Sunday, May 14, 2006

Edmunds-Tucker Act

The Edmunds-Tucker Act of 1887 touched all the issues at dispute between Congress and the Mormons. The act disincorporated both the Church and the Perpetual Emigration Fund on the ground that they fostered polygamy.
The act prohibited the practice of polygamy and punished it with a fine of from $500 to $800 and imprisonment of up to five years. It dissolved the corporation of the church and directed the confiscation by the federal government of all church properties valued over a limit of $50,000.
The act also dealt with the separation of church and state and with courts, militia, education, elections, immigration, and woman suffrage. Utah women had been granted the franchise in 1870, but now lost it. The act was enforced by the U. S. marshal and a host of deputies. Other matters dealt with by the act included:
Required civil marriage licenses
Required voters, jurors, and public officials to deny polygamy
Replaced local judges with federally appointed judges
Removed local control in school textbook choice
In 1890 the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the seizure of Church property under the Edmunds-Tucker Act in The Late Corporation of the Mormon Church v. United States.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Who wrote the Manifesto? For most writers and commentators about the Manifesto, the answer to that question is so obvious that they find it unnecessary to go beyond identifying the document as Wilford Woodruff’s Manifesto. However, when asked about it at the witness stand, a secretary in the First Presidency’s office, George Reynolds, testified in 1904, "I assisted to write it," in collaboration with Charles W. Penrose and John R. Winder who "transcribed the notes and changed the language slightly to adapt it for publication." Moving far beyond that statement, John W. Woolley told his polygamist followers in the 1920s that "Judge Zane [a non- Mormon] had as much to do with it [the Manifesto] as Wilford Woodruff except to sign it," and Lorin C. Woolley told Mormon Fundamentalists that Wilford Woodruff was not the author of the Manifesto but that it was actually written by Charles W. Penrose, Frank J. Cannon, and "John H. White, the butcher," revised by non-Mormon federal officials, and that Woodruff merely signed it. Moreover, Woolley and his Fundamentalist followers have accused George Q. Cannon of pressuring Presidents Taylor and Woodruff to write a manifesto abandoning plural marriage, and at least one Fundamentalist called him "The Great Mormon Judas."

Anonymous said...

Very interesting.
Where can I find this information?

Anonymous said...

That's funny considering George Q. Cannon was the liason between the church president and those wanting to practice plural marriage after the manifesto. If anyone is a "Judas", it's Heber J. Grant

fundytoo

Anonymous said...

I don't think they fulfilled that requirement of "the separation of church and state" or the one requiring "public officials to deny polygamy".

Those 2 still seem to around in 2006.

ATAR_i said...

Does that mean that they can take all the money? That's what I'd be looking at - forget the statehood - find the bank accounts.