1890 Manifesto - Background

Background

The Manifesto was issued in response to the anti-polygamy policies of the federal government of the United States, and most especially the Edmunds–Tucker Act of 1887. This law disincorporated the LDS Church and authorized the federal government to seize all of the church’s assets. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the provisions of the Edmunds–Tucker Act in Late Corporation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. United States.

In April 1889, Woodruff, then president of the church, began privately refusing the permission that was required to contract new plural marriages. In October 1889, Woodruff publicly admitted that he was no longer approving new polygamous marriages, and in answer to a reporter's question of what the LDS Church's attitude was toward the law against polygamy, Woodruff stated, "we mean to obey it. We have no thought of evading it or ignoring it." Because it had been Mormon practice for over 25 years to either evade or ignore anti-polygamy laws, Woodruff's statement was a signal that a change in church policy was developing.

In February 1890, the Supreme Court had already ruled in Davis v. Beason that a law in Idaho Territory which disenfranchised individuals who practiced or believed in plural marriage was constitutional. That decision left the Mormons no further legal recourse to their current marriage practices and made it unlikely that without change Utah Territory would be granted statehood.

Woodruff later said that on the night of September 23, 1890, he received a revelation from Jesus Christ that the church should cease the practice of plural marriage. The following morning, he reported this to some of the general authorities and placed the hand-written draft on a table. George Reynolds would later recount that he, Charles W. Penrose, and John R. Winder modified Woodruff's draft into the current language accepted by the general authorities and presented to the church as a whole. Woodruff announced the Manifesto on September 25 by publishing it in the church-owned Deseret Weekly in Salt Lake City. On October 6, 1890, during the 60th Semiannual General Conference of the church, the Manifesto was formally accepted by the church membership.

When Utah applied for statehood again, it was granted on January 4, 1896. One of the conditions for granting Utah and other western territories statehood was that a ban on polygamy be written into the state constitution.