The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1884-01-27
THE MESSAGE.
Our Eli Skinned by a Chicago
Journalist.

Ihe message OF Governor Murray
to the Utah assembly is at once q
complaint against ecclesiastical
power" and confession OF the weak
ness of the civil government of which
Mr.. Murray is the executive.
1t has been charged. he says, that
the ecclesiastical power would not
permit the legislature to pass certain
proposed laws" that he considers
as necessary to "assimilate Utah to
the country as far as laws are COM
cerned." The projects OF law be
alludes to, appear to be these: /. An
act to repeal an act that gives I'M
warranted powers to the greatest OF
church corporationF," by pretending
to vest n eccles' sstical courts powers
that can be exercised in America
only by civil courts. 2. An act to
give right of dover to the wife in the
estate OF the husband. 8. An act to
forbid and punish polygamy. bigamy,
etc. 4. An act to repeal an act in-
cooperating certain perpetual inn
migration company" 5. An act to
establish public schools. 6. An act
declaring marriage to be civil con-
tract.
It is charged that ecolesiastical
power" will not permit the collective
stateamen of Utah to enact the Stat
utes indicated. "This is q fearful
CHARGE" says Mr.. Murray; 'here is
free America. especially against a
legislature that derives its existence
from an act OF Congress-" and its
compensation BY q congressional ap
preparation from the national treas
ury. Whether it is more Fearful"
as q charge against that kind of q
legislative assembly, or as an index
of incapacity, if not OF imbecility, in
an administration. that also derives
its existence from an act of Congress
and its compensation from the ma
tional treasury, and ia clothed with
the power and CHARGED with the duty
of executing the national authority in
Utah, is question that invites con.
sideration.
XIV
The local enactment that is said to
give unwarranted and dangerous
powers to the Mormon ecclesiastical
establishment is absolutely null and
void, as Mr.. Murray shows. By an
express enactment approved July 1,
1862, Congress annulled it; yet, says
Mr.. Murray. the Utah legislature
''re-enacted it in the compiled laws
of 1876" He adds: "a law of the
territory that has been disapproved
by Congress should not be allowed to
remain on the statute books" Why2
What difference does it make
whether that composition OF words is
in that book or not in it? Having
been annalled by the national au-
thority, it is not "s law of the terri
tory" IF the Assembly at Salt Lake
should order Vennor's almanac, in.
Guiding all his dreadful weather prog
nostioations, to be engrossed on the
statute book, would that awful docu-
ment be law of the territory, which
it would be the duty of the territorial
administration (the judiciary and the
executive erected by act of Congress)
TO apply and exeeute9 Doubtless it
would be, more truly than the local
that assumed TO give civil
Jurisdiction to ecclesiastical courts-a
measure that Congress expressly an
nulled more than twenty years ago
ia such q law. The language of the
governor, treating that empty compo.
sition as a territorial law, is nonsen-
steal. 1t is not a l.w at all; has not
any character or index of q law; is |
nothing but lot of verbal rubbish
that no Judge, no governor, no civil
functionsry of any grade or kind, has |
the duty to administer. to execute, to |
respect, or to treat with the least res
peot. Why ask a legislative body to
admit-what certainty is not true
that that mass OF verbal rubbish is q |
law, but formally passing a law to
repeal it? Why do not the judiciary
and executive that compose the civil |
OF Utah perform their
function by enforcing the national
law that has nullified and superseded |
that pretended local enactment? Is
the fact that they do not to be taken
as O proof of their strength or OF their
of their fitness or of their
unftness to discharge the high trust
that the national authority has COM
mitted to them3
Why ask an assembly OF isnstical
that hold polygsmy to be
by the legislature of
heaven, to pass an act against polyg-
amy? II Congress had not formerly
repealed the heavenly enactment, it
las passed an act making the prac.
ice Of polygamy in Utah Though not
n Washipgtcn) crime, ssnctioning
severe penalties upon any that prao-
ice it, and sending to Utah full-
iedged judicial and executive estab-
isbmepts 10 ezscute the law OF Con-
.ress. Why don't they execute it3
Is it because the administrators OF
he heavenly ordinance in that pro-
Yince are stronger than the admins.