The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1890-10-12
President George Q. Cannon.

President George y. Cannon
On the 10Th of January, 1871, the lord
gave His servant Joseph Smith revelation,
the forty ninth paragraph of which l will
read:
"Verily, verify, / say unto you. that
when | give commandment TO any OF the
sons Of men, TO do a work unto my name,
and those sons of men go with all their
might. and with all they have, to perform
that work, and cease not their diligence,
ana their enemies come upon them, and
hinder them from performing that work !;
behold il behoveth me to require that work
no more at the hands Of those sons of men,
but to accept of their offerings
The Lord says other things connected
with this, which / do not think it neces-
sary to read, but the whole revelation is
profitable, and can be read by those who
desire to do so.
It is on this basis that President Wood
ruff has felt himself justified in issuing this
manifesto.
/ suppose it would not be justice to this
conference not TO say something upon this
subject; and yet everyone knows how deli
cate a subject il is, and how difficult it is to
approach it without saying something that
may offend somebody. So far as | am con-
cerned, can say that Of the men in this
church who have endeayored TO maintain
this principle of plural marriage, am one.
In public and in private have avowed my
belief in it. | have defended it every
where and under all circumstances, and
when it was necessary have said that con-
sidered the command was binding and i'm
perative upon me.
But a change has taken place. We have,
in the first place, endeavored to show that
the law which affected this feature of our
religion was unconstitutional. We be-
lieved for years that the law of July /,
1862, was in direct conflict with the first
amendment to the constitution, (which says
that Congress shall make no law respect
ing an establishment of religion, or prohib-
iting the free exercise thereof We rested
upon that, and for years continued the
practice of plural marriage, believing the
law against it to be an unconstitutional
one, and that we had the right, under the
constitution, to carry out this principle
practically In our lives. Sc confident was
in relation to this view that in CONVERSE
lions with President Grant, and with his
attorney general. ex-senator Williams, of
Oregon, / said to them that if my case were
not barred by the statute of limitations
would be willing to have it made test
case, in order that the law might be tested.
We were sustained in this view not only by
our own Interpretation of the amendment
to the constitution, but also by some of the
best legal minds in the country, who took
exactly the same view that we did-Jhat
this law was an interference with
religious rights, and that so long as
oar practices did not interfere with the
happiness and peace of society, or of
Others, we had the right to carry out this
principle. In fact, it is within six or eight
months that, IN conversation with two
United States Senators, each conversation
being separate from the other, both of them
expressed themselves though not in the
same language, to this effect: 'Mr Can
non. II this feature that YOU practice had
not been associated with religion, it Nigh,
have been tolerated: but you have asso-
clated IL with religion and il has aroused
the religious sentiment of the nation, and
that sentiment cannot be resisted. So far
as the practice itself is concerned, if you
had not made it part of your faith and an
institution sanctioned by religion, it might
have gone along unnoticed." / do not give the
exact language, but these are the ideas tina,
they conveyed to me. Now, we are very
confident that this law was an unconstitu
tional one. President Daniel H. Wells will
remember how ne and tried toget case
10 test the constitutionality of the law dur
ing the lifetime of President Brigham
Young. We wanted to get Brother Eras
tus Snow. Il is the last thing that We
should have thought of to put man like ht
was in the gap if we had not been firmly
convinced that the law was unconstitu.
tional and would be declared so by tht
United States supreme court. We
the south, thinking that his case
would not be barred by the statute
of limitations. He replied to US concern
ing il, and we found that it was barred
Brother A. NJ. Musser proposed himself, sit
remember Alright, to be q test case; but
there was defect in his case. We
wanted this case, whenever it was pre-
sented, to be presented fairly, that there
should be no evasion about it, but that L
should be q case that could be tested fairly
before the courts OF the country. Finally
Brother George Reynolds was selected
said 10 myself, when learned the result
..'It is the last time that / will ever have
anything to do with test case,again which
will involve the liberty Of any body.n l was
promised when he was sentenced, by ont
high in authority and who had the right tt
make the promise, that he should be re
leased, when the circumstances We're told
TO him; for they were laid fairly befor,
him, and he was told that the evidence wa.
furnished by Brother Reynolds himself
and that everything had been done to max,
it test case; the government he'd beer
aided in the securing of witnesses and nj
difficulty thrown in the way. Afterwards
on the second trial, believe Brother Rev
nolds' lawyers got frightened, and Their,
was something occurred then that gave i
q different appearance. But when tn,
facts were related, as / stated to one higl
In authority, he promised me that Georg,
Reynolds should be pardoned. There wer,
those, however, in this city who were de
termined that he should not escape i'm
prisonment. and the prosecuting attorne,
wrote a letter which changed the mind O
this high official, as he afterwards told me
aud he declined to carry out that which
had received as promise. But even thel
there were circumstances connected wit
this decision that made US reluctant to &C
cept it.
Since that time the history of proceed
ings is before you and before the world
We have felt as though this command o
God was Of such Importance TO US, involv
ing so many ser1ons consequences, that w
should do all in our power to have tn
world know the position that we occupied
There may be men among US who believe,
they would be damned if they did not ODE,
this, accepting 1t as q direct command from
God. Therefore, you can understand how
tenaciously we have protested, and how
vigorously we have endeavored, as far a
we could, to make public our views upol
this subject.
/ suppose there are two classes here TO-
day in this congregation-one class witt