Mormon History
Mormon Women's Protest Against the Edmund-Tucker Act - 1886
Two thousand Mormon women gathered at the Salt Lake Theatre on
Saturday, March 6, 1886, to protest the “indignities and insults heaped
upon them as wives and daughters of Mormons” in Utah district courts
[1]. Under the direction of Mary Isabella Horne, elected president of
the protest meeting, 33 women presented personal statements reacting to
the legal and political ramifications of the pending Edmunds-Tucker
Bill then before Congress, which included the loss of voting privileges
and self-government. These women, motivated by restricted religious
rights, were prompted to political action.
Following the March 1886 mass meeting, the women compiled the
proceedings into a 91-page pamphlet, “Mormon” Women’s Protest: An
Appeal for Freedom, Justice and Equal Rights, to distribute in
Washington and elsewhere. Originally printed in the local newspaper and
then published in pamphlet form, the text includes the news notices
prior to the event, transcripts of speeches, resolutions, and poems
composed for the occasion, and undelivered speeches and letters written
for the event. Women involved included female doctors, teachers,
authors and poets, women’s rights advocates, religious and community
leaders, and mothers.
Political and social leaders outside Utah were concerned with the
Mormon religious practice of polygamy. Plural marriage was adopted in
the LDS Church from 1852 to 1890 in an effort to restore biblical
practice and encourage family support. Studies suggest that twenty to
twenty-five percent of LDS adults were members of polygamous households
during this era [2]. Federal injunctions followed within a decade of
the public announcement of plural marriage as an official tenet of
Mormon faith in 1852. In 1856 the Republican platform shouldered
responsibility for ending "those twin relics of barbarism—polygamy and
slavery" [3]. Republican politicians sited Utah as an example of what
happened when territorial citizens governed themselves. The 1862
Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act aimed to prosecute polygamists but proved to be
impossible to enforce.
Various legislative actions occurred over the next two decades as
Congress restricted political and legal rights based on LDS religious
practice, suggesting that Utah Territory be prevented from becoming a
state until plural marriage was abandoned. The Cragin Bill in 1868 and
the Cullom Bill of 1869-70 were passed to remedy the deficiencies of
the Morrill Act. Republicans worked to revoke the voting rights of
anyone who believed in plural marriage. Women were compelled to testify
against their husbands, and all involved were convicted of "concubinage,"
fined, and sentenced to prison. The 1882 Edmunds Act removed
polygamists from jury and public office, and Congress established a
Utah commission modeled after post-Civil War reconstruction government
to run territorial affairs.
Mormon women responded en masse. While the Latter-day Saints respected
the Constitution, promising to honor civic leaders and obey the law of
the land, they felt that these congressional acts violated freedom of
religion. The 1886 protest meeting ironically prompted patriotism,
where Mrs. H.C. Brown stated:
We are here, not as Latter-day Saints, but as American citizens—members of that great commonwealth which our noble grandsires fought and bled to establish—legal heirs to those rights and privileges bequeathed to that heaven-inspired document—the Constitution of the United States. Yes, legal heirs, yet illegally, unconstitutionally deprived of that dearest, most cherished of all.
The public political action
of Latter-day Saint women had its roots in the inception of their religious
female association, the Relief Society, in 1842. Members delivered petitions to
Illinois governor Thomas Carlin in defense of Joseph Smith and his illegal
imprisonment. Thirty years later in Utah women reacted to antipolygamy
legislation with similar activity. They wrote letters, sent memorials, and urged
people to testify before Congress. To show their solidarity and commitment to
their beliefs, three thousand women gathered at a "Great Indignation Meeting" in
Salt Lake City in January 1870. Throughout the month, the structure of that
meeting was repeated in over fifty Utah settlements in their various Relief
Society organizations, where countless LDS women publicly defended their right
to practice their religion. This public effort led to the pursuit of the vote
for women, particularly in conjunction with a popular belief outside the
territory that women would then vote to remove polygamy [4]. By February of 1870
acting territorial governor S.A. Mann granted Utah women suffrage, second only
to Wyoming. This movement precipitated an 1871 visit of Susan B. Anthony and
Elizabeth Cady Stanton to Utah and created bridges with national women’s
organizations.
Meanwhile Utah women of other faiths opposing plural marriage prepared counter
memorials to Congress and the President under the auspices of the Utah-based
Anti-Polygamy Society, founded in 1878. In 1886 Angie Newman, with the Methodist
Episcopal Home Missionary Society and congressional support, built a Salt Lake
City home for disenchanted plural wives and their children. They believed their
benevolent efforts would arouse sympathy and rescue victimized women. However,
the number of applicants seldom reached twenty in any given year, and by 1893
the refuge closed [5].
The eventual passage of the Edmunds-Tucker Act nullified already operative civil
rights and duties, including woman suffrage. More than 12,000 Mormons in Utah
were disfranchised. In 1890 Church president Wilford Woodruff officially
abolished new plural marriages, and Utah was admitted as a state in 1896, when
once again Utah women gained the vote.
Some historians suggest that
the principle of plural marriage had unexpected benefits in politicizing Mormon
women. Due to shared domestic responsibilities and the combined efforts of
"sister wives," women built and managed cooperative stores and a local silk
industry, maintained a grain storage program, established welfare and home
industry, edited a major women’s newspaper, attended medical school and
developed a women’s hospital with community nurse and midwife training, led
women’s suffrage efforts, and participated in public education and higher
education. Liberal divorce laws in Utah gave women legal rights; property laws
allowed women to own land and maintain their own households [6]. Latter-day
Saint women found common cause and gained political experience in pursuing their
religious freedoms.
Jennifer Reeder, Archival Assistant
____________________________________
[1] "Mormon" Women's Protest, preface.
[2] Kenneth W. Godfrey, "Plural Marriage," in Encyclopedia of Latter-day
Saint History, 928.
[3] 1856 Republican National Convention
[4] New York Times, 8 February 1870
[5] Peggy Pascoe, Relations of Rescue, 87-90.
[6] 1872 Married Persons’ Act (see Sarah Gordon, The Mormon Question,
175-178).
Reid presents bill aimed at
polygamy
Senate hearing on measure is today
(Note: Senator Harry Reid would have made a
good 19th century anti-Mormon)
By STEVE TETREAULT
STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
Las Vegas Review-Journal
Jul. 24, 2008
ON THE WEB:
Senate Judiciary Committee hearing at 7 a.m. today:
http://judiciary. senate.gov/
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Harry Reid on Wednesday introduced a bill in Congress to crack down on polygamous groups, charging that crime is organized and "rampant" within the communities.
Reid's first stop today to promote the bill will be at a hearing that he largely organized with the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The measure calls for formation of a federal task force to combat "the unique set of crimes committed by polygamist organizations."
It also would make available $2 million in federal grants for local authorities to investigate and prosecute crimes linked to polygamy. Another $12 million over five years would be offered to organizations that provide protection and services to family members seeking to escape plural marriages.
Former members of polygamous groups have charged domestic and sexual abuse is common through forced marriages and unions involving underage girls, along with other crimes such as welfare fraud, tax evasion, extortion and kidnapping.
Reid, the Senate majority leader from Nevada, has equated activities of polygamist groups with organized crime and has been pressing for federal racketeering investigations of their activities.
The Senate hearing is expected to focus on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a breakaway Mormon sect whose adherents believe plural marriage is ordained by God. The mainstream Mormon church renounced polygamy in 1904.
FLDS membership is based in communities on the border of Utah and Arizona, while members also live in Nevada and other Western states. Its membership is estimated to be between 6,000 and 10,000.
State and local authorities have pursued criminal allegations against FLDS leaders and members, while Reid has argued a stronger federal hand is necessary.
FLDS leader Warren Jeffs was convicted in Utah last year of two counts of being an accomplice to rape, for his role in arranging a 2002 marriage between a 14-year-old girl and her 19-year-old first cousin.
Jeffs faces similar charges in Arizona and this week was indicted by a grand jury in Texas on sexual assault charges.
"We are taking aim at the blatant and systemic crime that is rampant within these polygamist groups," Reid said in a statement accompanying his bill.
Reid, one of 16 Mormons serving in Congress, did not consult with the church in forming his bill, according to his spokesman Jon Summers.
The Mormon church has not taken a position on the bill, spokeswoman Kim Farah said. In an e-mail, she said "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has repeatedly expressed concern about the illegal practice of polygamy and persistent reports of the possible emotional and physical abuse of women and children."
Today's hearing is entitled "Crimes Associated with Polygamy: The Need for a Coordinated State and Federal Response."
Chief federal prosecutors from Nevada and Utah are scheduled to testify along with attorneys general from Arizona and Texas. Also listed to testify are former FLDS member Carolyn Jessup, and Stephen Singular, who has written about the FLDS and Jeffs.
The Salt Lake Tribune reported that FLDS spokesman Rod Parker, a Salt Lake City attorney, sent the Senate Judiciary Committee a letter protesting that no members of the group were invited to testify.
"History is replete with examples of misinformation becoming the foundation of persecution and hysteria, leading in turn to real harm to real people," Parker wrote, according to the newspaper.
Parker could not be reached by telephone message or e-mail on Wednesday.
Asked why there were no FLDS witnesses invited, Summers said the committee did not need to hear from them.
"This is not a trial," Summers said. "This is a hearing about ways to increase enforcement against crimes committed by these groups. Are they going to come in and say this is the best way to bust us?"