Conditions in Utah: Speech of Hon. Thomas Kearns of Utah, in the Senate of the United StatesKearns, Thomas
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Conditions in Utah: Speech of Hon. Thomas Kearns of Utah, in the Senate of the United States
Kearns, Thomas
Church and state -- Mormon Church; Latter Day Saints; Speeches, addresses, etc., American; Utah -- Politics and government
This is no quarrel with religion. This is no assault upon any man's
faith. This is rather the reverence toward the inherent right of all men
to believe as they please, which separates religious faith from
irreligious practice. The Mormon people have a system of their own,
somewhat complex, and gathered from the mysticisms of all the ages. It
does not appeal to most men; but in its purely theological domain it is
theirs, and I respect it as their religion and them as its believers.
The trouble arises now, as it has frequently arisen in the past, from
the fact that some of the accidental leaders of the movement since the
first zealot founder have sought to make of this religion not only a
system of morals, sometimes quite original in themselves, but also a
system of social relation, a system of finance, a system of commerce,
and a system of politics.
THE SOCIAL ASPECT.
I dismiss the religion with my profound respect; if it can comfort them,
I would not, if I could, disturb it. Coming to the social aspect of the
society, it is apparent that the great founder sought first to establish
equality among men, and then to draw from those equal ranks a special
class, who were permitted to practice polygamy and to whom special
privileges were accorded in their association with the consecrated
temples and the administration of mystic ordinances therein. The
polygamous group, or cult as it may be called, soon became the ruling
factor in the organization; and it may be observed that ever since the
founding of the church almost every man of prominence in the community
has belonged to this order. It was so in the time of the martyrs, Joseph
and Hyrum Smith, who were killed at Carthage jail in Illinois, and both
of whom were polygamists, although it was denied at the time. There were
living until recently, and perhaps there are living now, women who
testified that they were married in polygamy to one or the other of
these two men, Joseph having the larger number. It has been so ever
since and is so to-day that nearly every man of the governing class has
been or is a polygamist.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Conditions in Utah: Speech of Hon. Thomas Kearns of Utah, in the Senate of the United States — John Shaqi
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