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BANCROFT 
 LIBRARY 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
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 AN APPEAL 
 
 AMERICAN CONGRESS. 
 
 THE BIBLE LAW OF MAREIAGE 
 AGAINST MOEMONISM. 
 
5 ^ ^ ^ 7 
 
 AN APPEAL 
 
 AMERICAN CONGRESS. 
 
 THE BIBLE LAW OF MARRIAGE AGAINST MORMONISM. 
 
 TTIHE life of our Government is free discussion. 
 -*- This fundamental truth of popular liberty em- 
 boldens me to address the Honorable Gentlemen 
 of the Senate and House of Representatives in Con- 
 gress assembled, and ask their indulgence while 
 offering some suggestions on a subject of great 
 importance to our common country. 
 
 The Mormon Question has become one of intense 
 national interest; on its solution depends the honor 
 or the disgrace of our Government. If what is 
 now understood by Mormonism, namely, the sys- 
 tem of a plurality of wives, be permitted in the 
 Territory of Utah, and allowed a legal establish- 
 ment under the specious pretence of religioua 
 liberty, then polygamy will be virtually allowed in 
 every State of the Union. The citizens of Utah, aa 
 soon as that Territory becomes a State, will be ^ 
 
4 AN APPEAL TO 
 
 entitled to tlie rights of citizenship in every other 
 State, and thus the way will be opened and prepared 
 for this system of licentiousness to gather strength 
 and reach its victims, even here, in this, our holy 
 city, bearing the name of Washington, and boast- 
 ing the guardianship of the Congress of the United 
 States. 
 
 In a book, recently published, I have touched 
 upon the utter repugnance of Mormonism to our 
 free institutions. When the question comes before 
 you, the Honorable Members who take the side of 
 monogamy will have no difficulty in proving that 
 polygamy is incompatible with civil liberty. 
 
 There is no example to be found in History of 
 a Eepublican Government permitting polygamy. 
 Not one. Surely, in the Nineteenth Century, that 
 boasts of its moral and political wisdom, and in this 
 " Great Republic," that leads the world in educa- 
 tional material and moral improvement, an institu- 
 tion, which would make us the shame of civilization 
 and our Government the reproach of Freedom, will 
 not be tolerated ! 
 
 It has been urged that there are difficulties in the 
 way ; or, rather, what seem to be obstacles to the 
 direct action of Congress. Two arguments are 
 raised — not in defence of polygamy — none save a 
 Mormon would do that — but arguments to show 
 that it is impossible, under the Constitution, or 
 impolitic on account of State sovereignty over do- 
 
THE AMERICAN COKGRESS. 5 
 
 mestic institutions, to deal directly with this enemy 
 of freedom, truth, and justice. 
 
 So there is recommended a resort to the " Cir- 
 cumlocution Ofloice" tactics. Mormonism is not 
 to be put down because of its own unlawfulness 
 and its offence against humanity — far worse than 
 piracy — but Congress is to wait till Brigham 
 Young does some overt act that disturbs or resists 
 the authority of the Federal Government in the 
 Territory of Utah. This is giving up the question 
 of polygamy as beyond the power of the Central 
 Government. 
 
 Allow me, with all deference to the wisdom of 
 Congress, to suggest a few reasons which go to 
 prove that this matter is, legitimately, within the 
 jurisdiction of the General Government. 
 
 Monogamy — one man with one woman — as the 
 true marriage union, is founded in the nature of the 
 human species. The equal ratio of increase of the 
 sexes proves that no other system of marriage can-' 
 be just to the man, any more than to the woman. 
 Natural right and equal justice are the basis of im- 
 provement and happiness for our race ; nor would 
 any true philosopher or wise legislator uphold the 
 system of a plurality of wives, even though he 
 should discard the Divine authority of the Bible as 
 the primal and eternal law of marriage for mankind. 
 
 But, granting all this, which I am sure you will, 
 there is yet another questi on : — Does the Constitu- 
 
6 AN APPEAL TO 
 
 tion of the United States authorize or permit the 
 interference of Congress to prevent polygamy ? 
 
 It does — because it guarantees " a Republican 
 form of Government to every State,''^ Polygamy de- 
 stroys the fundamental principle of Democratic 
 liberty, by annihilating the right of the wife to her 
 husband equally with the right of the husband to 
 his wife. The free women citizens of the United 
 States are thus disfranchised of the most important 
 right, natural and political, that they hold. There- 
 fore the State that admits polygamy is not Republi- 
 can. Therefore, in every Territory polygamy should 
 be made an offence, amenable to the laws of the 
 United States, as piracy is. 
 
 'No sane man can deny that monogamy is the 
 true basis of all Democratic institutions. The right 
 of the child to freedom rests on the condition of 
 the mother. The woman is the root of humanity. 
 K that root is rendered corrupt, the whole fabric of 
 ♦society becomes polluted. Liberty cannot live in 
 an atmosphere of moral death. 
 
 These elementary truths of human nature have 
 been the basis of all legislation that has had civil 
 freedom in view. Freemen in every age of the 
 world have founded their laws on this idea of true 
 marriage. Lawgivers of every language that has 
 had "Republic," or its equivalent of free institutions 
 to express, have united in guarding the right of the 
 woman to her own husband — to his name^ care, 
 
THE AMERICAN CONGRESS. 7 
 
 protection, and love, without rival in the home 
 where the children of this sacred union were to be 
 reared as citizens of free States. Jew, Greek, 
 Roman, Goth, Italian, Swiss — none have allowed 
 polygamy to be established or recognized by their 
 laws, civil or sacerdotal. It has been an offence 
 against law, if not always punished by law. Such 
 transgressions always indicate corruption of political 
 as well as of moral virtue. 
 
 Search out the cause of the decay of every per- 
 ished Republic, and you will find it was licentiousness ^ 
 or the desecration of the primal law of marriage, 
 which was the canker-worm at the root of the sacred 
 tree of liberty, causing its fall, and thus crushing 
 out the life of free institutions by destroying the 
 fundamental basis on which civil freedom must rest, 
 to wit, justice and purity in the marriage relation. 
 
 Polygamy leads to the concentration of power 
 and privilege in the hands of the few, and is thus 
 the cause and instrument of tyranny. If one man 
 be permitted to have four wives, three other men 
 in the world are deprived of their natural rights to 
 one wife each. The man with four wives must 
 have means of supporting them ; he must monopo- 
 lize power, property, and privilege ; while the man 
 not permitted to marry one wife is deprived of 
 other rights and reduced to an inferior position. 
 He is not a man ; he is only a soldier, sailor y servant, 
 eunuch ! 
 
8 AN APPEAL TO 
 
 The tendency of monarcliical governments to 
 centralize power and accumulate privileges in the 
 hands of a class or caste is well known to you. 
 Under every such Government in Christian Europe 
 large classes of men are deprived of the means and 
 opportunities which would allow them to marry 
 and rear, each one, his own family. The evil 
 effects of this unnatural condition are obvious on 
 the moral character of both men and women, as 
 well as on their material improvement. Yet they 
 do make progress; but wherever polygamy is estab- 
 lished, there the tyranny is complete ; we can have 
 no hope for that race — except the forlorn hope 
 that the institution may be overthrown, or the men, 
 who sustain it, destroyed. 
 
 Thus it becomes self-evident that Eepublican 
 institutions, and the system of a plurality of wives, 
 now allowed in Utah, cannot exist together. 
 
 Here, then, that important clause in the Constita- 
 tioUy (see Article iv.. Section iv.,) which solemnly 
 guarantees to " every State in the Union a Republi- 
 can form of Government," becomes imperative and 
 can be safely acted upon. 
 
 The guarantee will surely be broken if polyg- 
 amy be permitted in any State or Territory, because^ 
 the woman — a free citizen — is thereby made a 
 slave, subjected to the lust and will of the man in 
 this false marriage, without that check which the 
 law of nature and the law of political equality alike 
 
THE AMERICAN CONGRESS. 9 
 
 demand, and wliich. is as essential to the safety of 
 civil freedom as it is to the safety, honor, and hap- 
 piness of woman. 
 
 I need not dwell longer on this point. There are 
 eminent men in Congress who, I feel sure, will take 
 up and argue this subject with the persuasive elo- 
 quence which truth and justice lend to questions of 
 the highest moral interest. It may be safely as- 
 serted, that there never was a question before an 
 American Congress so fraught with consequences 
 for good or for evil to our whole nation as this. 
 
 The struggle against Mormonism, and its mon^ 
 strous falsities, is rendered more arduous and criti- 
 cal by the insidious craft it uses to conceal its frauds 
 on its foreign victims, who are lured to this land by 
 its specious promises of freedom. "When they reach 
 Salt Lake City, and are there subjected to a tyranny 
 that has no parallel in a civilized country, they seem 
 powerless to resist the evil. To expose these falsi- 
 ties, and clear our institutions from such polluting 
 stain as the presence of polygamy would leave on 
 our land, will aftbrd ample opportunities for the 
 noblest display of manly eloquence. You will be 
 Paladins, battling against the fiercest foes of Wo- 
 man; Patriots, upholding the dearest rights of 
 Freedom ; Christians, advocating the holiest duties 
 of Humanity. . *- 
 
 But there is another aspect of this Mormon 
 question; its bearing on religious liberty, which 
 
10 AN APPEAL TO 
 
 the Constitution expressly guarantees to every 
 citizen. 
 
 It is urged by some able writers, who are no ad- 
 vocates of the system of Joe Smith, but exceedingly 
 jealous concerning religious liberty, that, as the 
 polygamy of the Mormons is a religious, and not a 
 civil institution, therefore the authority of Congress 
 cannot reach it. — Let us examine this proposition. 
 
 Was it the intention of those who framed the Con- 
 stitution, or of those who proposed the article se- 
 curing " the free exercise of religion" to all citizens 
 of the United States, that under the sanction of this 
 liberty of religion, usages and modes of conduct 
 should be established, by any society or sect, sub- 
 versive of public morals ? "Would the plea of "free 
 exercise of religion " sustain a sect who made steal- 
 ing a religious duty, when, like the Spartans, they 
 could do it undetected? or who should establish 
 the " suttee," or practice the destruction of feeble, 
 sickly children ? 
 
 The great majority of people in the United States 
 are believers in Christianity, who take the Bible as 
 their Holy Book. 
 
 If it should be settled that, under the pretense or 
 even belief in a new revelation, an association of 
 men are entitled to their civil rights as citizens, 
 while committing acts that all Christians hold to be 
 sin, and that the laws of the thirty-seven States, and 
 of every other Christian country, punish as crimes, 
 
THE AMERICAN CONGKESS. 11 
 
 would not the rights and liberties of the majority 
 be sacrificed to those of the minority ? 
 
 Would not the very foundations of our popular 
 institutions be in jeopardy, if a State, with such a 
 system of religious government as Utah is now 
 cursed with, should be admitted into the Union ? 
 Let one such hierarchy ^ for so it really is, be legal- 
 ized as a Sovereign State, would not the lives and 
 liberties of the citizens of all the other States, 
 unless they conformed to the ruling " political reli- 
 gionism," as Dugald Stewart significantly terms 
 these amalgamations of sacred and secular institu- 
 tions, be put at hazard ? 
 
 And then all other monstrous phases of sin and 
 crime would find an open door, if they put on the 
 thin disguise of religious forms. It is on record 
 that, about the year 130 of our era, soon after the 
 death of the last apostle, St. John, a sect arose in 
 Judea calling themselves Gainites, because they pro- 
 fessed to esteem Cain worthy of the greatest honors. 
 They honored those who carry in Scripture the 
 most visible marks of reprobation ; as the inhabi- 
 tants of Sodom, Esau, Korah, etc. They had, in 
 particular, great veneration for Judas Iscariot, 
 under the pretense that the death of Christ had 
 saved mankind. (See Buck's J'heological Dictionary,) 
 
 Now, were a sect holding these Cainite tenets to 
 arise in our Republic, while only professing their 
 creed, they would not be amenable to the laws; 
 
12 AN APPEAL TO 
 
 but should they attempt, either individually or col- 
 lectively, to imitate the evil examples which tlhey 
 reverenced, under the plea of " religious liberty," 
 would they not be held criminal by the laws of each 
 and all the States where they put their theory into 
 action ? And if a State or Territory should permit 
 such a creed as Cainism to predominate and estab- 
 lish its priesthood in civil power, to the detriment 
 of other forms of religious and political liberty, 
 would it not be the duty of Congress to put down 
 this unlawful combination of Cainites for their 
 crimes against those popular rights of " life, liberty, 
 and the pursuit of happiness," which are equally 
 guaranteed to all free citizens of the United States ? 
 
 To judge accurately between good and evil in 
 social life is sometimes difficult, because of the 
 mingled nature of human influences and actions ; 
 sometimes the evil may seem good and sometimes 
 produce good by suppressing greater evil. Thus, 
 war is of itself a great evil ; yet it may do much 
 good by overthrowing the wrong and advancing 
 the right, and be the only available human means 
 of preventing far worse evils than war. 
 
 The evil that is everywhere in this world mingled 
 vnth the good, is the result of the nature of fallen 
 humanity, and is unlike the overt act of sin that 
 marks the criminal who disobeys the laws of God. 
 Such disobedience can never, under any circum- 
 stances, do good to mankind. It is the glory of our 
 
THE AMERICAN CONGRESS. 13 
 
 free institutions that they accord, in their general 
 principles of justice and equity, with the standard 
 of the Divine Word ; that those actions which the 
 Moral Law forbids as sins are criminal under our 
 codes, and that the Brotherhood of the Gospel and 
 the freedom of individual opinion and conscience 
 are here secured, as Christ taught His disciples to 
 be free. 
 
 And Christ taught also another lesson that we 
 ought, nationally as well as individually, to heed. 
 He taught the danger of transgressing or setting 
 aside any one principle of eternal justice and right; 
 that the man who disobeyed one commandment 
 was guilty of disobedience to all. This is sound 
 philosophical and legal as well as religious truth. 
 The man who purposes to murder or steal will also 
 bear false witness, covet, and, in short, transgress 
 every law. Divine and human, that stands in his 
 way, either to prevent his sin or to punish the 
 overt crime. 
 
 Does not this exposition picture Mormonism, as 
 it has been developed in every place where its stand- 
 ard has been set up ? Its leaders, having defied the 
 laws of God and of all the States of the Union, by 
 establishing polygamy, are prepared to sustain their 
 unjust and iniquitous institutions by the overthrow 
 of the laws of the General Government, and the 
 Government also, if that were possible. 
 
 But these outrages against law will be punished 
 
14 AN APPEAL TO 
 
 and the Mormons reduced to submission; yet no 
 permanent security or advantage will be thereby 
 gained, unless polygamy is abolished. The Country 
 looks to Congress for the redress of this great wrong 
 on our Republican institutions. If full powers are 
 not vested in the Government, then let an Amend- 
 ment TO THE Constitution be forthwith submitted 
 to the People. 
 
 The justice of the measure cannot be questioned. 
 A wife has no separate vote at the polls; she is 
 represented by her husband, because the Christian 
 bond of marriage makes the twain one in interest, 
 in station, and in the social and legal relations of 
 life. Deprived of this holy safeguard of her rights^ 
 civil and religious, there is no barrier between wo- 
 man and the most crushing despotism which the 
 selfish power and brutal passions of man may 
 choose to wield over her. 
 
 Shall the daughters of America, the pride of our 
 country, of whom we boast as excelling in femi- 
 nine purity and loveliness of character as well as in 
 personal beauty, shall these, the " polished stones '' 
 of our social and political fabric, be subjected to the 
 possibility of such foul dishonor, such filthy debase- 
 ment, as even the idea that polygamy is permitted 
 under the Government of the United States would 
 bring on the name of American Women ? 
 
 The Christian people, the free, independent, self- 
 governing people, who should submit to such op- 
 
THE AMERICAN CONGRESS. 15 
 
 probrium, might well " say to corruption, thou art 
 my father ; and to the worm, thou art my mother 
 and my sister." "Would not even the crawling 
 creature be disgraced by the comparison? The 
 American people will never permit Mornionism 
 to be licensed in the land of "Washington. 
 
 Is it a vain boast to say, that the decision of Con- 
 gress on this great question of true Marriage, will 
 influence the character of Mankind? Are not the 
 nations of the Old World looking to us for exam- 
 ples to guide their own forms of change, and their 
 own efforts for development ? 
 
 Let the decision go forth to uphold the Primal 
 Law of Marriage in the homes of our own people, 
 and thus fit all coming generations for self-govern- 
 ment, and the blessings that follow the peaceful 
 development of human power, would not our ex- 
 ample give honor to woman and glory to man? 
 Would not our form of Free Government be ele- 
 vated in the eyes of all nations, and induce the 
 most conservative to approve a system by which 
 Liberty represses License, and Freedom and Purity 
 go hand in hand ? 
 
 To the Members of our American Congress the 
 decision of this question, so important to us and to 
 the world, is committed. 
 
 Remember that the laws of nature keep the sexes 
 equal in numbers; therefore justice demands that 
 the wife should have the right to her own husband 
 
 22 
 
16 AN APPEAL TO CONGRESS. 
 
 as surely secured, by the laws of man, as the right 
 of the husband is secured to his own wife. 
 
 The duties of men and women are not identical, 
 but relative ; not co-incident, but co-equal. Man's 
 great work is on the material universe; "Woman 
 moulds the nature of humanity. The Home of the 
 family is the source of the State. 
 
 The foundation-stones of this Capitol of our coun- 
 try are not more needed for its magnificent and 
 Heaven-aspiring Dome, than the Primal Law of 
 Marriage is required for the support of our Eepub- 
 lican Institutions. Should we weaken or withdraw 
 the sacred influences of true Marriage, neither 
 Ballot-box nor Sword could compel obedience to 
 the laws of Righteousness required in the life of a 
 Free and Sovereign Nation. 
 
 ONE OF THE PEOPLE, 
 
 Author of 
 
 .** Opinions Concerning the Bible Law of Marriage."