Replying to the Vice-President's arguments and illustrations that the United States was justified in suppressing what it considered to be immoral, notwithstanding the Mormons claimed it to be part of their religious faith--in the course of which Mr. Colfax referred to the now familiar conduct of the English government in suppressing the suttee in India--Elder Taylor said: "To present Mr. Colfax's argument fairly, it stands thus: The burning of Hindoo widows was considered a religious rite by the Hindoos. The British were horrified at the practice, and suppressed it. The Mormons believe polygamy to be a religious rite. The American nation consider it a scandal, and that they ought to put it down. Without entering into all the details, I think the above a fair statement of the question. He says 'The claim that religious faith commanded it was powerless, and it went down, as a relic of barbarism.' He says: 'History tells us what a civilized nation, akin to ours, actually did, where they had the power.' I wish to treat this argument with candor: * * * * * * "The British suppressed the suttee in India, and therefore we must be equally moral and suppress polygamy in the United States. Hold! not so fast; let us state facts as they are and remove the dust. The British suppressed the suttee, but tolerated eighty-three millions of polygamists in India. The suppression of the suttee and that of polygamy are two very different things. If the British are indeed to be our exemplars, Congress had better wait until polygamy is suppressed in India. But it is absurd to compare the suttee to polygamy; one is murder and the destruction of life, the other is national economy and the increase and perpetuation of life. _Suttee_ ranks truly with _infanticide_, both of which are destructive of human life. _Polygamy_ is salvation compared with either, and tends even more than monogamy to increase and perpetuate the human race." Elder Taylor closed the discussion with a vivid expose of the loathsome immorality and crime that existed in the villages, towns and cities of the East; and called the attention of the Vice-President to the fact that there was work enough for himself, for Congress and also for the moralists and ministers in the United States nearer home, in suppressing the evils by which they were immediately surrounded, without plunging into the isolated valleys of Utah to legislate away the religion of the Mormons, under the specious plea of suppressing crime.