The Mormon puzzle, and how to solve itBeers, R. W.
History
The Mormon puzzle, and how to solve it
Beers, R. W.
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints -- Doctrines; Latter Day Saint churches -- Doctrines
THE SOLUTION OF THE SOCIAL PUZZLE--Mormon slavery and negro slavery
compared--The duty of the Government to break up Mormon slavery--The
remedy the same as for the political evils of Mormonism--Brigham Young
opposed to immigration of Gentiles--A growing spirit of
restlessness--Necessity of surrounding the youth with an atmosphere of
freedom--_Personal Bondage_ of the Mormons overcome by Gentile
colonization--Social ostracism no longer dreaded--_Mental Bondage_
overcome by national schools and colonization--_Moral Bondage_
overcome by the same means--This policy not to be confounded with the
let-alone policy--An apparent policy of toleration--The alarmist's cry
and its answer--The Mormon standpoint not to be overlooked--The cry of
unconstitutionality--The proposed Polygamy Amendment to the
Constitution--The cry of religious persecution--Imprisonment preferred
to sacrifice of principle--Law impotent to break up polygamy--Supposed
captivity of Mormon women a mistake--Mass-meeting of Mormon women to
plead for polygamy--_Senator Hoar_ on the solution of the social
puzzle--How the law should be enforced and its probable
effect--Superiority of the colonization plan over any other plan--Its
effectiveness proved by the Oneida Community--_The Social Puzzle
solved_--The duty of the nation, the citizen, and the Church.
If our diagnosis of the Mormon social system is correct, then the only
effectual remedy will be one that reaches the real evil, which is
_slavery_; and as polygamy is only one of the results of slavery, remove
the cause and the result will likewise be removed.
But this slavery of the Mormons is very different from the negro slavery
in the South before our Civil War. The latter was a legalized traffic, and
the remedy for it was _law_. The slavery of the Mormons is a voluntary
one, and rests not upon law but upon religious conviction; and hence _law
cannot be an effectual remedy_. The Mormon Puzzle, then, is a much harder
one to solve than the Negro Puzzle before the war, and will require a
longer time for its solution.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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