Lincoln on Polygamy

With the recent same-sex ruling by the Supreme Court, there are many people concerned about what else this may mean for civil marriages. One of the outspoken concerns has to do with plural marriage. After another controversial Supreme Court ruling, the Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) case, both Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln talked about its implications in the newspapers and they also talked about issues with the Utah territory. There was discussion that the people of Utah were in open rebellion and action would have to been taken against them. However, Lincoln brought up the obvious issue that Douglas apparently left out in his address, and that was of polygamy.

            The Kanzas News reprinted Lincoln’s speech delivered to the Hall of Illinois House of Representatives on June 26, 1857, where he addressed this issue of plural marriage: “…it is very plain the Judge [Douglas] evades the only question the Republicans have ever pressed upon the Democracy in regard to Utah. That question the Judge well knows to be this: ‘If the people of Utah shall peacefully form a State Constitution tolerating polygamy, will the Democracy admit them into the Union?’—There is nothing in the United States Constitution or law against polygamy; and why is it not a part of the Judge’s ‘sacred right of self-government’ for that people to have it, or rather to keep it, if they choose?”[1]

            According to Lincoln, the same man that has been called the Great Emancipator, who freed the slaves, said that there was nothing in the Constitution saying that polygamy was illegal. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints practiced polygamy until the United States government passed anti-polygamy laws, suspended women’s suffrage that was granted in the territory of Utah February 12, 1870,[2] disincorporated the LDS church, and threatened to confiscate LDS private property.[3] After the LDS Church officially denounced the practice of marriage between a man and many women, the government granted them statehood. However, considering the recent Supreme Court ruling and considering Lincoln’s understanding of the Constitution, were the LDS wrong in their practice of polygamy in the nineteenth century?       

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[1] The Kanzas news, (Emporia, Kan.), 08 Aug. 1857. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85030219/1857-08-08/ed-1/seq-1/.

[2] Ann D. Gordon, The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony: Volume II, Against an Aristocracy of Sex 1866 to 1873, (New Jersey: State University of New Jersey, 2000), 303.

[3] Eileen Hallet Stone, Hidden History of Utah, (Charleston: The History Press, 2013), 125.