Justin S. Morrill
February 24, 1857

We are told, because our Constitution declares that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” that we must tamely submit to any burlesque, outrage, or indecency which artful men may seek to hide under the name of religion! But it is impossible to twist the Constitution into the service of polygamy by any fair construction. The fullest latitude of toleration in the exercise of religion could not be understood to license crimes punishable at common law; and, if Congress is prohibited from making an established religion, a Territory must be equally prohibited, for a Territory is the creature of Congress, and Congress cannot authorize a Territory to authorize an incorporated company of priests to do what it may not do itself. The practice under our Constitution has been, and is specially provided for in the organic act of Utah, that territorial laws are annulled and void the moment they are disapproved of by Congress. We cannot shirk the responsibility by creating a territorial government to do that which the Constitution inhibits to ourselves. If the laws of Utah are in our judgment such as are “not fit to be made,” it is our duty to annul them; and if they create an establishment of religion, then it is clearly an open and palpable violation of the Constitution, and not too sacred to go untouched.

The general assembly of the Territory of Utah has incorporated a church, over which one man presides with an insolent and all-grasping power, with authority to establish the practice of polygamy, and not be legally questioned therefor. Now, I submit that we not only have the power, but it is eminently proper that we exercise it by disapproving of and annulling this act. From all these statutes, from all the teachings set forth in the Mormon tabernacle, from all the evidences within our reach, it is clear that an ecclesiastical hierarchy exists in Utah, with a plenitude of power greater than that which can to-day be exercised by the Pope of Rome. Commencing with tithings, not to be evaded by the poorest day-laborer; continued by monopoly of land and water privileges; swelled in its current by the waifs, estrays, and escheats incident and contrived as to the rights of property; the whole wealth of the Territory of Utah, present and future, threatening to be finally and wholly absorbed by the church and its dignitaries; the system ends in the foul abomination of spiritual wifery.

This hierarchy is clearly repugnant to the Constitution of the United States, which guarantees to every State a republican form of government. […]

Source(s):

Justin S. Morrill, “Speech of Hon. Justin S. Morrill, of Vermont, on Utah Territory and Its Law—Polygamy and Its License,” February 24, 1857, Appendix to the Congressional Globe, 34th Cong., 3rd sess. (Washington, DC: Office of John C. Rives, 1857), p. 288.