The Manitowoc tribune. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1866-1878, 1870-04-21
Brigham Young and the Abolition of
Polygamy.

Our readers have seen in former issues
that the Prophet and Chief of the Nor
mons protests very strongly against the
law of Congress relative to polygamy.
He pretends that he is commanded to
adhere to and foster by divine revelation,
ana that he will sustain it to the last.
The Chicago Tribune speaks very fore
ible and pointedly on this question. 1t
thinks that if a prophet should arise with
a pretended revelation from Heaven
permitting horse stealing, and should
proceed to organize a church Of horse
thieves, very few persons would be
found in doubt whether a civilized gov
ernment might put the prophet in jail
without doing violence to the cause of
religion. Or if the Hindo superstition of
the Suffice or burning of widows, or the
Babylonian custom, according to Hero
dotus, of requiring young girls to submit
to deflement by strangers at the en-
trance Of their temples, or the obscene ex-
hibitions made by the women Of ancient
Egypt, in celebrating the mysteries of
Isis and Osiris, were made features of a
divine revelation, we do not perceive
that the wickedness of the crime could
be effectively covered by throwing over
it mantle of blasphemy The test
which governments and societies will
apply to all pretended religion is: ''Do
they promote that which the average
conscience of the people and of the law
making power hold to be immoral? If,
under the pretence of serving God and
saving souls, they lead the souls of men
and women into the lowest depths oflust
and crime, then the would be prophets
must be sent to the Penitentiary, not for
their religion, but for their crimes. 1t
is no defence that deluded devotees vol
UNFAIRLY consent to such crimes. The
Hindoo widow is not allowed by a Chris
tian government to be burned because
she thinks it her duty to burn. When
superstition takes the form of murder,
the murder is to be prevented or punish
ed, regardless of the superstition. Be-
cause men may pursue their religious
dreams into the widest forms of vagary,
it does not follow that they may there
fore perpetrate, UNPUBLISHED, all the
crimes to which these vagaries may lead.
A Salt Lake correspondent Of the San
Francisco Reporter quotes the following
illustration of the incestuous workings
of polygamy:
George d. Watt, church reporter, who
has attracted some attention by his articles
in the Alta California on the subject of silk
culture in Utah, married his half-sister.
johnson, the Mormon Bishop at Springville,
has four neces among his dozen wives.
Bolton, some years ago clerk at Forney.
and respectfully connected in the city of
New York, being the son of one of its we'll
Known old merchants. married two women
who are mother and daughter ; and there is
Mormon who has three wives, who are
said to bear to each other the relation OF
grandmother, mother, and daughter"
The same letter informs us that
prominent Mormon named John Ed
ridge, having two wives, seduced, among
other girls, three Of his own children, the
youngest only years of age. He was
brought before Brigham Young, who,
instead of Furnishing him, simply told
him to leave the Territory, a punish
ment from which he will recover as soon
as the brief indignation of Mormon
virtue has pulled itself out and cooled
Mormon polygamy is no other or high
er order OF bestinhty than any other form
Of indiscriminate lust. 1t is less response
bic than free love, because in Mormon
ism the woman are not free, while the
lust is just as coarse, physical, and indis
eliminate. Laws cannot realize it.
Revelations cannot give it decency. Its
prophets are set of shystering, buster
Ing demag lgues, who havn't the merit
OF fanaticism. Brigham Young knows he
has harem and doubtless believes it is
a good thing, but he also well knows
that all his pretended revelations are lies
As well might horse thief claim to be-
lieve that he is divinely commissioned to
effect more equitable distribution of
horse flesh. The people of the United
States, outside of Utah, are morally and
politically responsible for Mormon poly
gamy, and they have the same power to
break 1t up as to suppress gang of
counterfeiterS, 1t will lower the tone
and morality throughout the United
States, by the denial it hurls at civiliza-
ton, until it is uprooted and overthrown.
The constitution vests in Congress the
same legislative power over the Tori
tories that our State Legislature has over
llliEois. To deny that Congress can
prohibit polygamy in Utah is to deny
that any State could suppress it in its own
midst. Ifit is lawful in Utah, it is law
full throughout the Union.
The Republican party, at It's first Ma
tional Convention, in 1856, at Philadel
phla, declared the true doctrine on
Polygamy, as follows:
"Resolved. that the constitution confers
upon Congress sovereign power over the
Territories of the United States for their
government. and that the exercise of this
power, it is both the right and the duty OF
Congress to prohibit IN the Territories those
twin relics of barbarism-poly gamy and slav-
cry"
Slavery which had en.times the strength
of polygamy, has been obliterated
ia the Territories and in the States. The
overwhelming Influence of this emanci-