Show SHALL UTAH BECOME A STATE till is cathi the caption oi 01 nn an exhaustive find and logical article on oil this important question quei tion by tho the celebrated lawyer gee ticknor curtis in a this months montha rol forum ula we would like very much to produce tile iho the article entire but one or two cita tiona eions from it will suit euit our purpose just now low article al bicle Is a prefaced by an historical account of the expulsion of tile the saints from tile the state of nauvoo a little over forty years ago through the tha pressure of an odium excited by their thair religion and their emigration en name across tile the public domain of tile the united states in search of a country where they could found a community on tLe their irown own loui and social ideas this country they found it was then a province of co but they unfurled the stars and stripes to the breeze and beneath its spangled folds thanked him who hall had befriended them in their merciless per ae cution and their dreary journey tin this s country was wa organized sed in to it a territory and then Occur oc currad says y mr curtis if not a direct sanction tion of polygamy what was wa at least a marked manifestation of public imi indifference difference about it brigham the tha civil and religious leader of the mormons Mor mons ira made by the of 0 the united states territorial Goyer governor nor and lie he held the office for seven leven years year lie did not seek icek it it was offered offa roil to him and lie ha accepted it Every wll well informed person in tho the united states knew ho he had numerous wives and n numerous Bunac roua familia aril clitis 1 of 0 children by lahia ills several gove reu wives wl avem vem the government could lust just as well have bent beat a non mormon to lobe be governor but brigham young was selected be ba causo it was assumed that ills his people were to be a community by themselves and because tile tho people of tho the united states did not ciro care enough about polygamy to tako take any public action against it this torpor and indifference continued for it period of fifteen years during which time plural marriages were greatly multiplied in utah in 1852 during the first term of the governorship of 0 brigham young plural ni wi WA officially announced as n a doctrine doc trina of the mormon church and published abroad as well as nt at homo home in that period there began to be a canal considerable ld influx into the territory of 0 persons who were not mormons cormons Mor mons and who are now known ibero as Genf lles tho the mormon civilization in respect to marria gethus bawo ill contact with that other civilization civilisation that liaa has always existed throughout this union in 1802 1962 the country rather suddenly awoke to the necessity of exterminating polygamy this change from a state of and non action to measures of sup pres stan bion cn roling g after manifest neglect not to say eay encouragement lias has beell like other paroxysms of public virture succeeding public toleration of a supposed ovil evil productive of about as much harm as good an net act of congress was wa passed making polygamy unlawful in the territories and vanishing puni pani ahing shing it as bigamy with fine una and imprisonment at first the mormons cormons lio bo nestly believed this I 1 liw law to be polygamy was an article of their religious faith but in 1879 they learned from a decision of the supreme court of the united states that marriage being a civil rela men women it is no infringement of 0 religious liberty for the legislative authority to prohibit a man from laving having more than one living livine wife still after title this decision there were very few prosecutions proe cution for polygamy in utah under the act of 1862 the law was allow libed cd to become almost a dead letter it was not amended until the slid end of twenty years in 1882 1 a now statute was passed I 1 now known na as tho the act it re enacted the provisions of the act of 1802 1862 which had bud mado made polygamy bigamy and lt it also alio created a new misdemeanor which it wrapped up in it a bing single lo 10 word cohabitation tho the writer then goes on to recite tile the different legal rulings upon this ainsle word and shows allows that ilia t what hat la is tile the more extraordinary in ili this artificial and absurd construction of the law is that it hu has been regarded aseved as n med against tile tho cormons mormons moni alone and not including ordinary fornication so that in utah a man may dwell or bo be in the same house with any ny number of prostitutes and may have hav sexual intercourse with any one of them and yet he cannot bo be convicted of unlawful cohabitation with more thin than one woman oman 11 after referring to that section of tile the constitution framed tor for the proposed pro dosed state of utah prohibiting polygamy bigamy etc ate mr curtis says in con clu cluni xion oc the eole bole question for the people anti and congress of the united states staten la Is whether tho the mormons cormons now offer beitia satiable Is factory and reliable eha guarantees that t they li detary can and ad w will 1 put ut an end to anay y thung themselves elyce 1 rh bey ey area a ro a large acir bority it 1 of I the papal population a tio n and they make is a certain offar re it is equally unimportant what has hail led them to take this stop step those who have been in favor of the hoo heroic c measures pursued by tile tho federal government may it if they chlode tho 8 assume 0 that they have dt driven iven tho the mor m mons bonan into submission others say that tho the whole thing to is designed as a tank and that when utah is onto once in the union the mormons cormons will change their conati gutlon or restore poll polygamy gamy in some way it would bo be great fu fully ly to repulse then them on the shallow sug clestion that they ore m e people who are not to bo be treated trub ted be 10 cause the real question is ig whether liter filter utah has become a state under C tile the proposed constitution it will w ill be vile poa willi bible lor for the tb mormons cormons Mor mons by any bontly ance whatever to restore y or to cite any legal or constitutions constitution if sta I 1 tua of plural marriage in tile the press presence tie of this thin quest question iun un their religious bel belie cef becomes ol of no consequence wha whatever tover |