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Mormon women protest the Cullom Bill...
Mormon women protest the Cullom Bill...
Item # 712749
January 19, 1879
THE DESERET NEWS, Salt Lake City, Utah, Jan. 19, 1870 This newspaper was published 26 years before Utah became a state.
Included is the lengthy: "Governor's Message" reading much like a state-of-the-state address, signed by the acting govrernor, S. A. Mann.
But the most notable contgent is much reporting on the: "Great Indignation Meeting - Of the Ladies of Salt Lake City to Protest Against the Passage of Cullom's Bill". This bill was the creation of Illinois Republican Shelby Cullom, chair of the House Committee on Territories.
The Cullom Bill stipulated, among other things, that “...no one living in or practicing bigamy, polygamy, or concubinage, shall be admitted to citizenship of the United States; nor shall any such person hold any office of trust or profit in said Territory, vote at any election therein, or be entitled to the benefits of the homestead or pre-emption laws of the United States...". This report takes nearly 2 1/2 pages.
Twelve pages, 11 1/2 by 16 inches, never bound nor trimmed, very nice condition.
AI notes: The Cullom Bill, introduced in the 1870s by Illinois Senator Shelby Moore Cullom, was a proposed federal measure aimed at suppressing polygamy in the Utah Territory, where the practice was associated with the LDS Church. Building on earlier legislation like the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act of 1862, the bill sought to criminalize plural marriage more explicitly, impose penalties on practitioners, and strip political and civil rights from those engaged in polygamy. It also proposed increased federal oversight of Utah’s territorial government, including the power to dissolve local institutions that failed to enforce anti-polygamy laws. Though it generated heated debate in Congress and reflected widespread anti-Mormon sentiment in the United States, the Cullom Bill ultimately failed to pass. Nevertheless, it set the stage for more stringent measures in the 1880s, including the Edmunds Act and Edmunds-Tucker Act, which effectively curtailed polygamy and challenged the political influence of the Mormon Church, marking a significant episode in the federal government’s efforts to assert authority over the western territories.
Category: The Old West
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