John Taylor (Mormon) - Actions As Church President

Actions As Church President

Following Brigham Young's death in 1877, the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles governed the church, with John Taylor as the quorum's president. Taylor became the third president of the church in 1880. He chose as his counselors Joseph F. Smith and George Q. Cannon, the latter being the nephew of his wife Leonora.

As church president, Taylor oversaw the expansion of the Salt Lake community, the further organization of the church hierarchy, the establishment of Mormon colonies in Wyoming, Colorado and Arizona as well as in the Canadian province of Alberta and the Mexican state of Chihuahua, and the defense of plural marriage against increasing opposition.

Taylor also established Zion's Central Board of Trade while president of the Church, which was meant to coordinate local trade and production largely done through the local stakes on a wider basis.

In 1878, the Primary Association was founded by Aurelia Spencer Rogers in Farmington, Utah, and, for a time, the organization was placed under the general direction of Relief Society general president Eliza R. Snow. In 1880, Taylor organized the churchwide adoption of the Primary Association; he selected Louie B. Felt as its first general president. In October 1880, the Pearl of Great Price was canonized by the church. Taylor also oversaw the issuance of a new edition of the Doctrine and Covenants. During his term as president, the seventies quorums were also more fully and regularly organized.

In 1882, the United States Congress enacted the Edmunds Act, which declared polygamy to be a felony. Hundreds of Mormon men and women were arrested and imprisoned for continuing to practice plural marriage. Taylor had followed Joseph Smith's teachings on polygamy, and had at least seven wives. He is known to have fathered thirty-five children.

Taylor moved into the Gardo House alone with his sister Agnes to avoid prosecution and to avoid showing preference to any one of his families. However, by 1885 he and his counselors were forced to withdraw from public view to live in the "underground": frequently on the move to avoid arrest. During his last public sermon Taylor remarked, "I would like to obey and place myself in subjection to every law of man. What then? Am I to disobey the law of God? Has any man a right to control my conscience, or your conscience? ... No man has a right to do it".

Many viewed Mormon polygamy as religiously, socially and politically threatening. The U.S. Congress passed the Edmunds-Tucker Act in 1887, which abolished women's suffrage, forced wives to testify against their husbands, disincorporated the LDS Church, dismantled the Perpetual Emigrating Fund Company, abolished the Nauvoo Legion, and provided that LDS Church property in excess of $50,000 would be forfeited to the United States.

For two and a half years, Taylor presided over the church from exile. During this time, he received the 1886 Revelation, which restated the permanence of the commandment to practice plural marriage; the validity of this revelation is rejected by the LDS Church but it is used by Mormon fundamentalists to justify the continued practice of polygamy.