Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act

The Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act was signed by Abraham Lincoln in 1862 to punish and prevent polygamy in U.S. territories and to disapprove and annul certain acts of Utah’s territorial legislature. In the book’s account, its significance lies both in its stated attack on plural marriage and in the jurisdictional struggle it sharpened: federal authority claimed the power to regulate marriage, while Mormon leaders asserted that divine law and church governance could take precedence.

Purpose and Political Setting

The law arrived amid continuing conflict between the federal government and Mormon leaders over the status of plural marriage. Brigham Young treated the practice as a religious obligation and argued that laws made by non-Mormon authorities could not overrule God’s law. The Act’s explicit purpose, as the book describes it, was to prevent polygamy in the territories and to invalidate certain territorial laws—not merely to register federal disapproval of a private religious custom.

That dispute formed part of a broader struggle over who could govern Utah. Federal officials had been sent to oversee the territory, but Brigham Young and Mormon leaders resisted federal interference. When Lincoln signed the Act, Brigham denounced the president and his supporters. The statute therefore entered a political landscape in which marriage, religious liberty, and the division of governmental power were already closely entangled.

Competing Legal Authorities

The book describes a local legal system designed to give priority to Mormon interpretations of law when they conflicted with federal authority. The Mormon-dominated legislature greatly expanded the jurisdiction of probate courts controlled by Brigham Young. Many probate judges were Mormon bishops, and juries were largely made up of church members who, according to the account, followed instructions from church leaders. This arrangement allowed local religious authority to shape the administration of law even while Utah remained a territory in which federal courts were supposed to hold legal power.

The Act’s attempt to disapprove and annul territorial legislation must be understood against this institutional conflict. Federal law and local procedure did not operate as a single, uncontested system: the federal government asserted jurisdiction, while church leaders relied on local courts and religious obedience to defend their own authority. The book reports that federal officials complained that Brigham had made Utah a theocratic dictatorship, and that most eventually left the territory after facing sustained harassment.

Resistance and Religious Claims

Brigham Young’s opposition rested on the claim that divine law superseded human law. In his view, the fact that polygamy was a felony elsewhere in the Union did not settle the matter; religious obligation remained paramount. The book places this position within a religious culture that emphasized obedience to prophetic authority and drew on teachings associated with Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. That framework could make compliance with federal law appear not merely undesirable but incompatible with religious fidelity.

Later accounts in the book show that this conflict persisted in changed circumstances. In Colorado City, plural wives were often spiritually married by the community’s prophet while a man legally married only his first wife, a practice that also enabled families to qualify for public assistance. The community’s police chief defended the privacy of religious households, while the book notes that police officers were sworn to uphold laws against polygamy. These examples illustrate the continuing collision between religiously recognized marriages and civil law; they do not, by themselves, establish the specific enforcement effects of the Morrill Act.

Significance in the Book

The Act serves as a concrete instance of the larger conflict between the claims of religious community and those of the state. Its stated target was plural marriage, but its challenge to territorial legislation also raised the question of whether local institutions could shield religious governance from federal authority. The book’s emphasis on courts, church leadership, and competing accounts of legitimate law makes the measure part of a contest over who could define and enforce marriage—not simply a prohibition considered in isolation.