand by their leaders in opposition to the new laws. The following extracts from "an Epistle from the First Presidency, to the officers and members of the church," dated October 6, 1885, will sufficiently ill.u.s.trate the att.i.tude of the church organization:--"The war is openly and undisguisedly made upon our religion. To induce men to repudiate that, to violate its precepts, and break its solemn covenants, every encouragement is given. The man who agrees to discard his wife or wives, and to trample upon the most sacred obligations which human beings can enter into, escapes imprisonment, and is applauded: while the man who will not make this compact of dishonor, who will not admit that his past life has been a fraud and a lie, who will not say to the world, 'I intended to deceive my G.o.d, my brethren, and my wives by making covenants I did not expect to keep,' is, beside being punished to the full extent of the law, compelled to endure the reproaches, taunts, and insults of a brutal judge....

"We did not reveal celestial marriage. We cannot withdraw or renounce it, G.o.d revealed it, and he has promised to maintain it and to bless those who obey it. Whatever fate, then, may threaten us, there is but one course for men of G.o.d to take; that is, to keep inviolate the holy covenants they have made in the presence of G.o.d and angels. For the remainder, whether it be life or death, freedom or imprisonment, prosperity or adversity, we must trust in G.o.d. We may say, however, if any man or woman expects to enter into the celestial kingdom of our G.o.d without making sacrifices and without being tested to the very uttermost, they have not understood the Gospel....

"Upward of forty years ago the Lord revealed to his church the principle of celestial marriage. The idea of marrying more wives than one was as naturally abhorrent to the leading men and women of the church, at that day, as it could be to any people. They shrank with dread from the bare thought of entering into such relationship. But the command of G.o.d was before them in language which no faithful soul dare disobey, 'For, behold, I reveal unto you a new and everlasting covenant; and if ye abide not that covenant, then are ye d.a.m.ned; for no one can reject this covenant, and be permitted to enter into my glory.'... Who would suppose that any man, in this land of religious liberty, would presume to say to his fellow-man that he had no right to take such steps as he thought necessary to escape d.a.m.nation? Or that Congress would enact a law which would present the alternative to religious believers of being consigned to a penitentiary if they should attempt to obey a law of G.o.d which would deliver them from d.a.m.nation?"

There was a characteristic effort to evade the law as regards political rights. The People's Party (Mormon), to get around the provision concerning the test oath for voters, issued an address to them which said: "The questions that intending voters need therefore ask themselves are these: Are we guilty of the crimes of said act; or have we THE PRESENT INTENTION of committing these crimes, or of aiding, abetting, causing or advising any other person to commit them. Male citizens who can answer these questions in the negative can qualify under the laws as voters or office-holders."

Two events in 1885 were the cause of so much feeling that United States troops were held in readiness for transportation to Utah. The first of these was the placing of the United States flag at half mast in Salt Lake City, on July 4, over the city hall, county court-house, theatre, cooperative store, Deseret News office, t.i.thing office, and President Taylor's residence, to show the Mormon opinion that the Edmunds law had destroyed liberty. When a committee of non-Mormon citizens called at the city hall for an explanation of this display, the city marshal said that it was "a whim of his," and the mayor ordered the flag raised to its proper place.

In November of that year a Mormon night watchman named McMurrin was shot and severely wounded by a United States deputy marshal named Collin.

This caused great feeling, and there were rumors that the Mormons threatened to lynch Collin, that armed men had a.s.sembled to take him out of the officers' hands, and that the Mormons of the territory were arming themselves, and were ready at a moment's notice to march into Salt Lake City. Federal troops were held in readiness at Eastern points, but they were not used. The Salt Lake City Council, on December 8, made a report denying the truth of the disquieting rumors, and declaring that "at no time in the history of this city have the lives and property of its non-Mormon inhabitants been more secure than now."

The records of the courts in Utah show that the Mormons stood ready to obey the teachings of the church at any cost. Prosecutions under the Edmunds law began in 1884, and the convictions for polygamy or unlawful cohabitation (mostly the latter) were as follows in the years named: 3 in 1884, 39 in 1885, 112 in 1886, 214 in 1887, and 100 in 1888, with 48 in Idaho during the same period. Leading men in the church went into hiding--"under ground," as it was called--or fled from the territory.

As to the actual continuance of polygamous marriages, the evidence was contradictory. A special report of the Utah Commission in 1884 expressed the opinion that there had been a decided decrease in their number in the cities, and very little decrease in the rural districts. Their regular report for that year estimated the number of males and females who had entered into that relation at 459. The report for 1888 stated that the registration officers gave the names of 29 females who, they had good reason to believe, had contracted polygamous marriages since the lists were closed in June, 1887. As late as 1889 Hans Jespersen was arrested for unlawful cohabitation. As his plural marriage was understood to be a recent one, the case attracted wide attention, since it was expected to prove the insincerity of the church in making the protest against the Edmunds law princ.i.p.ally on the ground that it broke up existing families. Jespersen pleaded guilty of adultery and polygamy, and was sentenced to imprisonment for eight years. In making his plea he said that he was married at the Endowment House in Salt Lake City, that he and his wife were the only persons there, and that he did not know who married them. His wife testified that she "heard a voice p.r.o.nounce them man and wife, but didn't see any one nor who spoke." * Such were some of the methods adopted by the church to set at naught the law.

* Report of the Utah Commission for 1890, p. 23.

But along with this firm att.i.tude, influences were at work looking to a change of policy. During the first year of the enforcement of the law it was on many sides declared a failure, the aggressive att.i.tude of the church, and the willingness of its leaders to accept imprisonment, hiding, or exile, being regarded by many persons in the East as proof that the real remedy for the Utah situation was yet to be discovered.

The Utah Commission, in their earlier reports, combated this idea, and pointed out that the young men in the church would grow restive as they saw all the offices out of their reach unless they took the test oath, and that they "would present an anomaly in human nature if they should fail to be strongly influenced against going into a relation which thus subjects them to political ostracism, and fixes on them the stigma of moral turpitude." How wide this influence was is seen in the political statistics of the times. When the Utah Commission entered on their duties in August, 1882, almost every office in the territory was held by a polygamist. By April, 1884, about 12,000 voters, male and female, had been disfranchised by the act, and of the 1351 elective officers in the territory not one was a polygamist, and not one of the munic.i.p.al officers of Salt Lake City then in office had ever been "in polygamy."

The church leaders at first tried to meet this influence in two ways, by open rebuke of all Saints who showed a disposition to obey the new laws, and by special honors to those who took their punishment. Thus, the Deseret News told the brethren that they could not promise to obey the anti-polygamy laws without violating obligations that bound them to time and eternity; and when John Sharp, a leading member of the church in Salt Lake City, went before the court and announced his intention to obey these laws, he was instantly removed from the office of Bishop of his ward.

The restlessness of the flock showed itself in the breaking down of the business barriers set up by the church between Mormons and Gentiles.

This subject received a good deal of attention in the minority report signed by two of the commissioners in 1888. They noted the sale of real estate by Mormons to Gentiles against the remonstrances of the church, the organization of a Chamber of Commerce in Salt Lake City in which Mormons and Gentiles worked together, and the union of both elements in the last Fourth of July celebration.

In the spring of 1890, at the General Conference held in Salt Lake City, the office of "Prophet, Seer and Revelator and President" of the church, that had remained vacant since the death of John Taylor in 1887, was filled by the election of Wilford Woodruff, a polygamist who had refused to take the test oath, while G. Q. Cannon and Lorenzo Snow, who were disfranchised for the same cause, were made respectively counsellor and president of the Twelve.* Woodruff was born in Connecticut in 1807, became a Mormon in 1832, was several times sent on missions to England, and had gained so much prominence while the church was at Nauvoo that he was the chief dedicator of the Temple there. While there, he signed a certificate stating that he knew of no other system of marriage in the church but the one-wife system then prescribed in the "Book of Doctrine and Covenants." Before the date of his promotion, Woodruff had declared that plural marriages were no longer permitted, and, when he was confronted with evidence to the contrary brought out in court, he denied all knowledge of it, and afterward declared that, in consequence of the evidence presented, he had ordered the Endowment House to be taken down.

* Lorenzo Snow was elected president of the church on September 13, 1898, eleven days after the death of President Woodruff, and he held that position until his death which occurred on October 10, 1901.

Governor Thomas, in his report for 1890, expressed the opinion that the church, under its system, could in only one way define its position regarding polygamy, and that was by a public declaration by the head of the church, or by action by a conference, and he added, "There is no reason to believe that any earthly power can extort from the church any such declaration." The governor was mistaken, not in measuring the purpose of the church, but in foreseeing all the influences that were now making themselves felt.

The revised statutes of Idaho at this time contained a provision (Sec.

509) disfranchising all polygamists and debarring from office all polygamists, and all persons who counselled or encouraged any one to commit polygamy. The const.i.tutionality of this section was argued before the United States Supreme Court, which, on February 3, 1890, decided that it was const.i.tutional. The antipolygamists in Utah saw in this decision a means of attacking the Mormon belief even more aggressively than had been done by means of the Edmunds Bill. An act was drawn (Governor Thomas and ex-Governor West taking it to Washington) providing that no person living in plural or celestial marriage, or teaching the same, or being a member of, or a contributor to, any organization teaching it, or a.s.sisting in such a marriage, should be ent.i.tled to vote, to serve as a juror, or to hold office, a test oath forming a part of the act. Senator Cullom introduced this bill in the upper House and Mr. Struble of Iowa in the House of Representatives. The House Committee on Territories (the Democrats in the negative) voted to report the bill, amended so as to make it applicable to all the territories. This proposed legislation caused great excitement in Mormondom, and pet.i.tions against its pa.s.sage were hurried to Washington, some of these containing non-Mormon signatures.

As a further menace to the position of the church, the United States Supreme Court, on May 19, affirmed the decision of the lower court confiscating the property of the Mormon church, and declaring that church organization to be an organized rebellion; and on June 21, the Senate pa.s.sed Senator Edmunds's bill disposing of the real estate of the church for the benefit of the school fund.*

* After the admission of Utah as a state, Congress pa.s.sed an act restoring the property to the church.

The Mormon authorities now realized that the public sentiment of the country, as expressed in the federal law, had them in its grasp. They must make some concession to this public sentiment, or surrender all their privileges as citizens and the wealth of their church organization. Agents were hurried to Washington to implore the aid of Mr. Blaine in checking the progress of the Cullom Bill, and at home the head of the church made the concession in regard to polygamy which secured the admission of the territory as a state.

On September 25, 1890, Woodruff, as President of the church, issued a proclamation addressed "to whom it may concern," which struck out of the NECESSARY beliefs and practices of the Mormon church, the practice of polygamy.

This important step was taken, not in the form of a "revelation,"

but simply as a proclamation or manifesto. It began with a solemn declaration that the allegation of the Utah Commission that plural marriages were still being solemnized was false, and the a.s.sertion that "we are not preaching polygamy nor permitting any person to enter into its practice." The closing and important

part of the proclamation was as follows:--

"Inasmuch as laws have been enacted by Congress, which laws have been p.r.o.nounced const.i.tutional by the court of last resort, I hereby declare my intention to submit to these laws, and to use my influence with the members of the church over which I preside to have them do likewise.

"There is nothing in my teachings to the church, or in those of my a.s.sociates, during the time specified, which can be reasonably construed to inculcate or encourage polygamy, and when any elder of the church has used language which appeared to convey any such teachings he has been promptly reproved.

"And now I publicly declare that my advice to the Latter-Day Saints is to refrain from contracting any marriage forbidden by the law of the land."

On October 6, the General Conference of the church, on motion of Lorenzo Snow, unanimously adopted the following resolution:--

"I move that, recognizing Wilford Woodruff as President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and the only man on the earth at the present time who holds the keys of the sealing ordinances, we consider him fully authorized, by virtue of his position, to issue the manifesto that has been read in our hearing, and which is dated September 24, 1890, and as a church in general conference a.s.sembled we accept his declaration concerning plural marriages as authoritative and binding."

This action was reaffirmed by the General Conference of October 6, 1891.

Of course the church officers had to make some explanation to the brethren of their change of front. Cannon fell back on the "revelation"

of January 19, 1841, which Smith put forth to excuse the failure to establish a Zion in Missouri, namely, that, when their enemies prevent their performing a task a.s.signed by the Almighty, he would accept their effort to do so. He said that "it was on this basis" that President Woodruff had felt justified in issuing the manifesto. Woodruff explained: "It is not wisdom for us to make war upon 65,000,000 people.... The prophet Joseph Smith organized the church; and all that he has promised in this code of revelations the "Book of Doctrine and Covenants" has been fulfilled as fast as time would permit. THAT WHICH IS NOT FULFILLED WILL BE." Cannon did explain that the manifesto was the result of prayer, and Woodruff told the people that he had had a great many visits from the Prophet Joseph since his death, in dreams, and also from Brigham Young, but neither seems to have imparted any very valuable information, Joseph explaining that he was in an immense hurry preparing himself "to go to the earth with the Great Bridegroom when he goes to meet the Bride, the Lamb's wife."

Two recent incidents have indicated the restlessness of the Mormon church under the restriction placed upon polygamy. In 1898, the candidate for Representative in Congress, nominated by the Democratic Convention of Utah, was Brigham H. Roberts. It was commonly known in Utah that Roberts was a violator of the Edmunds law. A Mormon elder, writing from Brigham, Utah, in February, 1899, while Roberts's case was under consideration at Washington, said, "Many prominent Mormons foresaw the storm that was now raging, and deprecated Mr. Roberts's nomination and election."* This statement proves both the notoriety of Roberts's offence, and the connivance of the church in his nomination, because no Mormon can be nominated to an office in Utah when the church authorities order otherwise. When Roberts presented himself to be sworn in, in December, 1899, his case was referred to a special committee of nine members. The report of seven members of this committee found that Roberts married his first wife about the year 1878; that about 1885 he married a plural wife, who had since born him six children, the last two twins, born on August 11, 1897; that some years later he married a second plural wife, and that he had been living with all three till the time of his election; "that these facts were generally known in Utah, publicly charged against him during his campaign for election, and were not denied by him." Roberts refused to take the stand before the committee, and demurred to its jurisdiction on the ground that the hearing was an attempt to try him for a crime without an indictment and jury trial, and to deprive him of vested rights in the emoluments of the office to which he was elected, and that, if the crime alleged was proved, it would not const.i.tute a sufficient cause to deprive him of his seat, because polygamy is not enumerated in the const.i.tution as a disqualification for the office of member of Congress. The majority report recommended that his seat be declared vacant. Two members of the committee reported that his offence afforded const.i.tutional ground for expulsion, but not for exclusion from the House, and recommended that he be sworn in and immediately expelled. The resolution presented by the majority was adopted by the House by a vote of 268 to 50.**

* New York Evening Post, February 20, 1899.

** Roberts was tried in the district court in Salt Lake City, on April 30, 1900, on the charge of unlawful cohabitation. The case was submitted to the jury of eight men, without testimony, on an agreed statement of facts, and the jury disagreed, standing six for conviction and two for acquittal.

The second incident referred to was the pa.s.sage by the Utah legislature in March, 1901, of a bill containing this provision:

"No prosecution for adultery shall be commenced except on complaint of the husband or wife or relative of the accused with the first degree of consanguinity, or of the person with whom the unlawful act is alleged to have been committed, or of the father or mother of said person; and no prosecution for unlawful cohabitation shall be commenced except on complaint of the wife, or alleged plural wife of the accused; but this provision shall not apply to prosecutions under section 4208 of the Revised Statutes, 1898, defining and punishing polygamous marriages."