The constitutional convention, I say, took that enactment and cut it square in two, adopting the part that defined the offense of polygamous or plural marriages, and prescribed its punishments, and made it, with its penalties, part of the Constitution; but the part of the law relating to polygamous living or unlawful cohabitation, they left out entirely. The question was brought up on the floor of the convention, and debated in open session. The leader of this movement, who advocated the adoption of this part of the law for the Constitution--for it was rather an unusual proceeding in constitution making, intended, however, in good part, to meet a very unusual condition; the question was put to him in substance: If you thus cut the law in two, and prohibit polygamous or plural marriages but say nothing about unlawful cohabitation or polygamous living, will not the inference be--will not the conclusion be, that you do not intend to include unlawful cohabitation in the offenses defined and made punishable under this constitutional provision? The answer was that such would be the implication--that the intent was to leave the offense out. That was not only the inference, but it was the understanding--say what men will--in that convention. The record bears out the statement I make of it, because it was not done in a corner, or in the dark, it was out in the open, and some of those who now join you reverend gentlemen in this agitation against men who are seeking, under hard conditions, to respond to the promptings of duty and conscience--some of those who now join you in your clamor, were parties to and sanctioned that settlement in the constitutional convention. [1] [Footnote 1: This subject is discussed circumstantially and at length in my reply to Senator Kearns' U.S. senate speech,--"Defense of the Faith and the Saints," Vol. I, pp. 209-218.]