Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1882-03-08
Senator Brown and the Mormon
Question.

E. Brown a copy of the speech on the
Mormon question delivered by him in
the Senate of the United States on the
10Th of February last, during the discus
sion of the bill ''to amend section 1852
of the Revised Statutes of the United
States in reference to bigamy, and for
other purposes" The provisions of this
bill were very sweeping. Itproposed that
all persons in Utah who believe in
polygamy should be disfranchised,
whether or not they are subjects of dis
reimbursement to be decided by a
board of five appointed by Congress,
which board shall not be wholly COM
posed of members of the same political
party" In order that it might be thor
Oughly Republican and that it might be
purely political machine, however, 1t
was proposed that of the five mem
bers composing it, four were to be Re
publicans and the other remaining mem
Der a solitary Democrat.
Senator Brown was quick to see
through this piece of Republican
chicanery, and very clearly showed that
the Republicans in the Senate are not
actuated so much from motives of
plOus virtue in their warfare against
polygamy as they are from a desire to
secure party ascendancy In Utah. There
fore, while denOuncing pOlygamy as the
greatest of social evils, he opposed the
bill as it came from the committee which
reported it, taking the ground that no
matter if a man does believe in polygamy,
if he does not practice it, he should not be
DISTINGUISHED. In other words, that no
man should be unconstitutionally dis
franchised for any personal belief he
may indulge in, however unlawful or
wrong such belief may be, so long as he
does not put his ideas into practice, and
by so doing violate the laws of the land.
Not only is this position sound in prin-
ciple, but the Senator from Georgia
strengthened himself greatly by expos
ing The designs and schemes of the Radi
calls. Their object was not so much TO
stamp out pOlygamy in Utah as to be
able to control the political sentiment of
that Territory by means of a Republican
board, since they desired to place it in
the power of that board to decide upon
who is and who is not a proper subject
of disfranchisement. That their decis
ion would invariably have been
against a Mormon Democrat, and in
favor of Mormon Republican whenever
the slightest pretext for so deciding pre-
sented itself, there can be no possible
doubt, and as the Senator well said of
this bill:
''It'is a sweeping disfranchisement of
almost the entire people of Territory.
Aud in order to carry out that disfran-
chIsement we must resort here to prac-
tice better known IN the South than it
has been in the North. Whenever it is
necessary to make Republican State out
IF a Democratic State, or a Republican
State out of a Democratic Territory, the
most convenient machinery for that pur-
pose is a returning board, and it has
worked admirably III the South. BY
fraud, PERU Y, forgery, and villainy, the
returning board system cheated the PEG
pie of these United States out of legal
election for President. Itdoes not there
fore specially commend itself to the
American people. 1t stinks in the nos
trlls of honest men"
To checkmate the hypocritical schemes
of the Republicans in the Senate and at
the same time to carry out the provisions
of the bill as far as it applied simply to
the suppression of the practice of po-
lygamy, Mr.. Brown proposed certain
amendments thereto, which, we believe,
have been adopted, and will prevent any
Republican returning board in Utah
from the wholesale prescription under a
specious guise of virtue-but really
the interests of the Republican party
of any class of citizens of that Territory.
These amendments provide that no po-
lygamist in the Territory shall be disfran
chised until he has been legally convicted
CT a violation of the laws, and that no
political board shall have power, by
arbitrary dieta alone, to declare anyone
Il fit subject to be deprived of his cOnsti-
tutiOnal rights of citizenship. That is
that while all persons should be punished,
in Utah and elsewhere, for immoral
practices, no such punishment shall be
inflicted until the person charged with
the offense shall have been found guilty
by the courts.
Polygamy is truly a heinOus crime,
which cannot be too strongly reprObated,
and which should, by all means, be
stamped out under the iron heel of the
law. Nevertheless there is no doubt
that the position of the Senator from
Georgia on the bill under consideration
is correct and constitutional, and his
speech must be productive of good re-
suits. 1t not only has unmarked the
hypocrisies of the Radicals in endeavor
ing to cloak unjust political machina-
tions under speciOus guise of zeal for
virtue and morality, but it places the
Senator from Georgia more decidedly
than ever in the ranks of the rock-rihbed,
reliable Old Guard of the straightout
Bourbon Democracy Of the State.
----
A rice planter of this city, who has
had considerable experience as a civil
nrncrinoor criros tho fnllnuinn % afficiant