Under the Color of Law Pages 212 to 228 of Four Crafts

https://www.blogtalkradio.com/fundamentallymormon/2022/11/03/under-the-color-of-law-pages-212-to-228-of-four-crafts

Government politicians and

kingcrafters succeeded in driving the Mormons out of the United States and then enjoyed taking over their lands and buildings. With the sweet taste of success, they decided to once again benefit from the assets of the hard-working Saints in the Salt Lake Valley; so they tried to use their military powers to rob them again. Since this attempt was unsuccessful, they approached it from another angle–they would resort to lawyers. By acting under the color of law, the kingcrafters could continue their legal piracy until both church and personal property would be confiscated. After all, politicians and lawyers are close bedfellows.

In 1852 Brigham Young announced publicly that plural marriage was a tenet of the Mormon faith. In 1856 the Republican party included polygamy along with slavery as one of the twin relics of barbarism. By February 15, 1860, the Republican senator from Vermont introduced a bill to punish and prevent the practice of polygamy in the territories. This was definitely a law against the first amendment in the Bill of Rights. Congress had no power to act against the establishment of religion or the free exercise thereof. But that didn’t matter. Since this bill was directed only at the Mormons in the territories, it was bound to be approved.

On April 5, 1860, the House of Representatives passed the anti-polygamy bill by a vote of 149 to 60. One year later the Civil War began. In April of 1862 Senator Morrill added a part about “the accumulation of property and wealth of the community in the hands of what may be called theocratic institutions, inconsistent with our form of government.” (Mor., Amer., & Pol., p. 498) This would limit the Mormon Church holdings to $50,000 or else it would have to be forfeited to the United States Government. On July 2, 1862, Abraham Lincoln signed the anti-polygamy bill.

[213] Lincoln, like Stephen A. Douglas, had met the Prophet Joseph Smith, and had even sat in a session in which he heard the Nauvoo Charter read. He once exclaimed that he would treat the Mormons like a large tree in his field–too hard to burn and too big to remove, so he would leave it alone and just plow around it. But “Honest Abe” soon changed his view.

Strange as it may seem, many of the states were seceding from the Union at the time when the Mormons were trying to join it. Some of the states were discarding the Constitution, while Mormons were defending it. The Union was trying to keep the rebels as states, but was refusing the admission of Utah as a state.

Lincoln’s destiny to be president of the United States came about because he took the place of a man who had turned against the Mormons. However, shortly after taking the oath to support the Constitution, he, too, turned against the Saints and was later “tipped” from the glory, honor and power of his office.

By the use of his political power, Lincoln promulgated a hatred against the Mormons together with a diabolical unconstitutional law that put many good men in jail, causing poverty and sorrow to their families. Just as Douglas and Buchanan, Lincoln would suffer the consequences of Divine justice. In 1857 Heber C. Kimball had pronounced a prophecy upon both Buchanan (1857-61) and Lincoln (1861-65) when he said:

Will the President that sits in the chair of state be tipped from his seat? Yes, he will die an untimely death, and God Almighty will curse him; and He will also curse his successor, if he takes the same stand; and he will curse all those that are his coadjutors, and all who sustain him. * * * They shall be cursed, every man that lifts his heel against us from this day forth. (JD 5:133)

[214] Lincoln described his antagonism toward the Mormons in a letter to a Protestant minister:

. . . two cankers are biting the very entrails of the United States today; the Romish and the Mormon priests. Both are equally at work to form a people of the most abject, ignorant and fanatical slaves, who will recognize no other but their supreme pontiffs. Both are aiming at the destruction of our schools, themselves under our grand and holy principles of liberty of conscience to destroy that very liberty of conscience and bind the world before their heavy and ignominious yoke. The Mormon and Jesuit priests are equally and uncompromising enemies of our constitution and our laws; but the more dangerous of the two is the Jesuit–the Roman priest, for he knows better how to conceal his hatred under the mask of friendship and public good; he is better trained to commit the most cruel and diabolical deeds for the glory of God. (Fifty Years in the Church of Rome, by Pastor Chinequy, p. 488)

How often when men gain wealth, power, and position they soon use it for abusive and evil means! With all that power and authority come temptations which few men can withstand, and they begin to “exercise unrighteous dominion” over others (D & C 121:39), even at the cost of lives and the destruction of their country. It was observed in 1860 that–

While these men (politicians) were drawing pay from the treasury of the United States, they were plotting for the destruction of the Union of the states, and while they were holding confidential relations with the chief executive, they were in constant communication with the insurgents, sending them information accessible only to the high officials of the government; and they remained in place as long as they could best serve their fellow conspirators, without exceeding the bounds of their personal safety. (History of the United States, Bryant, Gay, Brooks, 4:440)

[215] John B. Floyd, Secretary of War, wrote a secret letter as early as November 20, 1860, describing the states he wanted to secede from the Union. Even the death of Lincoln was a conspiracy within a conspiracy. Political ambition seems to cause an over-zealous desire for two things–more money and more power.

The kingcrafters in Washington, D.C., of all people, decided that they were worthy to make legislation on morality. How much positive influence does a minister have with the public when they know he visits prostitutes? Or how much confidence do legislators inspire when their own morals and standards are corrupt?

The people in holy offices have been forbidden from passing judgment in civil legislation; so, too, should political leaders restrain themselves from passing laws on religious morality. The first of the “Blue Laws” was now instituted and was directed to the Mormons.

About this time, a new political scheme was invented: sell land to the citizens; then keep raising the property taxes until they have difficulty paying the tax; then take the land away from them. Here was another piece of political corruption which has been going on ever since. Orson Pratt described how this applied to the Mormons:

By and by, after having secured this soil to our government by the Mormon Battalion, and having redeemed it from its sterility, and built upwards of a hundred towns and settlements, it was sold to us. Did we find fault at having to pay for it? No. When the land office was opened in this territory two or three years ago, we considered it all right and we were willing to pay our money for it. but what now? A bill is before Congress the object of which is to deprive us of the lands which we have paid for. The Government has got our [216] money in its Treasury for lands we have bought and paid for, and for which it bargained to give us a deed and entered into a compact that we and our children after us should possess this land forever, and now Congress has got up a law to deprive every man in this territory, whose religious faith happens to differ from Congress, of these lands. Because we happen to differ on certain religious points with the General Government, we are to be deprived of our homestead rights, guaranteed to us, and to the people of all the territories of the United States by the laws of Congress. (JD 13:137)

In 1870 another anti-Mormon bill was proposed by Shelly M. Cullom of Illinois. It stipulated that all probate judges, justices, judges of elections, notaries and sheriffs be appointed by the governor of the territory. Anyone who even believed in polygamy was judged incompetent for public office, jury duty, or voting. A test vote was to be used.

This political masterpiece afflicted the Mormons with packed juries, test oaths, a wife to testify against her husband, confiscation of property without due process, and deprivation of self-government.

This corrupt law caught Brigham Young in its sweep and he was arrested and sent to jail. It was a part of the great “crusade” against Mormons, where politicians were telling people what they could believe and do within their own religion.

The wonderful Protestant “Christians” of the United States Government were demonstrating an age-old form of political pressure once practiced by Catholicism. The Protestants once suffered horrible injustices under the priestly powers of the Catholics, so now it was their turn to do the same against the Mormons. Eventually Congress would introduce over 20 anti-polygamy bills, mostly because of so many letters from the clergy.

[217] In 1874 another piece of legislation was introduced against the Mormons known as the Poland Bill. It was designed to take the power away from local courts in prosecuting polygamists and to hand it over to federal officers.

However, both the Poland and Cullom Bills were still not enough to satisfy the Washington politicians. Next they presented a bill written by Senator Edmunds. Hubert H. Bancroft described the questionable value of these three bills:

Both of these measures were sufficiently ill-advised and rank, perhaps among the clumsiest specimens of legislation as yet devised by man; but it remained for the Edmunds Bill to cap the climax of absurdity. (Bancroft’s History of Utah, p. 683)

The Edmunds Bill would take away rights without a trial by jury or an opportunity of appeal. This bill was passed in 1882 with applause from these “patriots” who swore with an oath to God to support liberty and the Constitution. It was political despotism and kingcraft in the extreme!

The wilful depredation of the government was very obvious to most Americans, but the politicians delighted in the destruction of Mormonism–lawful or unlawful. It was an abomination that made the heavens weep and caused the wrath of the Lord to be aroused. In 1880 He revealed the following to Wilford Woodruff:

The hour is at the door when My wrath and indignation will be poured out upon the wicked of this nation. Their murders, blasphemies, lying, whoredoms, and abominations have come up before my face and before the heavens, and the wrath of my indignation is full.

[218] I have decreed plagues to go forth and waste my enemies, and not many years hence they shall not be left to pollute my heritage.

The devil is ruling over his kingdom and my spirit has no place in the hearts of the rulers of this nation, and the devil stirs them up to defy my power and to make war upon my Saints. * * *

And thus, with the sword and by bloodshed, and with famine and plagues and earthquakes and the thunder of heaven and the vivid lightnings shall this nation and the nations of the earth be made to feel the chastening hand of an Almighty God until they are broken up and destroyed and wasted away from under heaven, and no power can stay my hand. (Revelations, 1880-1890, Pioneer Press, pp. 8, 11)

In spite of such outrageous anti-Mormon laws, the gentile politicians devised further measures to gain the power they wanted in this territory. In the 1874 election in Tooele County, they dishonestly managed to receive more than a thousand votes over the number of eligible voters. The outcry of “fraud” didn’t matter–the end justified the means.

Many Mormons were refused the right to vote simply because they were Mormons. On the other hand, many votes were cast by dead people and also–

It was charged that the railroads had brought in loads of men to vote the Gentile ticket, who, through the cooperation of the registrars and judges of the election, had been permitted to vote. (The Utah Commission, Stewart Lofgren Grow, doctoral dissertation, Univ. of Utah, p. 211)

Another point to be considered was that the term “unlawful cohabitation” referred only to plural marriage. If a man had a mistress, a prostitute or was an adulterer, it did not apply to him, and such actions were of minor consequence. It was all right to have more than one woman, but not more than one wife!

[219] With the passage of the Edmunds Bill, a new war began against the Saints–not of bullets and bombs, but of bribes, trials, prisons, and always “rewards.” The battle began during the administration of Brigham Young and continued through John Taylor’s and Wilford Woodruff’s presidencies. The crusade included surprise raids on men’s homes, farms, businesses and families. Some wives and mothers were imprisoned along with the men. Many women went to jail for contempt of court when they would not testify against their husbands or fathers.

Federal officials used a “segregation ruling” so a man could be convicted for every day he was found living with a plural wife–meaning it was possible to go to jail for the rest of his life.

To avoid arrest many polygamists went into “the underground,” to Mexico, or to Canada. There was little protection of a man’s inalienable rights within the United States or among its territories. The land of liberty was fast becoming a land of tyranny, as far as the Mormons were concerned.

As a result of harsh enforcement of the law, the whole community was terrorized. Special government funds had been provided for the purpose, a large force of deputy marshals was employed, and a system of espionage inaugurated. “Hunting cohabs” became a lucrative employment. (Whitney’s History of Utah, p. 388)

Deputies were disguised as hobos, tourists, or salesmen. They would snoop around at night peeking at potential victims through windows, stopping and questioning children coming home from school, and even breaking into homes in the middle of the night and hauling men and women off to jail.

[220] The First Presidency of the Church had to go underground to avoid such injustices and prison. However, they did write a letter to be read at the April 4, 1885, General Conference, which stated:

Juries have been selected for the express purpose of convicting men who are prominent in the Church; and their partisan bias has become so thoroughly known in the community, that the common expression is, that an accusation in the courts, as now constituted, is equivalent to a conviction. The rule of jurisprudence which has come down for ages past has been that the accused shall be deemed innocent until proved guilty. In our courts, we are sorry to say, this has been reversed. * * *

We are fully conscious of our innocence of all violation of the laws of God or of Constitutional laws enacted by man. But if there are laws made to entrap us, because of our belief in and practice of the revelations which God has given to His Church, which a court and jury shall decide we have violated, we desire at least that it shall be upon what all the world calls good evidence and substantial proof, and not upon religious prejudice, and through a determination to convict and punish, evidence or no evidence. We ought, at least, to have the same rights that burglars, thieves and murderers are accorded under the law. (Mess. of the 1st Pres., 3: 6, 8)

However, the war was not considered won until all political rights were taken away from the Mormons; until all polygamists were locked up in jail; and until all their land was taken away from them. This would take another act of Congress.

It came in 1887 in the form of the Edmunds-Tucker Act. Included in its conditions was that all female suffrage in the territory was abolished, thus reducing the Mormon vote by at least half. A Mormon could be prevented from voting, holding [221] office, or serving on a jury if he even believed in polygamy. The Perpetual Emigration Fund was abolished and its property confiscated. President Grover Cleveland supported this himself. The Mormon Church was disincorporated and all property over $50,000 was confiscated.

The two Democratic administrations of Buchanan and Cleveland–the only ones of the kind in thirty-one years–stand out as the blackest pages in American History, so far as the treatment of the people of Utah is concerned. . . . (Lights and Shadows of Mormonism, Josiah Gibbs, p. 335)

The Deseret Weekly printed the following article describing the appalling conditions of the Church and its members at this time:

A direct effort to destroy the temporal power of the Church, the enactment of the Edmunds-Tucker Act brought added pressure to an already difficult situation. Almost every Mormon male of any distinction was in prison or hiding, and many women were also forced to flee their homes. The economy stagnated and businesses were abandoned or limped along under inexperienced management. The Church, which had always been a central factor in the stimulation of the Saints’ economy, was forced out of this activity when it was needed most. In addition, the expenses of the Church were now greater than usual, and income was much less. Under the mounting debt, the Church found it increasingly difficult to fulfill its missionary, educational, charitable, and business responsibilities. * * *

It appeared that the warning of one of the judges would be fulfilled: “The will of the American people is expressed, (severely) and this law will go on and grind you and your institution to powder”. (Oct. 21, 1885, p. 625)

The Edmunds-Tucker Act was just what the national politicians had been hoping for. This was the bow that would [222] propel the arrow to their target–the land, buildings and money of the Mormons. The day after the death of President John Taylor, the government lawyer, George S. Peters, commenced suit to confiscate all Church property over $50,000, which was estimated to be over $3 million. U.S. Marshal Frank Dyer began taking over all the assets.

In succeeding weeks, upon the request of the receiver and with the reservation that an appeal would be made, church authorities voluntarily surrendered the structures built on Temple Block, the General Tithing Office, the Church Historian’s Office, the Gardo House, the Church Farm in Salt Lake City, the Office of the President of the Church (including all financial records), and the assets of the Perpetual Emigrating Company. (Great Basin Kingdom, Arrington, p. 368)

Then these “claim jumpers” thought up another money-making scheme: after all this Mormon property had been seized, since they had no use for it, they would rent it back to the Church. The Temple Block, the General Tithing Office, and the–

. . . Church Historian’s Office were rented back to the church for $300 (later reduced to $200) per month until March 1890, when the rent was raised to $500 per month; the Gardo House was rented to the church for $75 per month until April 1890, when the rent was raised to $450 per month; and the Church Farm was leased to the church for $50 a month until June 1889, when the rent was raised to $401 per month. Clerks in the Office of the President of the Church were discharged and two deputy marshals were placed in charge. (Ibid., p. 369)

Greed never seems to be satisfied, so the confiscation of all this property was not enough. The federal agents then decided that since they were so successful in obtaining the [223] large assets of the Church, they would continue by taking over the smaller ones, too. They took stock in the Salt Lake Street Railroad, the Provo Woollen Mills, Z.C.M.I., and Zions Savings Bank. They were delighted with their loot and continued to take coal mines, the Deseret News, Deseret Telegraph Co., and the Salt Lake Dramatic Association, plus nearly $300,000 in cash. Then they grabbed cattle, sheep, horses, hay, grain and other farm products. It was amazing how profitable a little legislation by politicians and lawyers could be! This was turning out to be the most profitable craft of all crafts!

If the stories about the Mormons as printed in the Eastern newspapers in the 1880’s were true, then Salt Lake City was becoming one of the worst communities for crime in the United States. By simple investigation, however, the facts proved otherwise, as a non-Mormon Utah commissioner, A. B. Carlton, wrote:

It is a fact, shown by statistics, that while only about one-fifth of the population are Gentiles, they contribute at least four-fifths of the crimes of a heinous character. (CHC 6:56)

Federal political leaders were planning to bring all of their “arts and crafts” into the area so we could be more like them!

Our outside friends say they want to civilize us here. What do they mean by civilization? Why they mean by that, to establish gambling holes–they are called gambling hells–grog shops and houses of ill fame on every corner of every block in the city; also swearing, drinking, shooting and debauching each other. Then they would send their missionaries here with faces as long as jackasses’ ears, who would go crying and groaning through the streets, “Oh, what a poor, miserable, sinful world!” That is what is meant by civilization. That is what priests and deacons want to introduce here; tradesmen [224] want it, lawyers and doctors want it, and all hell wants it. But the Saints do not want it, and we will not have it. [Congregation said Amen.] (Brigham Young, JD 12:286-287)

Out of the twenty counties of the territory, most of which are populous, thirteen are today without a dram-shop, brewery, gambling or brothel-house, bowling or billiard saloon, lawyer, doctor, parson, beggar, politician or place-hunter, and almost entirely free from social troubles of every kind; yet these counties are exclusively “Mormon;” and with the exception of a now-and-then domestic doctor or lawyer, the entire territory was free from these adjuncts of civilization (?) till after the advent of the professing Christian element, boastingly here to “regenerate the Mormons,” and today every single disreputable concern in Utah is run and fostered by the very same Christian (?) element. Oaths, imprecations, blasphemies, invectives, expletives, blackguardism, the ordinary dialect of the “anti-Mormon,” were not heard in Utah till after his advent, nor till then, did we have litigation, drunkenness, harlotry, political and judicial deviltries, gambling and kindred enormities. (John Taylor, JD 23:59)

The Gentiles believed that women in polygamy were slaves, so they decided to save them. A huge mansion, or hotel, was constructed by the government so the polygamous wives who escaped would be able to find refuge. However, once again, this turned out to be another bureaucracy blunder, as the following news article reported in 1928:

Old Fifth East Hotel is Sold. Property built by government for $300,000 finally sold for $15,000. Built forty-four years ago as a reputed cost of $300,000, what is now know as the Fifth East Hotel, was placed on the auction block Saturday and “knocked down” to $15,000 before it found a purchaser.

The Fifth East Hotel was built originally as a home for the polygamous wives of Utah, but was not long devoted to that purpose. (S.L. Tribune, Apr. 29, 1928)

[225] Built for “women struggling in the chains of polygamy,” it had four unsuccessful years and the project had to be abandoned. “The Home for Polygamous Wives” soon became one of those private territorial jokes and by 1892 it was recognized as a failure. (Utah Chronicle, Nov. 27, 1978, p. 1) On June 15, 1893, the home closed its doors.

Samuel W. Taylor wrote made an interesting comment about this fiasco:

The “slave wife” issue so captivated the public imagination that . . . the Gentiles actually raised the money and built an imposing building in Salt Lake as a “refuge”. Much to the dismay of the backers, only one woman took advantage of the refuge, and the project was abandoned in confusion when it was discovered that she was not a slave wife, but a prostitute. (I Have Six Wives, Taylor, p. 11)

This building, pictured below, was a monument to the stupidity of our Washington politicians and kingcrafters:

(Picture of building)

[226] Notwithstanding the great political strides made by the Edmunds-Tucker Act in legalizing the confiscation of Church property and imprisonment of its leaders, more new bills were proposed. One was the “Cullom-Struble Bill”. It would disenfranchise the Mormon people and take away all their personal property. In the election of 1888, in order to rid themselves, if possible, of intolerable political conditions–

. . . large numbers of the Latter-day Saints withdrew from membership in the Church, that they might qualify as electors by taking the test oath to the effect that they were not only not bigamists or polygamists, but that they were not even members of “any sect or organization which teaches, advises, or encourages the practice of bigamy or polygamy, or any other crime defined by law, as a duty or privilege resulting, or arising from the faith or practice of such order or organization.” (CHC 6:213)

The Federal Government was administering Test Oaths to Mormons on religious issues. The Catholic Church had used similar oaths, but they had been confined to their own church. The political progress of America was reversing itself to a kingcraft of over 600 years ago, superseding the darkness of the Dark Ages.

Were the Washington politicians so blind and naive as to think that their restrictions and laws would cause a devout people to give up their beliefs and practices of eternal Gospel principles? Where did these government leaders get the right to prohibit people from voting and holding public office and incarcerating them because of religious differences? Why was such a belief in plural marriage so terrible that they sought to destroy a whole church and take away all of its property?

These politicians didn’t include in their tirades any other “immoral” acts such as prostitution, homosexuality, adultery, [227] etc. They even thought it was fashionable to have their mistresses. In fact, most of them were guilty of immoral sins themselves. It was strictly the polygamist who was to be destroyed–religiously, socially and financially.

How strange that the Bible sanctioned plural marriage but recommended death for serious moral sins. A reversal in moral standards was now in force: that which was sanctioned by the Lord was forbidden, and that which was forbidden by the Lord was sanctioned by the politicians. Kingcrafters were claiming more and more victories.

In the local elections city after city passed into their hands. In 1889, after a close and hotly contested municipal election in which the Saints again levied charges of fraud, Salt Lake City and Ogden, Utah’s principal cities, were captured by the Liberals whose jubilation knew no bounds. The dominant influence of Utah public life by the Mormons was at an end, and with it died a fascinating and challenging era in American History. (Mor., Amer. & Pol., Vetterli, p. 683)

From both outside and inside the Church, people clamored for some form of compromise with the U.S. Government. President Wilford Woodruff finally decided to issue a political compromise:

National leaders and church leaders are said to have entered into a “compact”. We do not know whether such a “compact” was actually made, but at least the agreement and actions which it is said to have involved did take place. (“Religion and Economics in Mormon History,” Arrington, BYU Studies 3:31-32)

Leonard Arrington recalled further:

As a part of the “deal” by which this was arranged, church officials are said to have given congressional and [228] administration leaders to understand that they would support a proposition to prohibit forever the practice of polygamy in Utah; that the church would dissolve its Peoples’ Party and divide itself into Republican and Democratic supporters; and that the church would discontinue its alleged fight against Gentile business and relax its own economic efforts. Some or all of these pledges may not have been made, but certain people later alleged that they were made and that the granting of statehood to Utah in 1896, the restoration of church property in 1894 and 1896, and the amnesties granted to Mormon polygamists in 1893 and 1894, were all conditioned upon this understanding. (Great Basin Kingdom, p. 379)

Thus, the Mormons gave up plural marriage, the United Order, and their political system. The pledge was the Manifesto. Tensions were alleviated, prosecutions diminished, and better feelings between Mormons and Gentiles ensued. But what a price to pay!

History records the similarities between the Latter-day Saints and the Israelites of the Old Testament. They, too, chose to become as the rest of the world and begged Samuel for a king “like all the nations.” The Lord told Samuel to–

Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. (I Sam. 8:7)

The Lord said to “make them a king,” but to first warn them what would happen under a king’s reign. The rest of Chapter 8 in 1 Samuel describes the servitude that would result; but the people still insisted on a king!

Today, Americans have insisted on having the kingcraft of politicians rather than the Kingdom of God. And, as before, the King of kings has granted their wish.

[229]