Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1875-03-19
POlygamy Legalized.

For sometime past the polygamous rid
die existing among the "Latter-Day-
Saints" in Utah has bothered our political
savans for solution. Mr.. Buchanan.
during his administration, sought to solve
it by the sword. He caused to be fitted
out military expedition which marched
to Salt Lake City and did nothing, and
whipped nobody, because there was no
thing to do and nobody making resistance
to call for whipping. The Republican
party, whenever it could stop for while
from badgering the subjugated and help
less people of the South, would try its
hands at tinkering with the laws "for the
suppression of the immoral practice of
polygamy." But nothing practical ever
came of it. Last session the Committee
on Elections in the House reported that
Mr.. Cannon, the delegate from Utah, had
four wives and therefore ought to be ex-
PEELED. But Mr.. Cannon protested that
after his own fashion. and that it was the
peculiar manner of himself and the Church
of the LatterDay- Saints to worship by
getting as many wives as they wanted
that they believed the more wives a man
had here the better chance he had for get
ting to Heaven, on the ground we suppose
that, to put it mildly, he had his purgatory
on earth. Whether it was that these ar
guments were unaRswerable, or that mem
bers felt the injustice of expelling Mr..
Cannon for doing openly. under the pre-
text of religious belief. that which they
practised secretly without any religion at
all, we cannot say. But certain it is that
no action was taken on the report of the
committee and Mr.. Cannon retained his
seat and continued to draw his pay with
mastery regularity until the adjournment
But now comes Judge Mexican of the l.
S. Court in Utah and settles the whole
question by recognizing the validity of
these polygamous marriages,
Sometime since Eliza Ann Dee. alleging
herself to be the nineteenth wife of Brig
ham Young, filed in the court over which
Judge Mexican presides bill praying for
a divorce from, We suppose. the nineteenth
part of her said husband, Brigham, the
Prophet, for sundry reasons set forth. To
this bill Brigham filed an answer. setting
forth that sometime in 1914. we think. he
had been duly and lawfully married in the
State of Ohio to his first wife, whatever
her name may be, who is now living, and
that he never was lawfully married to any
other woman, as of course he could net be.
After this answer was put in, traversing
the allegations of the bill on the material
point of the marriage, Mrs. Ann Eliza, or
No. 10, as we suppose she was called for
short, filed petition praying for an al
lowance ofalimony and counsel fees. Now
.alimony is an allowance which a married
woman is entitled to on a separation from
her husband, and is either temporary.
pendente lite or during the trial, or it is
permanent after divorce has been decreed.
But it is based always on the supposition
of previous marriage. Therefore, when
Judge Mexican passed an order directing
the payment of alimony he clearly decid-
ed that polygamous marriages were legal
and binding and that though Brigham
might legally marry nine hundred and
ninety-nine wives if he thought proper.
he at the same time became liable to be
divorced as many times with all the &C
compartments of alimony, &c. OF course,
if Brigham was not married, legally mar
ried, to Ann Eliza, there could be no di-
vorce and no alimony. The law never in
tended to recognize the right to divorce
persons who had never been married. or
make man pay afimony to woman who
had never been his wife. Therefore, as we
said before, Judge Mexican in allowing
Ann Eliza alimony, has decided that she
was the lawful wife of the aforesaid Brig
ham. So that question is settled. so far
as this judicial luminary is concerned.
The amount allowed by the Judge was
IS 900 for attorneys fees and costs and