Edmunds–Tucker Act

Legislative history

In President Grover Cleveland's annual address to Congress in December 1885, he emotionally discussed the issue of polygamy in Utah:

The Act was passed by the Senate in January 1886 by a vote of 38–7. It was passed by the House via a voice vote in January 1887. President Cleveland refused to sign the bill but did not veto it, which meant that the Act became law on March 3, 1887.

Provisions

The act disincorporated both the LDS Church and the Perpetual Emigration Fund on the grounds that they fostered polygamy. The act prohibited the practice of polygamy and punished it with a fine of from $500 to $800 and imprisonment of up to five years. It dissolved the corporation of the church and directed the confiscation by the federal government of all church properties valued over a limit of $50,000. The act was enforced by the U.S. Marshal and a host of deputies.

The act:

• Disincorporated the LDS Church and the Perpetual Emigrating Fund Company, with assets to be used for public schools in the Territory.
• Required an anti-polygamy oath for prospective voters, jurors and public officials.
• Annulled territorial laws allowing illegitimate children to inherit.
• Required civil marriage licenses (to aid in the prosecution of polygamy).
• Abrogated the common law spousal privilege for polygamists, thus requiring wives to testify against their husbands.
• Disenfranchised women (who had been enfranchised by the Territorial legislature in 1870).
• Replaced local judges (including the previously powerful Probate Court judges) with federally appointed judges.
• Abolished the office of Territorial superintendent of district schools, granting the supreme court of the Territory of Utah the right to appoint a commissioner of schools. Also called for the prohibition of the use of sectarian books and for the collection of statistics of the number of so-called gentiles and Mormons attending and teaching in the schools.

(See text of the act scanned from the U.S. Statutes at large, linked elsewhere on this page.)

In 1890 the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the seizure of Church property under the Edmunds–Tucker Act in Late Corp. of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. United States.

This act was repealed in 1978.

Edmunds–Tucker Act sponsors

References

References

1. (November 2, 1978). "Repeal of Law Establishing Limits on Land which Certain Religious Corporations hold in any United States Territory - P.L. 95-584". U.S. Government Printing Office.
2. (August 2, 1978). "Repeal of Law Establishing Limits on Land which Certain Religious Corporations hold in any United States Territory - Senate Bill 3371". Library of Congress.
3. Grover Cleveland. First Annual Message to Congress (first term), December 8, 1885. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29526
4. M. Paul Holsinger, "Henry M. Teller and the Edmunds-Tucker Act". The Colorado Magazine, vol 48 no 1, Winter 1971, p. 3. http://www.historycolorado.org/sites/default/files/files/Researchers/ColoradoMagazine_v48n1_Winter1971.pdf {{Webarchive. link. (2016-10-22)
5. M. Paul Holsinger, "Henry M. Teller and the Edmunds-Tucker Act". The Colorado Magazine, vol 48 no 1, Winter 1971, p. 12-13. http://www.historycolorado.org/sites/default/files/files/Researchers/ColoradoMagazine_v48n1_Winter1971.pdf {{Webarchive. link. (2016-10-22)
6. L. Rex Sears, "Punishing the Saints for Their "Peculiar Institution": Congress on the Constitutional Dilemmas," 2001 Utah L. Rev. 581
7. Embry, Jessie L.. (1994). "Utah History Encyclopedia". [[University of Utah Press]].
8. [http://historytogo.utah.gov/utah_chapters/statehood_and_the_progressive_era/womenssuffrageinutah.html Women's Suffrage in Utah] {{Webarchive. link. (2012-11-23 Jean Bickmore White, Utah History Encyclopedia)
9. Edmunds–Tucker Act: Section 25
10. [https://web.archive.org/web/20080309131450/http://www.law.nyu.edu/journals/legislation/articles/vol5num1/vazquez.pdf The practice of polygamy: legitimate free exercise of religion or legitimate public menace? Revisiting Reynolds in light of modern constitutional jurisprudence] Richard A. Vazquez, Journal of Legislation & Public Policy (New York University School of Law), Volume 5, Number 1, Fall 2001
11. [http://lawreview.wustl.edu/inprint/82-3/p%20611%20Stein%20book%20pages.pdf Past and Present Proposed Amendments to the United States Constitution Regarding Marriage] {{webarchive. link. (2010-06-06 Edward Stein, Washington University Law Quarterly, Volume 82, Number 3, 2004)