| Show AN UNWORTHY ATTEMPT L particulars of the arrest and examination of W B bennett of west jordan on the charge of illegal registration have been laid fully before our readers it win will be seen that the whole proceedings are based upon a theory which is self contradictory and absurd the object is no doubt to make political capital and use it with other schemes for the furtherance of the purposes of cheso the so called liberal party the doctrine of once a polygamist always a polygamist was advanced by the utah agitators and adopted by the utah commission shortly after its ita organization but it was effectually exploded by the supreme court of the united states in the case of murphy et al and it was then settled that persons who had at one time been in the practice of polygamy but had relinquished the practice either voluntarily unta rily or by the death of one or more of the parties could register and vote under the edmunds act and the laws of this territory if possessed of the statutory qualifications mr bennett it appears had a plural wife but for some time has 4 been separated from her she is no longer his plural wife from the same authority which sanctioned the plural marriage a divorce was obtained the union was entered into under the rites of the mormon 40 hurch and from the same source the formulated mr bennett now BOW has but one wife and he is not and has not been for some time cohabiting with more than one woman being a citizen and a resident of his precinct for the time required by law he possesses all the qualifications qualification prescribed and was able to take the oath required by the law of congress he did so and is now committed to await the action of the grand jury for unlawfully registering now the question of his alleged 7 0 turns turna upon the question whether the woman who was formerly his plural wife now occupies that status the law does not recognize the validity of the contract entered into between the parties to a plural marriage according to the common law it was void from the beginning the theory is that the parties or one of them at least was incompetent to enter into the contract that is a man who has a living wife cannot make a contract of marriage mairi age with another the law does not recognize the plural union as a marriage therefore no decree of divorce can issue from a court in such a case if the parties agree to separate and do separate and their former illegal relations are severed and discontinued those relations no longer exist in the eyes of the law the polygamous status is dissolved either the plural marriage was a contract or it was not if it was a contract of marriage it might be annulled by decree of a competent court but it could not be set aside by legislation the constitution of the united states provides against laws impairing the obligation of contracts if plural marriages are contracts then plural wives have a legal status that cannot be set act aside by legislation if those marriages are not contracts in law then they cannot be dissolved by a court as they have no legal existence what has haa a court to do with setting aside or declaring null that which on general principles was without dis void ah ab inaho if there is ia any color of legal force to a plural marriage it originated in the ceremony performed by the rites of the church that recognized it and if by the same authority if is annulled and the parties to the m marriage e wh who 0 regarded it as egisti existing t g now regard it as dissolved and cease their marital relations is not even that color removed and the appearance even of an existing legal contract dissipated we do not believe that any court on earth has the right or power to render a decree of divorce in a ewe case of plural marriage and we do not think any amount of sophistry can establish the doctrine that an invalid marriage which never had a legal existence when the parties lived together can be said to exist at all when the parties have actually separated whether they have or have not obtained a formal dissolution of the unlawful tie by ecclesiastical authority in handling this question courts and attorneys will have to be ex cee careful lest in their eager 3 ness to make criminals of innocent 4 i persons because they are mor i mons they impart to plural mar 1 biages a legal status which they have a all along declared had no existence 1 |
