Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1884-03-15
A REMARKABLE PETITION AND ITS RE.
CEPrIoE.

cEPrIoE.
The Judges of all the Chicago Courts
and large number of the leading lawyers
of Chicago last week signed remarkable
petition and a confession. This strange
document was presented in due form to
the Congress Of the United States. 1t
sets forth that great and increasing evils
result from the conflicting character of diff
ferent local laws regarding marriage and
divorce.
So great are these conflicts, say the peti.
TONERS, that they constitute an ac-
knowledged element of confusion in Amer
lean jurisprudence that has led TO many
distressing conflicts of Judicial decisions.
A marriage is often treated in one State as
dissolved, and at the same time in another
as subsisting. A man or woman may be
punished for bigamy or adultery in one
province upon what in another would be
lawful marriage. Marriage contracted in
a foreign country and dissolved by one or
another local Jurisdiction in America is
not dissolved by an authority known to
international law or comfy and the sub
lection of American DEGREES of divorce
to the test of examination by foreign tri-
bunals makes these matters a frequent
cause of collision in the administration of
private international law. The present
magnitude and rapid increase of evils bear
ing so directly upon social conditions in
this country call loudly for remedy"
The foregoing synopsis is wholly made.
quate to indicate the vigor of the petition
or the startling, not to say shameful, facts
recitsd. What is asked is, tina. Congress
shall take steps of inquiry to gather facts,
with view to thoroughly Informing the
country upon the subject, that some plan
may be arrived at for remedying the
evils complained of. And they are evils of
vast proportions. There is great deal of
truth in the charge of the Mormons that,
while we denounce polygamy in Utah, we
license and legalize far more abominable
form of concubinage in the States by the
inequalities of our divorce laws, and the
want of harmony between the States on
this subject.
1t is becoming the most prominent sub
ject of a social character that has yet been
presented to the American people. As it
%
ent codes relative to marriage and divorce,
and so widely at variance are they, as to
make that a crime under any one that is
lawful under any other. A decree of d.
voree can be granted in one State tina. has
no validity in another. a second marriage
of divorced person in one part of the
country is reckoned bigamy in another
part. Oae State prohibits remarriage, an
other encourages it. Thus, man may
have larrsul wife in six or seven different
States, and yet in the State of his residence
but one be recognized. If this is not pc.
lygamy behind transparent mask, we do
not know what it can be termed. Truth
fully, under our laws it is possible for q
woman to be the lawful wife of several
husbands. In one section the children of
honorable wedlock are counted legitimate
and esteemed bastards in another part
of common country, and will be cua off
frem the line of descent and inheritance.
a Chicago paper tthe Tines is authority
for the statement that a man is now con.
fined in the Auburn penitentiary, New
York, for the crime of bigamy, committed
by marrying second tine, though the
Courts of the State of Indiana had, at the
time of the second marriage, dissolved the
bonds of matrimony between him and his
first wife.
1t is stated soberly that more than one
half of all the divorces granted in the
State OF Illinois within a given time have
been followed by marriages +" that are big
amous and void in law. marriages that pre-
sent the legally Objectionable charac-
.er OF the Mormon marital system, with.
out the pretense of that heavenly sanctif-
cation with which the Mormon system
prttends to surround an American hsrem."
But while the petition is remarkable,
coming as it does from lawyers, its recep.
ton in Congress was still more so. The
Democracy Jumped it, !" and raised the
cry of " Capitalization, infringement of
State rights, and sll such twaddle. Two
great leaders of the party objected to the
! reception of the petition, utterly oblivious
that the right of petition is sacred one,
and that very few legislative bodies have
ever been so lost to sense of decency as
to ignore 1t. Equally foolish objection was
made to the reference to the Judiciary
Committee. This is in keeping with the
uniform conduct Of the Democracy, which,