The Sun.
London, England, 1867-01-15 00:00:00

court." This is a direct blow at polygamy as
practised among the Saints in Utah; for it extends to
that territory the provisions of common law enforced
elsewhere in this country, which prohibit magistrate
or minister from solemnising a marriage between a
man and a woman when either party to the con-
tract has already a, wife or a husband. If this
amendment be adopted by Congress, and enforced
by legal and military authority, Brigham Young
and the Mormon elders may well tremble lest they
lose even the heaven-delegated anti ority which
they will plead in opposition to it. Of
course, all the Mormons in Salt Lake City
will groan over this profane interference by
Gentiles with what they deem their sacred right
of regulating marriage by the rules of their own
Church. Nor will there be wanting, perhaps, some
opponents to it among the strangers within their
gates. Certain Gentiles, there and elsewhere, may
contend that, inasmuch as marriage is legally re-
cognised in this country (in the State of New York
for example) only as a civil contract, and as all acts
of legislation are ultimately dependent for their
force upon public opinion, Senator Howard's
amendment would prove virtually a dead letter, so
long as public opinion in Utah should remain irre-
concilably hostile opposed to it. The change in public
opinion as to the matter of slavery has wrought a
change in the laws relating to it, cancelling or ren-
dering obsolete those which, as the exponent of a
different public opinion, formerly sanctioned and
sustained it. A similar change of public opinion as
to marriage might leaven legislation concerning it,
either changing the laws entirely or practically
nullifying them. Nay, shrill voices have scarcely
ceased echoing in the halls of Cooper Institute
(where the Women's Rights Convention has
just been held), which predicted that the move-
ment for equal rights, irrespective of sex or colour,
is bound to be successful, and will end by giving
women votes, simply by the force of an inevitable
change in public opinion. Now, as there must be
two or more women to one man in each polygamous
marriage—" seven women laying hold of one man"
in the good timecoming which is anticipated by these
petticoated philanthropists—the women will be the
principal parties to the contract in question, and
when they shall come to express public opinion by
voting, legislation may finally pass into their hands.
And is any man competent to say what their deci-
sion may be ? Seriously, now that the old laws of
the Church have been so generally annulled by
society, and a fatal facility of divorce exists in the
Eastern States, while polygamy flourishes in Utah,
it is high time that thoughtful men and women
should thoroughly study a subject in which our
social and national life is so deeply involved. They
should not overlook such tendencies as are indicated
by Senator Howard's amendment towards recogni-
tion of its importance and definite legislation regard-
ing it.—New York Herald.
The New York Herald first announced Mor-
monism at its very birth, and closely watching
its extraordinary growth, has frequently called
attention to its possible influence as a disturbing
force amidst the social, religious, and political
elements of our American system. Philosophical
foreigners have thus been led to study Mormonism
as a problem which struck many of them as not
less difficult and dangerous within its sphere than
the problem of slavery. Its vital importance has
at length engaged the practical attention of Con-
gress. Not only Brigham Young and his seventy
• elders, the apostles, bishops, missionaries, and
other eminent saints of Mormondom, together
' with their wives and children, " too numerous to
mention," but all families throughout the land are
I interested in the results of Senator Howard's
blow at polygamy. Polygamy was denounced in
the initial platform of the dominant Republican„
party as one of the " twin relics of barbarism,
and it behoves this party to do all that apprO-
' priate legislation can effect towards its anni-
hilation.

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