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Show GET THE RIGHT GROUND. A good many Eastern newspapers are moving to oppose the seating of Apostle Reed Smoot in case of his election to the United States Senate, en the ground that he believes in polygamy as one of the cardinal doctrines of his creed, and that he only awaits another revelation to advocate it openly. That is not, legally, tenable ground on which to found an objection Of course the Senate can make it an excuse for refusing Mr. Smoot a seat, j tut it ought not to for it is the highest law-making power in the Nation and hence should be careful in its proceedings not to resort to illegal methods meth-ods for in point of fact it has no control over a nan s opinions. It would violate the spirit of the Constitution to make a man's opinions a subject for punishment But there is a legal obstruction in the way of Mr Smoot which ought to cause the denial of a seat to him in the Senate of the United States. He is not, except in name, a citizen of the United States. His real fealty is to another temporal Government, the very opposite of the Government" of the United States in every respect This Government to which be belongs is perfectly per-fectly organized. It has its president, its courts, and when a Legislature or City Council of Mor-taons Mor-taons is elected under American forms, every bill of the Legislature, every ordinance of the Council Coun-cil has first to be submitted to the first presidency presi-dency of this kingdom, or, in its absence, to a quorum of the apostles, the next body In power to it first presidency. More than once in recent jears after a case between Mormons had been tned m the civil courts, under the forms of the Republic and a judgment rendered, the parties vp been summoned before a bishop's court a nrt of the kingdom and the case retried, not oaler the laws of the Republic, not by men learned fi t law, not by any legal formula, but by the kun of an unlettered bishop, and these bishop's won think nothing of reversing a judgment ren-e ren-e in a District court of the State. Sow Apostle Reed Smoot Is a citizen of that &gom. He believes in making- Legislatures and rJ Councils subject to the instructions of the &4 of the Mormon nation; he believes it right for z tost op's court to reverse a judgment of the courts ? tfc- Republic, and is vastly more an alien than 15 aa Englishman of Frenchman when first landed fe tfct United States, for while the Englishman Frenchman might have no love for our coun- w its institutions he would, upon landing, l himself subject to our laws while hie re- BlBHHHIHHHHMHHHHHHIiH mained on American soil. In case of the apostle's election to the Senate the attack upon the legitimacy legiti-macy of his claim to a seat should be on the ground that when he has taken repeated oaths of absolute fealty to a Government hostile in form to this Republic, he became an alien and all the more an alien because that other Government is within with-in the Government of the United States, and the only restraint upon it, all that keeps it from overthrowing over-throwing the Government of the United States, is want of power. Mormons who are not too discreet openly assert as-sert that one purpose of sending Apostle Smoot to the Senate is to try an experiment, to see if the Senate of the United States will tolerate a high officer of their church, bound as he is by his oaths of fealty to another temporal Government, in that body. The Roberts episode settled the matter of electing known polygamists to Congress; if Apostle Smoot is sent home, the experiment of sending high officers of the "Kingdom of God on Earth" to that body will be abandoned. Citizenship Citizen-ship is something which all nations are most jealous jeal-ous of. That is the ground on which Apostle Smoot should be fought when he reaches the Senate, Sen-ate, for in spirit and in truth he is bound soul and body to a Theocracy, which claims that the Government of the United States is an usurpation, which stands in the way of the government of God through his priests on earth. |