History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

WORK OF THE COMMISSION. 6S7
and there was neither political nor judicial prostitution.
The Mormons were a people singularly free from vice
—unless that can be called a vice which forms part of
the tenets of their church—and they were one of the
most industrious, sober, and thrifty communities in
the world.
Partly with a view to avoid the operation of the
Edmunds act, the Mormons once more asked that
Utah be admitted as a state. Seventy-two delegates
from the different counties met at Salt Lake City, and
during a nine days' session drew up a constitution, 20
which was duly presented by Delegate John T. Caine,
but with the usual result; and now the Mormons were
left to the tender mercies of the commission. The
members 21 went to work vigorously; between 1882
and 1884 some twelve thousand persons were disfranchised,
22 and at the latter date all the municipal
and other officers in the territory living in polygamy
or unlawful cohabitation were superseded, each elector
being also required to swear that he was not so living.
It would be a curious subject for speculation to estimate
how many voters would be disqualified if the
law against illicit cohabitation were enforced in other
portions of the United States.
The commission was seconded by Governor Eli H.
Murray, who succeeded Emery, arriving in Salt Lake
20 For copy, see Constit. State of Utah. Its provisions were directed
mainly against the Edmunds bill.
n Their names were Alex. Ramsey of Minnesota, Algernon S. Paddock of
Nebraska, G. F. Godfrey of Iowa, Ambrose 13. Carletonof Indiana, and James
R. Pettigrew of Arkansas. For brief biographical sketches of these men, see
Contrib., iii. 315-16.
22 Special Rept Utah Commission, 1884, p. 18. In Barclay's Mormonism
Exposed, 18, the number is erroneously given at 16,000. Mormonism Exposed,
The Other Side, an English View of the Case, by James W. Barclay, is
a pamphlet originally published in the Nineteenth Century Magazine, and containing
a brief and impartial statement of affairs. Mr Barclay was a member
of the British parliament. Though, as he admits, he went to Utah with
strong prejudices, he comes to this conclusion: 'Mormonism, apart from
polygamy, which seems to me a temporary excrescence, will, in my opinion,
grow, and probably be the religion of the settlers or farming classes in the
mountainous country between the great plains east of the Rocky Mountains
and California on the west.'