Show THE 91 r 0 dh escuss ing through its C 0 I 1 in interesting style THE OF 11 georga ticknor cuitis It epili with emphasis to the letter of Seti ator dawes I 1 post EDITOR or THE post senator dadea of 11 who will flits sion of utah and might have kept himself in a judicial frame of mind until the memorial isab bad been heard has seen fit I 1 in advance of a hearing by auy com cittee I 1 of either house to enter the public arena as a chain pion of the opposition to their prayer and to seek a personal con troverse tro versy with me it would not be cowe roe to decline his challenge although nothing I 1 have taid or written on this subject was designed vodraw from ber of the senate or house any ex of his views opinions or purposes I 1 shall now however in as condensed a form as possible re ply to his article in the janu ary number bf vie foru be intended as an answer to my article in the december number bf that i I 1 I 1 magazine if r repel his personal attack on be done eat and in the same I 1 shall re pel his attacks on that interesting and worthy people the cormons mormons of utah for whom I 1 entertain 1 reat respect and whom I 1 have tried to nerve from motives that I 1 oare say I 1 wes w would not appreciate p r b aps would not understand mv bole abject has been and is tar pro mote the welfare and happiness of and of the gentiles of the territory as well and to aid in relieving the people and govern went of the united stacee arora at troublesome mauer by a method which deserves calm impartial and enlightened examination first mt dawes begins his as sault on me by asserting although he credits mt with talents and worth an which I 1 have not that my article in the arrum is it fact it plea for the Alor ed by me who has lung acted as the at 0 ey tor that peo p le in their struggle O with the auth t arity of the cited stat es and w h 0 so far as the public are informed d still speaks for them in that capac i ty what is it to him or to the public in what capacity I 1 speak or write for the cormons mormons Mor mons the importance ani strength of my positions are the only things that can concern him c but is the nature of the charge that be has made against me it is a charge that I 1 have long acted as the actor ney of a people who have been engaged in resisting the authority of the united states and this is quite equivalent to a charge of io or assisting a rebellion ile further says that so far as the public are informed I 1 am still acting in that iame capacity I 1 gle against the authority of the united states I 1 ought perl laps for noticing such stuff the cormons mormons of utah have never been engaged in any glea with the federal authority sin e I 1 have known them or been in any way concerned for them nor could such a charge be justly made against them or at any period in their his berv founded on any correct view of conduct As to my efforts in their behalf if mr dawes had taken the least to in form himself be might have easily learned the following facts at the term of the supreme court of the states which began in october 1885 there vere three cases of lorenzo snow called in the mormon church apostle snow on the docket they were writs of error to the territorial court of utah brought to obtain a reversal oll p three judgments and sentences where by he had been sent to the penitentiary and heavily fined for unlawful cohabitation under th e third lectia a of the act an offense offence which is quite distinct from polygamy abw territorial court bad given a most forced and arbitrary construction to the statute which now and had also sentenced and punished mr snow by an illegal arcu u laffon of three couse cutie terms of imprisonment for what was but one of rence if it was any offense offence at all I 1 was employed to assistor assist Mr snows counsel in his three cases and in my place at the bar I 1 argued hi 4 ability abili tr if this was aldina r the us to resist the aw bority of the united states ali dawes or any one else is welcome to so it noth ing prevented a reversal of the judgment against air shiow ex a doubt which arbee awong abs tbs j u g pa after the whether they had appella to aurb diction in after full consideration they do aided that they had dot and snows writs of elroi were for that reason this left him and all other who had married plural wives lit any time and bow ever long ago at the we rcy of aba territorial courts without any pi P i ability of a legal correction of their errors by the highest tribunal in the land all that mr snow had done after the passage of tile edmunds not and for some time before was to live exclusively with one of his wives and her children and to continue to speak of his other wives as women whom he bad married according I 1 to his a ud their ligi on and to a and pro vide f or them and t heir children in al aness and ii health Ther ewas no intercourse between him and any of his wives but the one in whose house he lived h t not have ai b with female friends but this kind of assoria tion Is I 1 courts 1 I 1 I 1 t I 1 1 1 1 treat aa the unlawful of the E d murada act and etow that time to this convictions after con fines and imprisonments have taken place in cases where the facts were thia same as in mr S upon the same monstrous and construction of a single word this state of things reveal ed to me what I 1 characterized in iny article in the pamm as a disgrace di Fgrace to the jurisprudence of the united states anti I 1 but consider it I did not draw my informs as mr dawes asserts from mormon sources I 1 drew it from the records of courts from tle vi ritten opinions of the territorial judges rind from the administration of the law tit evry ev ry criminal term about which I 1 wits constantly and correctly informed the state of things which I 1 said was a disgrace might have been in scantly remedied but I 1 could not get it remedied td my urgent aepli cat ton to the judiciary committee 0 f the senate after snows cases had bea dismissed to have a short act passed giving the supreme court appellate juristic ion in ibis cliss lit cases was re fused when W the last session of the list congress the bill to despoil the mormon church of its property was bent down from the senate to the house a abort section was daro deuced as an amendment to give the supreme court appellate jurisdiction in these cohabitation cases on this and other amendments there was a disagreement between the two houses a committe of con ference was ordered the conferrers confer rees on the part of the house succumb ed to the demand made by abe con ferreer on the part of the senate and this section the only humane and merciful provision in the bill stricken out of it the mor mon husbands were left to the mercy of the territorial judges whose construction of the sa tute would oblige them tr turn adrift upon the world women of Advanced years in many of whose cases the marriages occurred when there wag no law that prohibited plural mar if there area any who think that afie last Cow ress did not neg elect lect a public butiu this matter I 1 cannot agree with the m aside from this all my effort alavo been exerted to dispel public prejudice and enlighten public ignorance anti to counsel the flormont Al ormont to patience in the hope that the people and government of tile united states will bee in their new attitude andin the state constitution which they present a safe ground for their ad inta the union I 1 had no hand in orating their proposed con ution but I 1 cordially approved of it when I 1 saw it neither edl nor did t hey ever receive from me any al I 1 as all or in any other caty paci in aglea with the dhority of the united states aai would rather when my days are ended in some degree deserve to have it paid of me to the of the republic steadying forces and to the sobering of the people all his teaching tend ej than to have it recorded on my tombstone that I 1 had enjoyed all the honors and held all the offices that the world could bestow second mr dawes has very falsely said at r curtis asserts that tile administration of the law for the suppression of polygamy in utah Is a disgrace jurisprudence of the united states this is just what edid idid not say what I 1 did kay I 1 made clear enough and I 1 have 7 now only reiterated that the disgrace consists in a judicial administration not of the statutes tb up press polygamy but of the on e eppress fatute which made the new and distinct offense offence of cohabitation with more than onel woman but all through his paper mr dawes confounds the suppression of polygamy with the suppression of re bigio us and moral duties ta innocent and women whose bus bands the common sent intent 8 0 f mankind would regard as less than men if they did not suffer any exa rather than renounce those duties further alual cormons mormons marriages the can give up they biller to make it an offense offence against the state and to punish it with fine and imprisonment third of this afler mr dawes has c furiously urious ly contrived to evade the force by the following untenable I 1 rall say absurd assumptions to polygamists themselves it is proposed to commit the duty of suppressing polygamy if this crime is seeking shelter and immunity the proposed scheme pt fail to colp mend itself to the now anxious and troubled of this tion as more eff etive that pur pose than any plan hitherto devised A burglar might as well ask to be trie d by a struck jury of burglars as 1 a band of to be per witted by the means here proposed to erect the tribunals in which and control the instrument by which the crime of poly all ay is to be punished if h e at ill it As a kind of captan argument abich I 1 suppose this was in tended to be it is very well but mr dawes might have remembered that b e was ti in g for intelligent people and as a elator he ought dot to have been i no ant of the follo iVing facts if tab becomes a state it is not to a that the laws for ing polygamy will be committed the constitution p by the cormons mormons is not the work of poly 9 amista or of men who have e ver had more than one wife it is the work a cormons mormons Mor mons of the me in of forty and under who have never bad but one living wife th le are now the majority of the adu t mormon male apiou of the whole population of the territory about are mor mons in reli I 1 bious faith and arp gentil es the monogamous M armons and the jentilet Jen tiles are the majority of the P eople in refers ence io marriaga e these two classes are of on mind and one purpose the gentiles when utah becomes a state will have just as good a ol 01 ianchi with the proper fica eions for filling any of the from the hibbeat hig beat to the low esta s t h e mor icons h c b u gb ear jofs ruck juries r onu dirig shariff shi riff exists only ur a W eoj ion I 1 ia I 1 I 1 W I 1 1 I 1 I 1 1 I 1 I 1 1 no foundation in facts yet be doe i not scruple to say considerations like which he lind previously urged arising solely out 0 f the defiant persistency of a large ma bority of the people in degrading and vicious social relations wholly unfitting them to appreciate an maintain the higher and purer life in which statehood can exist alone d e a the admission of utah into t h e anion on an equal footing with all the other states W lint part of the gentiles did bil include in this charge of defiant persistency in degrading and vicious social relations they do not practice polygamy and never did yet according to mr dawes they must bear some part of the responsibility for the cause that alone prevents the admission of utah to the cormons mormons Mor mons the majority of the whole male part of the mormon population does mr dawes mean to gay aba inasmuch as they haab never married but one wife they persist in and vicious social relations or tf we turn to the 1000 mormon husbands this ii rather more than their whole number who now have MOTO than one living wife but who have dis continued sexual relations with them are they guilty of degrading and vicious social relations because they will not cast those women upon the disown them as their wives and br and them at former concubines and harlots mr dawes bad better look at figures and at facts before he again assails a jar ge majori it y 0 f any people by such a charge as he has made against the people of utah without any discrimination between gentiles and cormons mormons Mor mons polygamists and monog amista F mr dawes prefaces hi s quotation of the anti polygamy clause in the apropo ed constitution for utah with this sentence the condemn cond emd allon of polygamy which the cormons mormons Mor mons without a shadow of change in religious belie for in purpose in respect to it have pt in their proposed constitution is in these words their purpose is of course to be judged by the provision itsell find by their ability to execute it which will be entirely in the bands of the m cormons mormons and ge atiles B u t I 1 t is the religious belief of thi cormons mormons a their belief that must be ackt bilged before a civil can be accorded to them ere is what the senator meant an the sting ther must renounce their religious belief that plural marriage is or can be in the ight of god innocent and holy this is he very danger to which the congress of the united states is exposed the danger of lequinn the renunciation of a re jig e lief as the price of a civil privilege it is a plausible and specious requirement but it cannot be made the domain and involving the rights of conscience are we never to learn anything from the imons in history the civil disabilities under whick the roman catholics were so long held in england might be a warn ing tous for at least two centuries they were as good subjects as the crown of england ever had in vain did they fight in the larmy and the navy and carry thea honor of flag into every part of atie world they professed an ob noxious and hated religion and therefore they were not allowed to sit in parliament or to hold any civil office and whoever made a proselyte church of rome from the iff england or any pros sect was guilty of high treason it was not until t he catholic claims were extorted from a troy minister and a ant sovereign that the catholic dis abilities were removed and this was done within the present century here in the united states an ingenious man might easily make an argument to show that people who accept every article of the faith cannot be good citizens there are persons who think so but I 1 fancy that if it were ap t 0 base legislation or audi c atole jon 0 f any kind on that assumption we should hear thunder all around the political that might per haps be loud enough to betl er the perpetration of such folly buethe despised and hated cormons mormons Mor mons a hand bulof people can be denied a civil privilege it is supposed be cause ablerr religious belief about marria be treated as proof that beey will never give up the of polygamy mr dawes aas imputed to me that I 1 said it was of no consequence whether they were sincere or insincere in putting the anti polygamy clause into their proposed I 1 constitution I 1 said ion thing of the kind I 1 said that itis of no consequence whether in offering to anake polygamy an of fience against the state itself they are consistent or inconsistent t with their religious belief what they offer to do is a civil act and nothing elite Whet ber in doing that act an citizens they are consistent or not as religionists is a matter for their individual it does not concern the government of the united states and if that from them a civil privilege because they do riot bring into and inquiry a matter that lies between them and their it ay ill do a great honec es sary and wrong fifth but now comes what is e r ib a p a he most extraordinary t h I 1 g I 1 mr dagess extraordinary paper ile is a and pro a statesman after quoting the anti polygamy clause in the proposed constitution he says this is su as a form of words and if it were born of the heart |