Salt Lake evening Democrat. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1885-1887, 1885-10-05

ance even for time any principle which
the Almighty has revealed to them and
required them to practice" This devo-
ton to principle seems to have had an
extraordinary growth of late Following
the above quotation, the Ne,Cs has this
stuff and hypocritical nonsense about
obeying constitutional laws:
Their religion enjoins upon them obedi-
ence to all constitutional laws, but when
| laws are enacted in direct violation of the
Constitution for the express purpose of en-
! trapping them, they feel like asking the law
makers, as the early Apostles did, Whether
it be right in the sight of God to hearken
unto you more than unto God, judge ye."
For the latter part of the sentence we
do not care, as it is to the first part we
would draw attention. 1t is absolute
cant and hypocrisy for the NeCs to talk
about their religion enjoining obedience
to all constitutionalla laws, unless the NeUs
and the authorities of the Mormon church
are allowed to say what laws are consti-
tutional and what are not. 1t is as much
the province OF the Supreme Court of the
is not Mormonism as for the Mormon
church to say what laws are constitutional
and what are not. 4 Methodist General
Conference might as well undertake to
define and promulgate the doctrines of
Catholicism as for the Mormon church to
define what is and what is not constitu-
tional in the laws of Congress; or the
College OF Cardinals might as well under
take to say what doctrines and creeds
constitute Methodism The Mormon
church claims that the Constitution is an
inspired instrument. Ii such it be, then
twas inspired before the Mormon church
was, and as in the latter inspiration
nothing was said about the Constitution,
either in the way of amendment or repeal,
the Constitution must stand as inspired,
and SO the Supreme Court of the United
States must still stand as the only means
of determining what laws are and what
are not in harmony with it. There is no
escape from this conclusion, and people
who rely upon the Lord to tell them what
are and what are not constitutional
laws, must still have recourse to the
only means that the Lord inspired for de-
termining such questions. If the people
OF Utah were in conflict with the Govern
ment over some other law, no doubt but
that they would protest their love for the
Constitution, and cant about how their re-
ligion taught them to render obedience to
all constitutional laws the same as
they do now. AS the Lord has
not put the Presidency, nor
either branch of Congress, nor the Su-
preme Court in the hands of the Mormon
church, it Is very plain that the Lord has
not given to that church the power to
enact laws in accordance with the Consti-
tuition, nor to say what laws of Congress
are valid and in accord with that instru-
ment and what ones are invalid and not
in accord. Such being the case, it would
be better for the Mormon people to obey
the laws of the Government until such
time as the Lord sees fit to place the
Government into their hands. When
He does that, we shall urge obedience as
strongly TO all laws which the Mormon
church may enact as we now urge
obedience to the laws already enacted by
the Government.