1.
Mormonism and polygamy
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The Latter-day Saints practice of polygamy has been controversial, both within Western society and the LDS Church itself. America was both fascinated and horrified by the practice of polygamy, with the Republican platform at one time referencing the twin relics of barbarism—polygamy, the private practice of polygamy was instituted in the 1830s by founder Joseph Smith. In 1862, the United States Congress passed the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act, in spite of the law, Mormons continued to practice polygamy, believing that it was protected by the First Amendment. In 1890, church president Wilford Woodruff issued a Manifesto that officially terminated the practice of polygamy. Although this Manifesto did not dissolve existing plural marriages, relations with the United States markedly improved after 1890, on its web site, the church states that the standard doctrine of the church is monogamy and that polygamy was a temporary exception to the rule. Many early converts, including Brigham Young, Orson Pratt, and Lyman Johnson, Pratt reported that Smith told some early members in 1831 and 1832 that plural marriage was a true principle, but that the time to practise it had not yet come. Johnson also claimed to have heard the doctrine from Smith in 1831, mosiah Hancock reported that his father was taught about plural marriage in the spring of 1832. William Clayton, Smiths scribe, recorded polygamous marriages in 1843. Clayton relates, On the 1st day of May,1843, I officiated in the office of an Elder by marrying Lucy Walker to the Prophet Joseph Smith, during this period the Prophet Joseph took several other wives. Amongst the number I well remember Eliza Partridge, Emily Partridge, Sarah Ann Whitney, Helen Kimball and these all, he acknowledged to me, were his lawful, wedded wives, according to the celestial order. His wife Emma was cognizant of the fact of some, if not all, of these being his wives, the majority of what became the Quorum of the Twelve in 1835 attended Mormon conferences held in the center of the Cochranites in 1834 and 1835. Joseph Smith publicly condemned polygamy, denied his involvement in it, but church leaders nevertheless began practicing polygamy in the 1840s, particularly members of the Quorum of the Twelve. At the time, the practice was kept secret from non-members, throughout his life, Smith publicly denied having multiple wives. However, John C. Bennett was called to account by Joseph and Hyrum Smith, in April 1844, Joseph Smith referred to polygamy as John C. The practice was publicly announced in Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, in 1852, some five years after the Mormons arrived in Utah, the doctrine authorizing plural marriage was published in the 1876 version of the LDS Churchs Doctrine and Covenants. The 1843 polygamy revelation, published posthumously, counseled Smiths wife Emma to accept all of Smiths plural wives, Emma Smith was publicly and privately opposed to the practice and Joseph may have married some women without Emma knowing beforehand. Emma Smith remained affiliated with the RLDS Church until her death at the age of 74, Emma Smith claimed that the very first time she ever became aware of the 1843 polygamy revelation was when she read about it in Orson Pratts publication The Seer in 1853. There is a difference between sealing, and marriage
2.
Origin of Latter Day Saint polygamy
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Polygamy, or plural marriage, in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints probably originated with the founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, who taught that polygamy was a divine commandment. Smith practiced it personally, by some accounts marrying more than 30 women some of whom had existing marriages to other men. Smiths son Joseph Smith III, his widow Emma Smith, and they instead claimed that Brigham Young, the head of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, introduced plural marriage after Smiths death. In 1852, leaders of the Utah-based LDS Church acknowledged that Smith taught, when polygamy was introduced into the Latter Day Saint movement is uncertain. Some scholars believe that Smith transcribed a revelation recommending polygamy on July 17,1831 and this alleged revelation is described in a letter to Brigham Young written in 1861 by an early Mormon convert, William W. Phelps, thirty years after the supposed revelation. This was during a period when LDS Church leaders were justifying the practice and origins of plural marriage, unlike the 1831 revelation, the 1830 version of the Book of Mormon does not specify that the Native Americans would become white and delightsome through plural marriage. Three authors assert that a record of the revelation exists, believed to be in the LDS Churchs historical department. The LDS Church never published Phelpss note or letter, nor has it been canonized as part of Mormon scripture, the church also never adopted a policy requiring or recommending that its members marry Native Americans. Though the 1831 revelation is cited by Mormon historians, non-Mormon historians, and critics, there are dissenting opinions, and no consensus has been reached. After Smiths death, many converts, including apostles Brigham Young, Orson Pratt. Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner, Smiths ninth wife claimed that Smith had a conversation with her in 1831 when she was twelve. Pratt reported that Smith told some early members in 1831 and 1832 that plural marriage was a true principle, Johnson also claimed to have heard the doctrine from Smith in 1831. Mosiah Hancock reported that his father Levi W. Hancock was taught about plural marriage in the spring of 1832. William Clayton, Smiths scribe, recorded polygamous marriages in 1843, including unions between Smith and Eliza Partridge, Emily Partridge, Sarah Ann Whitney, Helen Kimball, and Flora Woodworth. Mormons held two conferences at Saco, Maine, the center of Cochranism, on June 13,1834, at the latter conference, at least seven of the twelve newly-ordained Mormon apostles were in attendance, including Brigham Young. Others who spent time among the Cochranites were Orson Hyde and Smiths younger brother, among Cochrans marital innovations was spiritual wifery. Ridlon wrote in 1895, tradition assumes that received frequent consignments of spiritual consorts, some new Cochranites remained polygamists, and moved from the east coast to the Mormon community of Kirtland, Ohio. The revelation was dictated by Smith to his scribe William Clayton
3.
Latter Day Saint polygamy in the late-19th century
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Possibly as early as the 1830s, followers of the Latter Day Saint movement, were practicing the doctrine of polygamy or plural marriage. In the years after the LDS Church began practicing polygamy, it drew intense scrutiny and this criticism led to the Utah Mormon War, and eventually the abandonment of the practice under the leadership of Wilford Woodruff, who issued the 1890 Manifesto. The announcement came nine years after the purported original revelation by Joseph Smith, Young was unable to produce the original document and declared that Smiths widow Emma Smith had burned it. Polygamy was roundly condemned by all sections of the American public. During the presidential election of 1856 a key plank of the newly formed Republican Partys platform was a pledge to prohibit in the territories those twin relics of barbarism, polygamy, further tension grew due to the relationship between Gentile federal appointees and the Utah territorial leadership. This already tense situation was exacerbated by a period of intense religious revival starting in late 1856 dubbed the Mormon Reformation. In the midst of the American Civil War, Republican majorities in Congress were able to pass legislation meant to curb the Mormon practice of polygamy, one such act was the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act, which was signed into law on July 8,1862 by President Abraham Lincoln. The act banned plural marriage and limited church and non-profit ownership in any territory of the United States to $50,000, the act targeted the LDS Churchs control of Utah Territory. The measure had no funds allocated for enforcement, and thus it was not rigorously enforced, the Mormons, believing that the law unconstitutionally deprived them of their First Amendment right to freely practice their religion, chose to ignore the law. In the following years, several bills aimed at strengthening the anti-bigamy laws failed to pass the United States Congress. These included the Wade, Cragin, and Cullom bills which had their origin in the territory of Utah and were initiated by men who were opposed to the Mormon establishment. The Wade Bill initiated in 1866 would have destroyed local government if it had passed, three years later, the Cragin Bill was proposed, but within a few days it was substituted by the Cullom Bill, which was more radical than the Wade or Cragin bills. Members of the church worked for the defeat of the bill, including women of the church, poland of Vermont, the Act redefined the jurisdiction of Utah courts by giving the United States district courts exclusive jurisdiction in Utah Territory over all civil and criminal cases. The Act also eliminated the territorial marshal and attorney, giving their duties to a U. S, the Act also altered petit and grand jury empaneling rules to keep polygamists off juries. By removing Latter-day Saints from positions of authority in the Utah justice system, immediately, under the act, the United States Attorney tried to bring leading church officials to trial. These efforts culminated in the sentencing of George Reynolds to two years hard labor in prison and a fine of five hundred dollars for his practice of polygamy, in 1876, the Utah Territorial Supreme Court upheld the sentence. Reynolds was released from prison in January 1881, having served eighteen months of his original sentence, cannon, a prominent leader in the church, was denied a non-voting seat in the House of Representatives due to his multiple marriages. This revived the issue in national politics, electoral obstacles to prosecution were now removed, and the new territorial officials began criminal prosecutions in ernest
4.
Second Manifesto
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To be distinguished from the Second Manifesto of Surrealism The Second Manifesto was a 1904 declaration made by Joseph F. In 1890, church president Wilford Woodruff had issued the initial Manifesto, however, after the Manifesto, it became clear that a number of church members, including members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, were continuing to enter into or solemnize polygamous marriages. The Second Manifesto was announced at the conference of the church held on April 6,1904. At a public meeting, Smith announced that he would like to read a statement that he had prepared so that his words may not be misunderstood or misquoted. Joseph F. Smith, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, smiths official statement was later published in the Improvement Era, an official magazine of the church. A number of leaders were opposed to the enforcement of the Second Manifesto, including apostles John W. Taylor. As a result of their opposition, both resigned from the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1906, and in 1911 Taylor was excommunicated for continued opposition. In 1909, Francis M. Lyman chaired a committee to investigate plural marriages since the Second Manifesto that excommunicated people who had been involved in such practices. As the church began to excommunicate those who continued to enter into plural marriages, John Wickersham Woolley Short Creek raid Gospel Topics, The Manifesto and the End of Plural Marriage, lds. org, LDS Church, retrieved 2014-10-22
5.
Council of Friends (Woolley)
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The Council of Friends was one of the original expressions of Mormon fundamentalism, having its origins in the teachings of Lorin C. Woolley, a dairy farmer excommunicated from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1924, Woolley, to ensure that the practice of polygamy would continue into perpetuity even if abandoned by the church. To that end, Woolley extended the same authority to a seven-man Council of Friends between 1929 and 1933. Following the death of Woolley in September 1934 and of his Second Elder J. Leslie Broadbent six months later, the leadership of the Group fell to John Y. Barlow believed that the isolated Creek could provide a place of refuge for those engaging in the practice of polygamy, a felony, within a month. The UEP was incorporated on November 9,1942, the group was notorious for the practice of polygamy due to media coverage during the Short Creek raids of 1945 and 1953. Additions were made to Woolleys Council of Friends as time went on, leroy S. Johnson and Rulon Jeffs, future leaders of the FLDS Church, were ordained by John Y. Barlow in the 1940s, while Joseph Mussers ordination of Rulon C, allred in 1952 caused a division in the community and led to the creation of the Apostolic United Brethren. Today, the AUB continues to be led by a Priesthood Council, indeed, Woolley claimed to have been ordained to the Council for precisely that purpose by President John Taylor in 1886, along with his father John W. Woolley and four others. Barlow, Joseph White Musser, Charles Zitting, LeGrande Woolley, the following are the leaders of the Council of Friends prior to the 1954 split, John W. Woolley Lorin C. Woolley J. Leslie Broadbent John Y, barlow Joseph W. Musser Charles Zitting
6.
Mormon fundamentalism
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Mormon fundamentalists seek to uphold tenets and practices no longer held by mainstream Mormons. The principle most often associated with Mormon fundamentalism is plural marriage, a form of polygyny first taught in the Latter Day Saint movement by Joseph Smith, a second and closely associated principle is that of the United Order, a form of egalitarian communalism. Mormon fundamentalists believe that these and other principles were abandoned or changed by the LDS Church in its efforts to become reconciled with mainstream American society. Today, the LDS Church excommunicates any of its members who practice plural marriage or who otherwise closely associate themselves with Mormon fundamentalist practices, There is no single authority accepted by all Mormon fundamentalists, viewpoints and practices of individual groups vary. Fundamentalists have formed numerous small sects, often within cohesive and isolated communities in the Western United States, Western Canada, and northern Mexico. At times, sources have claimed there are as many as 60,000 Mormon fundamentalists in the United States, however, others have suggested that there may be as few as 20,000 Mormon fundamentalists with only 8,000 to 15,000 practicing polygamy. The largest Mormon fundamentalist groups are the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the LDS Church began prohibiting the contracting of plural marriages within the United States in 1890 after a decree by the president of the church, Wilford Woodruff. However, the practice continued underground in the U. S. and openly in Mormon colonies in northern Mexico and southern Alberta. According to some sources, many men in the United States continued to live with their plural wives with the approval of church presidents Woodruff, Lorenzo Snow. They make their argument based upon evidence and the fact that the Manifesto is not worded in accordance with similar revelations in the LDS scriptures. The LDS Church prevents any of its members who sympathize with Mormon fundamentalist teachings from entering its temples, during the 1920s, a church dissenter named Lorin C. Woolley claimed a line of priesthood authority from the LDS Churchs hierarchy. Most of the Mormon polygamous groups can trace their roots to Woolleys legacy, for the most part, the Utah state government has left the Mormon fundamentalists to themselves unless their practices violate laws other than those prohibiting bigamy. For example, there have been recent prosecutions of men who belong to fundamentalist groups for marrying underage girls, in one highly publicized case, a man and one of his polygamist wives lost custody of all but one of their children until the wife separated herself from her husband. The largest government effort to crack down on the practices of fundamentalist Mormons was carried out in 1953 in what is today Colorado City, Arizona, most Mormon fundamentalists embrace the term Fundamentalist. Mormon fundamentalists share certain commonalities with other fundamentalist movements, but also possess some clear distinctions of their own, in this view, ordination lineage becomes all-important and an external organization such as a church may lose its theological authority while the priesthood may continue via an alternative lineage. Mormon fundamentalists frequently assert that priesthood is prior to the Church, Mormon fundamentalists dislike the term polygamy and view polygyny as a term used only by outsiders. They also refer to plural marriage generically as the Principle, celestial marriage, the practice of plural marriage usually differs little from the manner in which it was practiced in the nineteenth century
7.
Joseph Smith
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Joseph Smith Jr. was an American religious leader and founder of Mormonism and the Latter Day Saint movement. When he was twenty-four, Smith published the Book of Mormon, by the time of his death fourteen years later, he had attracted tens of thousands of followers and founded a religious culture that continues to the present. In 1830, Smith published what he said was an English translation of these plates, the same year he organized the Church of Christ, calling it a restoration of the early Christian church. Members of the church were later called Latter Day Saints, or Mormons, in 1831, Smith and his followers moved west, planning to build a communalistic American Zion. They first gathered in Kirtland, Ohio, and established an outpost in Independence, Missouri, during the 1830s, Smith sent out missionaries, published revelations, and supervised construction of the expensive Kirtland Temple. In 1844, Smith and the Nauvoo city council angered non-Mormons by destroying a newspaper that had criticized Smiths power, after Smith was imprisoned in Carthage, Illinois, he was killed when a mob stormed the jailhouse. Smith published many revelations and other texts that his followers regard as scripture and his teachings include unique views about the nature of God, cosmology, family structures, political organization, and religious collectivism. Joseph Smith Jr. was born on December 23,1805, in Sharon, Vermont, to Lucy Mack Smith and her husband Joseph Sr. a merchant, after suffering a crippling bone infection when he was seven, the younger Smith used crutches for three years. During the Second Great Awakening, the region was a hotbed of religious enthusiasm, although Smiths parents disagreed about religion, the family was caught up in this excitement. Smith later said he became interested in religion at about the age of twelve, he participated in church classes, as a teenager, he may have been sympathetic to Methodism. With other family members, Smith also engaged in folk magic. Both his parents and his grandfather reportedly had visions or dreams that they believed communicated messages from God. Smith said that although he had become concerned about the welfare of his soul, years later Smith said that in 1820 he had received a vision that resolved his religious confusion. While praying in an area near his home, he said that God, in a vision, had told him his sins were forgiven. Smith said he told the experience to a preacher, who dismissed the story with contempt, but the experience was largely unknown, even to most Mormons, until the 1840s. Although Smith may have understood the event as a conversion, this First Vision later grew in importance among Mormons. Smith said he attempted to remove the plates the next morning but was unsuccessful because the angel prevented him, Smith reported that during the next four years, he made annual visits to the hill but each time returned without the plates. Meanwhile, the Smith family faced financial hardship due in part to the November 1823 death of Smiths oldest brother Alvin, Family members supplemented their meager farm income by hiring out for odd jobs and working as treasure seekers, a type of magical supernaturalism common during the period
8.
Brigham Young
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Brigham Young was an American leader in the Latter Day Saint movement and a settler of the Western United States. He was the second President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1847 until his death in 1877 and he founded Salt Lake City and he served as the first governor of the Utah Territory. Young also led the foundings of the precursors to the University of Utah, Young was dubbed by his followers the Lion of the Lord for his bold personality and was also commonly called Brother Brigham by Latter-day Saints. Young was a polygamist and was involved in controversies regarding black people and the Priesthood, the Utah War, and the Mountain Meadows massacre. Young was born to John Young and Abigail Nabby Howe, a family in Whitingham, Vermont. Young was first married in 1824 to Miriam Angeline Works, though he had converted to the Methodist faith in 1823, Young was drawn to Mormonism after reading the Book of Mormon shortly after its publication in 1830. He officially joined the new church in 1832 and traveled to Upper Canada as a missionary, after his wife died in 1832, Young joined many Mormons in establishing a community in Kirtland, Ohio. In 1844, while in jail awaiting trial for treason charges, Joseph Smith, several claimants to the role of church president emerged during the succession crisis that ensued. Young opposed this reasoning and motion, the majority in attendance were persuaded that the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles was to lead the church with Young as the Quorums president. Many of Youngs followers would later reminisce that while Young spoke to the congregation, he looked or sounded exactly like Smith, Young was ordained President of the Church in December 1847, three and a half years after Smiths death. Rigdon became the president of a church organization based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Repeated conflict led Young to relocate his group of Latter-day Saints to the Salt Lake Valley, Young organized the journey that would take the Mormon pioneers to Winter Quarters, Nebraska, in 1846, then to the Salt Lake Valley. By the time Young arrived at the destination, it had come under American control as a result of war with Mexico. Young arrived in the Salt Lake Valley on July 24,1847, Youngs expedition was one of the largest and one of the best organized westward treks. On August 22,29 days after arriving in the Salt Lake Valley, after three years of leading the church as the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Young reorganized a new First Presidency and was declared president of the church on December 27,1847. As colonizer and founder of Salt Lake City, Young was appointed the territorys first governor, during his time as prophet, Young directed the establishment of settlements throughout present-day Utah, Idaho, Arizona, Nevada, California and parts of southern Colorado and northern Mexico. Young was also one of the first to subscribe to Union Pacific stock, Young organized the first legislature and established Fillmore as the territorys first capital. Young organized a Board of Regents to establish a university in the Salt Lake Valley and it was established on February 28,1850, as the University of Deseret, its name was eventually changed to the University of Utah
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