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In an Idaho stake conference in May 1885, Heber J. Grant told the assembled crowd, “The Constitution guarantees us freedom of speech and faith and religious action as long as it does not interfere with the rights and privileges of others.”[1] Grant made this statement a few months after all Latter-day Saints were disfranchised in the Idaho Territory. The passage of this law, known as the Idaho test oath, prohibited the Saints from voting, serving on a jury, holding public office, and teaching in public schools. However, the Idaho Territory was not the only jurisdiction to attempt to disfranchise their citizens through a test oath. A federal test oath was imposed in 1882 by the Utah Commission and adopted in 1887 in the Edmunds-Tucker Act. The State of Nevada also passed a test oath mirroring and exceeding the Idaho act in 1887.

While the Saints avoided prosecution through hiding, they also followed the advice of George Q. Cannon and made “a fight in the courts.”[2] These legal “fights” took place in federal, state, and territorial courts where the Saints had varying levels of success. Through their efforts the Nevada law was struck down and ruled unconstitutional in 1888. The Saints were also able to mitigate the harshness of the federal laws. However, they were unable to overcome the Idaho law. The Idaho Saints attacked the law on many fronts and through many lawsuits, but it was repeatedly upheld by territorial courts. An Idaho case, Davis v. Beason,[3] was eventually appealed to the United States Supreme Court, where the Idaho test oath was once again upheld. This caused the Church considerable worry as the Saints could then be disfranchised in all other territories, including Utah.

Around this same time, the Supreme Court held the United States government could confiscate property of the Church in a second case, Late Corporation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints v. United States.[4] It was these two cases that led President Woodruff to abandon plural marriage, as the antipolygamy laws “have been pronounced constitutional by the courts of last resort.”[5] While the Saints’ constitutional arguments won some protection at the state and federal level, their arguments against Idaho’s law ultimately failed due to the nature of the territory’s laws.

Test Oaths, the Edmunds Acts, and Utah

In the late 1870s, momentum started to shift in prosecuting polygamists as criminals. The United States Supreme Court upheld the 1862 Morrill Act, which made polygamy a federal offense in the territories in Reynolds v. United States.[6] In his 1879 annual message to Congress, President Rutherford B. Hayes stated that “polygamy demands the attention of every department of the Government.” He noted the difficulty of enforcing the laws in Utah because the Saints believed “the law was in contravention of the constitutional guaranty of religious freedom.” Noting the ruling in Reynolds and describing the Saints’ beliefs as indecent, he called for prosecutions and harsher laws. He also hinted toward the possible necessity of disfranchisement: “If necessary to secure obedience to the law, the enjoyment and exercise of the rights and privileges of citizenship in the Territories of the United States may be withheld or withdrawn from those who violate or oppose the enforcement of the law on this subject.”[7]

Whether Congress needed Hayes’s prompting or not, they went to work, eventually passing the Edmunds Act in 1882. This act was a relatively short piece of legislation that created the new crime of unlawful cohabitation and dealt with the prosecution of polygamists, jury service of polygamists and those that believed in polygamy, and voting rights of polygamists.[8] Regarding the right to vote, the act stated that no “polygamist, bigamist, or any person cohabiting with more than one woman, and no woman cohabiting with any of the persons described as aforesaid in this section” would be permitted to vote. This section did not prohibit those believing in the doctrine of polygamy from voting, only actual polygamists.[9] The Edmunds Act did not specifically impose a test oath but disfranchised certain individuals based on their actions.

The Edmunds Act also created the Utah Commission, “a board of five persons, to be appointed by the President,” whose job it was to enforce the voting and judicial requirements of the Edmunds Act. However, the board was also told that they “shall not exclude any person otherwise eligible to vote from the polls on account of any opinion such person may entertain on the subject of bigamy or polygamy, nor that they refuse to count any such vote on account of the opinion of the person casting it.”[10]

The new law did not pass without controversy. Many senators argued that polygamists had not been afforded their due process rights or the law was ex post facto (Latin “from a thing done afterward”). Alabama senator John Tyler Morgan argued that “this bill deprives a citizen in the Territory of Utah of [the right of suffrage]” and “enables five commissioners appointed by the President . . . without any trial or hearing at all, . . . to institute an inquiry and to arrive at a conclusion that a person, a citizen of the United States in the Territory of Utah, has violated this law, and that in consequence of his violation of it he must be disfranchised as a punishment.”[11] Others argued that because of the criminal actions of the Latter-day Saints, the harsh measures were warranted. Delaware senator Thomas F. Bayard admitted that the law was “an unrepublican theory of proceeding in regard to elections” but felt it was worth it to break up a theocracy.[12] The act passed and became law in the territories.

The Utah Commission immediately went to work appointing registrars for the upcoming elections. By August 1882 the commission also adopted rules for those who would vote in the Territory of Utah. All voters were no required “to take and subscribe” to a test oath. This oath required one to swear in part that “I am not a bigamist nor a polygamist; that I am not a violator of the laws of the United States prohibiting bigamy or polygamy; that I do not live or cohabit with more than one woman in the marriage relation.”[13] This test oath did not sit well with the people of Utah, and many challenged the new law in court, including the voting provisions and oath.

The commission’s creation of this test oath was also surprising as there was a series of cases dealing with loyalty oaths passed after the Civil War. In 1866 the United States Supreme Court decided Cummings v. The State of Missouri, a case dealing with test oaths imposed upon Confederate soldiers and those sympathetic to the Confederacy. In this case, a divided court reversed the conviction of a Catholic priest who refused to swear Missouri’s loyalty oath.[14] That same year the Supreme Court also struck down a federal loyalty oath when a member of the Senate of the Confederate Arkansas refused to take a loyalty oath.[15] The Supreme Court routinely struck down similar oaths as bills of attainder, finding them a legislative act which inflicts punishment without a judicial trial.

Many Saints were confused as to whether they could vote in the upcoming elections. In August 1882 the First Presidency (consisting of John Taylor, George Q. Cannon, and Joseph F. Smith) responded to the controversy in a letter to the Utah Saints. The First Presidency started by declaring, “There have been many times in our past history when great exigences have arisen,” and this was one of those times. Before declaring the course that Church members should take, the Presidency attacked the Edmunds law and its purported justification. They argued that the Edmunds law was “designed for the repression and destruction of a portion of your religion” and “not the eradication of immoral practices.” It was pointed out that the oath, regarding marital and sexual relations, applied only “in the marriage relation.” Thus, non–Latter-day Saints “living the vilest of lives, in adultery, fornication, or the practice of licentiousness of any kind, can take the oath and be registered, vote and hold office!” Thus, they found the law nothing more than an attack on their religious liberty. The First Presidency then declared that “Latter-day Saints, who can truthfully take this oath,” should vote. They reminded the Saints that “very many of you can take this oath,” as many as “nine-tenths of you, who have never been guilty of even alleged crime.” Their letter concluded with the admonition to “guard well our franchise, and . . . maintain and sustain our political status . . . in defense of what few liberties are left us, in the defense of the Constitution.”[16]

The Utah Saints did as they were advised and registered or attempted to register at the next election. Many individuals challenged the law or its enforcement by the commission, and these appeals were eventually combined into the case of Murphy v. Ramsey.[17] Initial lawsuits were heard by the Utah Territorial Supreme Court in June 1884 and made their way the United States Supreme Court on January 28, 1885.[18] The Utah District Courts and the Utah Territorial Supreme Court did not file written opinions in the cases, leaving later historians to guess at their decision-making processes. The combined cases went before the Supreme Court, where “eight judges were on the bench, who listened with close attention to the speakers.” It was argued that all the plaintiffs were authorized to vote under the law. Attorneys for the Saints also argued that regardless of that right, the law was unconstitutional because the test oath usurped the role of the legislature, that the oath was ex post facto, and that it was a bill of attainder in that it amounted to a penal act.

Prior to argument before the court, the attorneys made their arguments in written briefs. In Mary Ann Pratt’s case, the lawyers claimed a litany of errors by the Utah Territorial Supreme Court. They argued that Pratt “was a legal voter and had the right to vote,” that the Utah Commission or voting registrars “had no jurisdiction or lawful right” to remove her name from registration lists, that the Utah Commission or registrars usurped legislative powers “by prescribing a registration oath unauthorized by law,” and that forcing this oath upon voters created an ex post facto “penal act.” [19]

Without the benefit of a written decision or newspaper accounts of the arguments made at the territorial level, it can be difficult to understand the purpose of some of the arguments made in the written brief. Looking at section 9 of the Edmunds Act, Pratt’s lawyers contended that the commission “had but one duty to perform”—to appoint registrars and electioneers, because the prior officers had been removed by the act. However, Pratt’s lawyers reasoned that the Utah Commission instead set themselves up as a department of the government, “making rules, hearing appeals, and acting as if vested with legislative and judicial powers.” The lawyers quoted Senator George F. Edmunds from the debates over the act: “As to the qualifications of electors, this Board of five persons are not by this bill vested with any powers at all; they are left exactly where they are left by the other laws of the United States.”[20] In discussing the commission’s refusing a class of people to vote, Pratt’s lawyers stated,

To presume, as the rule of the Commission does, that men are guilty of a certain crime for which they ought to be deprived of their right to vote, and to provide that this presumption shall only be removed by an expurgatory oath of each individual, is to remove those rules of evidence which lie at the foundation of all civil liberty, and which are declared by our Constitution to be unchangeable. The presumption is that all men are innocent, not that they are all guilty unless they swear away the imputation to get rid of the penalty.[21]

Finally, the lawyers argued that the Edmunds Act was a bill of attainder or an ex post facto law, which was prohibited by the Constitution in the territories of the United States. They argued that even if Congress could proscribe voting qualifications in the territories, they cannot “inflict punishment upon a citizen for any offense previously committed.” [22]

On January 28, 1885, the parties appeared before the United States Supreme Court arguing their respective positions. The Deseret News noted that the court took the matter under advisement. The paper was convinced the Saints would win but stated, “If a decision is not rendered in favor of the appellants, it will be . . . because anti-Mormon prejudice and bias have reached even the court of last resort, and the people of Utah need expect no justice in ‘the land of the free and the home of the brave.’”[23]

After the case was argued, President Taylor directed George Q. Cannon to go to Washington to “see prominent Democrats and President-elect Cleveland concerning us and our affairs and positions.”[24] He left immediately and made it in time to see the presidential inauguration, noting President Cleveland’s inaugural address was “delivered extemporaneously.” Cannon wrote, “He could not let the occasion pass without alluding to polygamy: but if he had to allude to it, he could not have touched it and not said any less.”[25]

A few days later Cannon was able to get an interview with Attorney General Augustus Garland. He was able to speak with Garland for half an hour and “stated as succinctly as possible in the time the condition of affairs in Utah Territory.” He spoke about men being prosecuted for marriages made before it was a crime.[26] On March 14 Cannon was able to meet with President Cleveland, describing their conversation as “pleasant.”[27] He met with the president again a few days later and was able to talk with him for an hour. He noted the president “encourage[ed] me by his kindness in listening.” Cannon also spoke of the pending Supreme Court case, explaining “to him the nature of the test oath which had been framed by the Commissioners to catch us and gave him a copy of it with the rules of the Commission.” Cannon felt better after talking to the president, finding him honest and just and noting that he “ought to make a good President if he does not get spoiled by his elevation.”[28]

A few days later, on March 23, 1885, Cannon was at the Supreme Court to hear the decision in the election cases from Utah. He noted that Justice Stanley Mathews delivered the decision and described it as “partly favorable, though the general tenor was unfavorable.” His description was correct. The decision was mixed, upholding the Edmunds Act as a whole, but finding the test oath unauthorized. In explaining the overreaching nature of the oath, the court declared the commission to “have no functions whatever in respect to the registration of voters, except the appointment of officers in place of those previously authorized, whose offices are by that section of the law declared to be vacant.” These registrars are not subject to the commission but are “to perform all the duties relating to the registration of voters ‘under the existing laws of the United States and of said territory.’” The decision then clearly stated, “The board are not authorized . . . to prescribe any qualification for voters as a condition of registration,” and thus, “the form of the oath to be exacted of persons offering to register as voters . . . [are] without force, and no effect can be given to them.”[29] Had the decision stopped there, it would have been considered a great win for the Saints. After declaring the oath unauthorized, it did find the act constitutional, specifically the eighth section, which stated “that no polygamist . . . shall be entitled to vote.”[30] Thus, while Congress had the ability to disfranchise a polygamist, they did not grant the Utah Commission the ability to enforce it through an oath in the Edmunds Act.

The Supreme Court also discussed the Saints’ argument that Congress lacked the authority to pass such laws. The court declared, “The people of the United States, as sovereign owners of the national territories, have supreme power over them and their inhabitants.” It is for these reasons that territories wanted statehood as soon as it was possible. The court continued stating that Congress “may, therefore, take from them any right of suffrage it may previously have conferred, or at any time modify or abridge it, as it may deem expedient.” They reminded the Utah Saints that “the right of local self-government . . . belongs, under the constitution, to the states,” and not the territories.[31]

Based on the court’s decision, Congress believed that they had the authority to pass a test oath in the territories but that the commission did not. In 1887 new antipolygamy legislation was passed by Congress, the Edmunds-Tucker Act. In this act Congress prescribed a test oath for polygamists, requiring everyone who planned to vote, serve on a jury, or hold office to swear to it. It also dissolved the legal status of the Church and ordered the attorney general to forfeit Church property for the use of public schools in Utah. In a final blow, it also disfranchised women.[32] The oath passed by Congress required individuals to swear that they are not polygamists and “will not, directly or indirectly, aid or abet, counsel or advise, any other person to commit any of said crimes.”[33]

While the federal test oath and voting prohibitions were difficult for Utahns, they were still largely able to work around them. By one estimate, 90 percent of Latter-day Saint men were able to take the oath and vote.[34] The Church was able to find nonpolygamous Saints to fill civic roles and run for office. While the acts were devastating and unfair to women, they did not reverse the Church’s power in the territory as they would in Idaho.[35]

The Nevada Test Oath and State Constitutions

In August 1885 George Q. Cannon wrote to Daniel Manning, secretary of the treasury, expressing worry about Nevada and the treatment of the Saints in the West. He reminded Manning that the Saints were largely Democrats and that “their vote is an important one.” He also reminded the secretary that “while polygamists are disfranchised under the Edmunds law, they are not so numerous as to impair, to any sensible degree, the strength of the Mormon vote.” Cannon used Idaho as a cautionary tale of what could happen when a territory’s disfranchisement laws exceed the Edmunds Act. In explaining the passage of the Idaho test oath, he noted it made “belief a disqualification.” He reminded Secretary Manning that the Latter-day Saints wanted to live “where religious liberty can be enjoyed,” as “liberty and freedom to worship our God according to the dictates of our consciences is a priceless boon for which no sacrifice is, in our estimation, too great.”[36]

In 1886 William M. Stewart, a retired US senator, decided to run again in his state of Nevada. In campaign speeches he made many promises, including expanding the size and power of Nevada. He pledged to expand Nevada by annexing southern Idaho and part of Utah. However, he also noted Nevada would need to pass a test oath like Idaho’s so that Latter-day Saints would continue to be excluded from politics when annexation occurred.[37]

Washington Territory had plans to annex northern Idaho, so Washington delegate Charles S. Voorhees introduced legislation in Congress in 1886 to accomplish this goal.[38] Stewart joined in the lobbying effort, asking friends to support Voorhees’s bill or a similar one in the Senate. Southern Idahoans did not generally support the annexation of either the northern or southern portion of their state.

On January 12, 1887, as the federal annexation bills were pending, the Nevada State Legislature met and Senator Stewart spoke to the assembled body. He spoke on two interrelated issues: the expansion of the state and the Mormon question. Stewart referenced Idaho Territory, “our northern neighbor,” telling the legislature that the northern portion of that state planned to be annexed to Washington. He noted that “the wealth and population of southern Idaho is about equal to ours,” and a “union between Southern Idaho and Nevada [would] be beneficial to both.” However, he cautioned that with this annexation plan they needed to be careful as “we must not, under any circumstances place our situation under the hostile rule of the Mormon Church.” While there were Latter-day Saints living in Nevada, the population was not great enough to be politically significant. Stewart noted the Saints living in southern Idaho had been prohibited from voting or participating in government through a test oath. He then reasoned that if southern Idaho was added to Nevada, “it would be the part of wisdom to adopt a Constitutional amendment similar to the test oath of Idaho,” so they could not become politically active.[39]

On February 9, 1887, the Nevada Senate signaled it was serious about disfranchisement when it passed a measure to amend the state constitution. The amendment’s purpose was to disfranchise any person who was a bigamist or polygamist, someone who teaches the doctrine of polygamy or bigamy, or who is a member of any “order, organization, or association which sanctions or tolerates bigamy, polygamy, plural or celestial marriage.” For some reason, the Nevada legislature decided to forgo the amendment and instead pass a statute. The new proposed law prescribed a test oath that followed Idaho’s example rather than the weaker Edmunds Act. But it ended up passing something even harsher than Idaho. Besides swearing that one was not “a bigamist or polygamist,” one had to swear that they were not “a member of nor belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly called the Mormon Church.”

While the bill was popular, there were a few legislators who objected to it. Henry Harris, a Democrat, argued that the law was “in direct conflict with the State Constitution.” His arguments were brushed aside, and on February 14, 1887, the Nevada assembly passed a law disfranchising the Latter-day Saints. On March 3, the lower house passed the same bill, making it law.[40]

In an initial response, the Deseret News said the proposed amendment “is in direct conflict with the Constitution of the United States which forbids the application of any religious test.” Not mincing words, they called the amendment a “carbuncle” and “diseased protuberance on the body politic.” In their opinion it was “proposed to rob the rights guaranteed them under the supreme law of the land.”[41]

As these arguments were being made, the Washington-Idaho annexation bill was passed by Congress. After making its way through the Committee on Territories, the House passed the bill on March 2, 1887, and the Senate passed it the following day on March 3. All that was left was the signature of President Cleveland.[42] Governor Stevens of Idaho immediately sent the president a telegram protesting the annexation of the state. Whether it was because of Governor Stevenson’s arguments or other lobbying efforts, the president did not sign the bill, electing to pocket veto the legislation, saving the Idaho Territory. The Idaho Statesman triumphantly declared, “The matter is now dead. . . . It will never obtain a respectable foot-hold.”[43]

Soon George B. Whitney, a Latter-day Saint and Lincoln County resident, presented a test case of Nevada’s new law. He asked a justice of the peace and election registrar to put his name on the voter rolls. He told the registrar that he was qualified to vote under the Nevada Constitution but could not take the 1887 oath because he was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Whitney made clear that “this was the only reason why he refused to take said oath,” or in other words, he was not a polygamist.[44]

While the suit was pending before the Nevada Supreme Court, many citizens understood the issues to be simple and straight forward. The Silver State wrote, “In all probability the Supreme Court will declare the act and the oath unconstitutional.” The newspaper quoted the Nevada Constitution’s provision on voting rights, showing that “under this clause of the Constitution, any citizen, whatever his religious belief may be, cannot be deprived of the rights of suffrage.”[45]

On October 8, 1888, the Nevada State Supreme Court rejected the test oath law as inconsistent with the Nevada State Constitution. The decision looked at the right of suffrage granted by the constitution and held “it is not within the power of the legislature to deny, abridge, extend, or change the qualifications of a voter as prescribed by the constitution of the state.”[46] They further held that “the act was a direct attempt, in violation of the provisions of the constitution, to disfranchise the members of the Mormon church, to deny them the right of suffrage regardless of the question whether or not they possessed the qualifications of an elector as defined in the constitution.”[47]

In clear and unambiguous language, the court stated that if the legislature could pass a law disfranchising Latter-day Saints, “it could by like methods exclude from the elective franchise all persons belonging to any other church, or members of any political party, social organization, or benevolent order.” It would in effect make the constitution worthless, because voting rights “would be placed entirely at the mercy, will, or caprice of the legislature.”[48] Because the court found this violated the constitution’s grant of suffrage, it was unnecessary to discuss whether it violated Whitney’s right of religious freedom under article 1, section 4, of the Nevada Constitution.[49]

After securing this legal victory, the Saints were triumphant but believed the application of the ruling extended further than it really did. The Church-owned Deseret News called it “a righteous ruling” that showed “that religious bigotry does not rule the court that rendered the decision.” The paper compared it to the Reynolds ruling that held that beliefs cannot be legislated against. They wrote, “In this country a man has the right of free faith and free worship. He can believe anything, no matter how unorthodox or even outrageous.” While the Findlay ruling made no comment on religious liberty or rights, the Deseret News couched the victory in these terms. Unduly optimistic, the paper argued, “We have no doubt that if the Idaho test oath act shall reach the Supreme Court of the United States, it will meet with the same fate as its defunct near relative in Nevada.”[50] Their celebration missed the point that states and territories were different and that the Saints in Nevada had the protection of a Constitution, where the Saints in Utah and Idaho did not.

The Idaho Test Oath and Territorial Law

Unlike Utah, the Saints in Idaho had to fight for the right of suffrage on two fronts. Like Utah, they had to fight against laws passed by the United States Congress that applied in the territories, such as the Edmunds Act. More importantly, they also had to contend against laws passed by the Idaho territorial legislature. It was these local laws and legal battles that ultimately led to the United States Supreme Court decision in Davis v. Beason, which upheld the disfranchisement of all Latter-day Saints, not just those breaking the law through polygamy and unlawful cohabitation.

Like other territories, Idaho was given the right to determine the voting qualifications of its citizens through its enabling act. When a new territory was formed, Congress would pass an Organic Act, which would act as a constitution of sorts until the territory would gain statehood and be ruled by a constitution. Idaho’s act stated that after the first election where a legislature would be formed, “the qualifications of voters, and of holding office, at all subsequent elections, shall be such as shall be prescribed by the legislative assembly.”[51]

This Organic Act also set up a governmental system that led to conflict, like it did in other western territories. This act stated that the governor, secretary of the territory, judges in territorial courts, the United States district attorney, and the marshal would all be appointed by the president. Thus, the only positions that could be held by Idahoans were the territorial legislative seats, but “legislative acts could be vetoed by Congress, as well as by the governor, theoretically voiding home rule.”[52] Appointed officers were not accountable to the Idahoans they were appointed to govern. This may have contributed to a severe distrust of the federal government. Ironically, many Saints shared this antipathy toward the federal government with their non–Latter-day Saint neighbors.

But non–Latter-day Saints were distrustful of the Saints as well. In 1872 M. E. Hollister, US attorney for Idaho, wrote Attorney General George H. Williams about his dealing with the Saints. He wrote about Idaho’s method of selecting a jury and noted that it would not work “in one of the counties” because “the inhabitants are mostly Mormons among whom the practice of polygamy prevails as a religious system.” He noted that in polygamy and bigamy prosecutions, “from this people most of the grand and travers jurors will have to be drawn.” He concluded, “It is easy to see that no indictment or convictions could be obtained among them,” and the only solution would be “by a change in the law in such cases, so as to give the U.S. Marshal the authority to select grand and travers jurors from the body of the district, or possibly from the whole territory, so that the influence of these peculiar notions may not affect the administration of justice.”[53]

While the Saints perceived they were being persecuted by the federal government, some non–Latter-day Saint citizens of Idaho felt they needed stronger polygamy laws than those passed by Congress. These Idahoans took matters into their own hands in 1880 when a bill was debated in the legislature to criminalize polygamy on a local level rather than the federal level.[54] While no polygamy laws were passed that session, the Church understood a fight was coming.

When the Edmunds Act was passed, some Idahoans were not impressed. While the act was unpopular with the Saints and seemed like a violation of their religious constitutional rights, it soon became clear that they could still work within the system because there were many Saints but few polygamists. Anti-Mormon legislators of Idaho attempted to legislate a test oath for the first time at the end of 1882.[55]

Around this same time, Fred T. Dubois arrested and indicted two Saints, William Henderson and Joseph Byington. Neither prosecution was successful; however, it changed how polygamy trials were conducted and showed the need for additional legislation with the Mormon problem. Dubois later wrote regarding these cases, “I learned this important fact, . . . with a Mormon on the Jury you could not convict another Mormon for unlawful cohabitation.” He realized that while the grand jury would indict individuals for polygamy related crimes, the trial jury would not convict. He believed, “The Mormons, who were on the Grand Jury, acquiesced in the finding of these indictments probably on the assumption that convictions would not follow.” Dubois realized the problem was not the judges or the prosecutors, but the jurors.[56]

With the lack of convictions, even under the Edmunds Act, some Idahoan legislators decided they needed to do things on their own. The Thirteenth Session of the Idaho Territorial Legislature met between December 8, 1884, and February 5, 1885. On December 12, 1884, Harvey Walker “Kentucky” Smith proposed Council Bill No. 5 entitled “An act relative to Elections” (later known as the Idaho test oath). The act prescribed an oath that any individual who meant to exercise their franchise was required to make. While it contained the typical language dealing with residency, citizenship, and age, it also included religious language. One had to swear that they “are not a bigamist or polygamist,” nor are “a member of any order, organization or association which teaches, advises, counsels or encourages its members, devotees or any other persons to commit the crime of bigamy or polygamy.” Finally, it made one swear that “publicly or privately,” the one seeking to vote does not “teach, advise, counsel, or encourage any person to commit the crime of bigamy or polygamy.[57]

While very little is known about the debate regarding the new statute, the test oath was passed eight to four. The few Latter-day Saints left in the legislature attempted to stop the legislation.[58] James E. Hart, of Bear Lake County, proposed an amendment to the bill, softening the language matching the Edmunds Act, so only polygamists would be disfranchised. His substitution stated, “You do solemnly swear that you are not a bigamist or a polygamist or that you do not cohabitate with any other woman who is not your wife.” In a later recollection, Hart claimed that this amendment caused quite a stir as one of the other non–Latter-day Saint legislators stated, “My God Gentlemen! We can’t accept Hart’s proposal. That would disfranchise all of us.”[59] Their rejection of Hart’s amendment shows that the Edmunds Act was not working in Idaho, and they wanted something stronger.

After the passage of the Idaho test oath, the Latter-day Saints decided that they needed to be more organized in fighting the law. In a Bear Lake Stake priesthood meeting on January 3, 1885, Hart stood and told the assembled men, “In consequence of the efforts of our enemies to disinherit us of our right and our plain duty to stand for these rights in a legal manner a Defense Fund should be established.”[60] A few weeks later, George Q. Cannon sent letters to the leaders in Idaho with a similar proposal. He told them that there needed to be a “necessity of concert of action.” Further, he told them “that they should take steps to raise a defense fund from which they could draw to pay for legal and other expenses.” He ended by referring back to prior persecution: “It was cheaper and better for us to make a fight in the courts than to have the same treatment meted out to us that we had formerly experienced, namely having mobs drive us from our homes and strip us of all we have.”[61] Thus, Latter-day Saint leaders in Idaho would fight the law in the courts. The first court battles did not deal with the voting aspects of the act, but rather the holding of public office and serving on a jury. The act was upheld in both instances, but the Saints kept fighting and challenging the law.[62]

In 1888 the first major case challenging Idaho’s voter requirement appeared before the Territorial Supreme Court, Innis v. Bolton. This case dealt with a Latter-day Saint in Bear Lake, who tried to vote without taking the oath. The case was argued before the Idaho Territorial Supreme Court on February 10, 1888. The Saints hired Richard Z. Johnson to argue the case. Johnson was a very able attorney in Idaho who would later become the state’s first attorney general. The Church was so impressed with his arguments in Innis that they were later published in pamphlet form, Idaho Test Oath and sold by the Deseret News Company.[63]

Johnson reminded the court that this was not a case “of property, of dollars and cents” but “a principle that is of interest to every American citizen.” He argued that Innis met the qualifications to vote under the Edmunds law. Johnson stated the “intent and purpose of the [Idaho test oath] is to reach those that believe that bigamy and polygamy are morally right, though they neither practice, teach nor encourage either.” Thus, they were being punished for mere belief, not action. He then quoted the First Amendment, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” He argued, “To-day it is the despised Mormons,” but if they upheld this type of oath, “By and by it will be the proud Episcopalians, or the Wesleyans, or Presbyterians, or the Baptists; there is no distinction in the principle.”[64] The Idaho Territorial Supreme Court was not convinced and upheld the constitutionality of the test oath. They unanimously held that “the right of suffrage is not a natural right, nor an unqualified personal right”; thus the legislature could pass prohibitions they saw fit.[65]

The next major case that came before the Idaho Supreme Court was Woolley v. Watkins.[66] In September 1888 Hyrum Smith Woolley sought to register to vote in Bear Lake County. He appeared before registrar C. N. Watkins, a fellow Saint, and “offered to take and subscribe the oath. . . known as the electors oath.” Watkins refused to register him because he was a Latter-day Saint.[67] All parties to the suit agreed that Woolley was “not a bigamist or polygamist” and “that [Woolley] does not teach, advise counsel or encourage persons to commit the crimes of bigamy or polygamy . . . unless he does so by the bare fact that he is a member of the Mormon Church.”[68]

At a hearing on these issues, Church leaders tried to convince the court that the church in Idaho had not taught, counseled, encouraged, or advised its members to engage in polygamy for at least two years. The opponents argued that they still supported and believed in the doctrine. The district court ruled for the opponents, stating that the Idaho church has not repudiated polygamist teachings and “the book of doctrine and covenants is ample and conclusive proof.”[69] The court also noted that any change in the doctrine “must be real and not merely temporary” and “it must be a change of teaching and practices not mere ceasing for a time to actively teach, not a mere holding in abeyance.”[70]

The Church appealed the decision to the Idaho Territorial Supreme Court. The court cited Reynolds v. United States,[71] and various cases, for the proposition that government “cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, [but] they may with practices.”[72] They found the test oath dealt with practices of the Idaho church, not mere belief. The court also found similar to the Innis decision, holding that “the right of suffrage . . . may be granted, abridged, or taken away by the state government in its discretion.”[73] Thus, the test oath was upheld again.

The Church’s next attempt was disastrous and helped lead to the end of polygamy. In April 1889 Samuel Davis was indicted along with fifty-five other individuals “for a conspiracy to unlawfully pervert and obstruct the due administration of the laws of the Territory.” Specifically, he withdrew from the Church, voted, and then intended to rejoin later. George Q. Cannon recorded a discussion he had with Wilford Woodruff, Joseph F. Smith, and Bear Lake Stake president William Budge just before Davis’s indictment. Cannon recorded that in Idaho, “Brethren had withdrawn from the Church in that region for the purpose of exercising their political rights as voters.” He wasn’t supportive of the plan, noting, “I have felt badly about this, as I have felt that it might lead to evil.” Budge viewed it differently, explaining, “The people withdrew with the avowed intention of voting, and for that purpose only, and they had done it conscientiously and felt no condemnation for it, and at the proper time they would reunite with another branch of the Ward.” However, Budge had to admit that in some areas “the situation was different,” that “our enemies had instituted suits for perjury against people who had voted, claiming that they had sworn falsely in taking the test oath, and that their withdrawel [sic] from the Church was a sham.” Because of this, “to require these people to be re-baptized would be an admission that they had done something that was wrong.”[74]

On September 12, 1889, Davis’s trial was held, where he was convicted of conspiracy. He was tried alongside twelve other criminal defendants for conspiring “with each other to break the infamous test oath statute, by voting when they knew they had no right to do so.” The thirteen defendants were chosen “as a test” with the other defendants “within reach, had they been wanted.”[75] The verdict appeared surprising to the public. Davis was convicted, but the other twelve were acquitted. The Deseret News could not understand the verdict because with the acquittals, how could one conspire with himself? If a conspiracy occurred, it was between “Idaho, jury, and Judge.” The paper found the verdict so perplexing they looked forward to a hearing before the Supreme Court of the United States, to “get a glimpse of the anti-‘Mormon’ judicial circus that has been performing in one of the Territories now aspiring to Statehood.”[76] As more information came out, it appeared that Davis was alone convicted because “after retiring from the Church and voting, he joined it again.”[77]

Davis then created a situation to be arrested. After trial, Davis was fined five hundred dollars. He was not sentenced to jail. However, he refused to pay the fine, so he was “placed in jail.” He did this so he could apply “for a writ of habeas corpus,” which was denied and created an appealable issue. Thus, the goal that the Idaho Saints had been moving toward for the last four years was closer. They were finally going to get to argue their case before the United States Supreme Court. The case was argued over two days, December 9 and 10, 1889. Interest in the case was so high that the entirety of the brief prepared by Davis’s counsel was published over six pages in the Deseret News. Frustrating to historians today, “no stenographic report was taken of the oral arguments,” so the brief is invaluable in understanding the case.[78]

Davis’s attorneys argued for religious liberty, arguing that membership in the Church should not lead to being disfranchised and disqualified from governmental participation. They made four arguments to support their position: (1) the Idaho statute violates the free exercise of religion, (2) the Idaho statute violates the Fourteenth Amendment, (3) the Idaho statute violates Article VI of the Constitution, and (4) the Idaho statute is void because Congress had already legislated on the subject.

Arguing their first point, the free exercise of religion, Davis’s attorneys started by quoting two sources: the First Amendment, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” and the Reynolds decision, “religious freedom is guaranteed everywhere throughout the United States,” and “Congress cannot pass a law for the government of Territories which shall prohibit the free exercise of religion.”[79]

On these points Davis’s attorneys argued that the Constitution guarantees not only protection of a person’s religious beliefs and opinions, but the exercise of those beliefs. Free exercise means participation in all ordinances, sacraments, and ceremonies; “no matter what his belief is, if he violates no law, he may freely exercise his religion according to such forms and ceremonies.” If this is not true, then the constitutional words “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” would be meaningless. They then argued that Davis was not a polygamist; he did not advise anyone to enter polygamy, and, in fact, by taking the oath, he repudiated the practice.

As far as a belief in the doctrine of polygamy, counsel argued that “it does not necessarily follow from such membership that he must believe all the dogmas or doctrines of the church.” Regardless, they argued that it is not the belief that matters anyway, but his membership in the Church. It is membership, not belief, that disfranchises him. They quoted Reynolds, that “laws are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinion, they may with practices.”[80]

They next argued that the Idaho test oath violated the Fourteenth Amendment. The Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, declared that “nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law . . . [or] equal protection of the laws.” Davis’s lawyers argued that the statute in question punished membership and “there is no statute in Idaho that makes or attempts to make it an offense to belong to the Mormon church.” They argued that if one has not committed the crime of polygamy, one should not be punished as if they had. To take the right to vote, when no crime has been committed, is a violation of equal protection.

Comparing the Edmunds Act of 1882 with the Idaho test oath, counsel argued that the Edmunds Act understood equal protection when it stated that no one can be excluded from voting “on account of any opinion such person may entertain on the subject of bigamy or polygamy.”[81] In contrast, the Idaho statute discriminates against “a certain class of citizens” in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Discussing the Fourteenth Amendment and a territory’s right to determine voter qualifications, Davis’s counsel agreed that a territory had the right to do so. However, the “right is not an unlimited one,” “it must be exercised within the provisions of the Constitution,” and it must not “deprive the citizen of any rights or privileges that are guaranteed him by the Constitution.” Seeing how religious liberty is an “absolute right of individuals” and “among the first of civil rights,” a legislature cannot “prescribe a religious test, without striking down this right.” They argued that it would be unconstitutional to make a test for Catholics, Methodists, Presbyterians, or make an issue of whether one “believes in baptism by immersion or sprinkling.” To do this would reduce one’s religious liberty to an idea, not a right protected by equal protection.

They further asserted that the Idaho test oath violated Article VI of the Constitution. Article VI states that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” Davis’s lawyers argued that this article was passed so that religious belief is divorced from the political rights of citizens. They argued, “Holding office and selecting persons to hold office are inseparable parts of your system.” Further, “when a religious test is forbidden to be applied to the one, it is equally forbidden to be applied to the other.” Finally, they argued that Congress had already legislated on the subject, so any territorial law should be of no effect. In contrast to legal arguments made in Utah, Davis’s attorneys argued that Congress’s laws are “the supreme law of the land.” Congress had the right to legislate in the territories and “if Congress does legislate a State cannot.” They argued that “Congress provided that no bigamist or polygamist shall be entitled to vote,” so the Idaho legislature could not add further restrictions.[82]

On December 17, after returning from Washington, DC, Franklin Richards reported his feelings to the First Presidency. He told them a “good showing was made,” and “the Court listened attentively to the arguments.”[83] Latter-day Saint newspaper reports reported that the arguments “aroused the members of the bench from their former quietude into a fervor of inquiry.”[84]

The Idaho Saints did not have to wait long for the court’s decision as it was delivered by Justice Stephen J. Field on February 3, 1890. The opinion cannot be viewed in any other light than a rebuke of polygamy and the Church. The opinion, written by Justice Field, started by declaring that “bigamy and polygamy are crimes by the laws of all civilized and Christian countries.” Continuing this theme, he wrote that polygamy will “destroy the purity of the marriage relation, to disturb the peace of families, to degrade women and to debase men.” In describing the purposes and protections of the First Amendment, Fields reasoned that it was to allow everyone to have a relationship with his maker, to worship without injuring others, and to avoid being compelled into a specific religion. It was not put in place as “protection against legislation for the punishment of acts inimical to the peace, good order and morals of society.”[85]

Field then turned to Reynolds, distinguishing it from Davis, and reiterated the holding of Reynolds. “Laws are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with practices.” He then gave an example of an impermissible religious worship, human sacrifice, and asked if one would “seriously contend that the civil government . . . could not interfere to prevent a sacrifice?” He then applied the same reasoning to polygamy, asking, “Can a man excuse his practices to the contrary because of his religious belief?” Answering the question himself (via Reynolds), he wrote, “To permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself.” He further added that “crime is not the less odious because sanctioned by what any particular sect may designate as religion.” [86]

The opinion then turned to the Idaho test oath and the ability of the territorial legislature to prescribe voting qualifications. He looked to the Idaho Organic Act that prescribed qualifications but declared the legislature could set others. The only limitations placed on the Idaho Territory were that a voter had to be a citizen at least twenty-one years of age and the right of suffrage could not be denied based on “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Beyond this, Idaho had the power to “prescribe any reasonable qualifications of voters.” More clearly stated, “Requiring every person desiring to have his name registered as a voter to take an oath that he does not belong to an order that advises a disregard of the criminal law of the Territory, is not open to any valid legal objection to which our attention has been called.”

In answering the argument that Congress had already legislated the issue, Fields stated that argument “does not impress us as entitled to much weight.” Because the act of Congress did not discuss teaching, advising, encouraging, or aiding and abetting crime, there is nothing to prevent Idaho from passing a more expansive law.[87]

The Idaho test oath was upheld and ruled constitutional. There was nothing that would prevent the other territories or Congress from passing a similar law in the territories. Thus, unlike the other jurisdictions in the west, Idaho Saints lost the legal battle dealing with test oaths and the franchise.

Davis and the End of Latter-day Saint Polygamy

The fact that a test oath could be passed in all the territories was not lost on the leaders of the Church. Apostle Abraham Cannon wrote in his diary, “The U.S. Supreme Court today decided that the Idaho Test Oath, which disfranchises all Mormons, is constitutional.” He went on to predict that “this decision will doubtless have the effect to eventually debar every Mormon in the whole United States of the rights of freemen.”[88] President Woodruff saw the ruling as a sign of end times, writing, “This is one more step in the direction of severing the bonds of the nation which binds it to the constitution and the principles of toleration and freedom it was intended to preserve. The end is certainly drawing nearer.”[89]

The Saints in Idaho were also disappointed in the ruling. At the February stake conference in Paris, Idaho, President James H. Hart told the assembled group that he was indignant “at the action of our enemies in disfranchising the L.D.S. simply because of their religious belief.”[90]

The Davis ruling also caught the attention of others who intended to apply the holding to all the territories, including Utah. The Utah Commission recommended Congress impose an Idaho style test oath on Utah. In their annual report for 1890 they wrote,

The Commission in its last report, in view of the fact that the constitutionality of the law known as the Idaho test oath law was then before the Supreme Court, suggested the propriety of enacting a similar law for Utah in case the decision of the court should be in the affirmative. The Supreme Court having so decided, the Commission now recommends such an enactment, believing that it would do more to put an end to the teaching and practice of polygamy than has yet been accomplished by the partial enforcement of existing laws.[91]

Congress did discuss imposing an Idaho-style test oath on the territories. Years later, Franklin S. Richards recalled these trying times. He recalled that after Davis was decided, “Senator Cullom and Congressman Struble presented bills in Congress providing that no person living in plural marriage or being a member of any religious organization that sanctions the practice of polygamy should vote, serve as a juror or hold office in Utah.”

Richards remembered the Davis ruling as one of the major reasons for the Manifesto. He stated, “The imminent danger of these bills passing Congress was the immediate cause of the issuance of the Manifesto.” He recounted that President Woodruff, “after much prayer and supplication,” decided “that our people must submit to the law, inasmuch as they had exhausted every legal means of showing its unconstitutionality.”[92]

In September 1890, President Woodruff issued his official declaration stating that he intended to “submit to those laws” that “have been enacted by Congress forbidding plural marriages.” He also intended to “use my influence with the members of the Church over which I preside to have them do likewise.” His reasoning was simple: the antipolygamy laws “have been pronounced constitutional by the courts of last resort.”[93]

Two lines of cases were adjudicated by the Supreme Court and led to his decision: the confiscation of Church property(including possible loss of temples) and the disfranchisement of Latter-day Saints. When it came to disfranchisement, neither federal legislation nor the Utah Commission proved as effective as a small group of citizens of Idaho Territory, working through the systems of territorial law. Thus, Idahoans brought disfranchisement to the Saints and helped bring an end to polygamy in the territories.

Notes

[1] Bear Lake Stake Quarterly Stake Conference, May 9–10, 1885, Paris Idaho Stake Minutes 1875–1938, Church History Library, Salt Lake City.

[2] George Q. Cannon, Journal, January 16, 1885, The Journal of George Q. Cannon, Church Historian’s Press, https://www.churchhistorianspress.org/george-q-cannon/1880s/1885/01-1885?lang=eng#p42.

[3] Davis v. Beason, 133 U.S. 333 (1890).

[4] Late Corp. of Church of Jesus Christ v. United States, 136 U.S. 1 (1890).

[5] Official Declaration 1, October 6, 1890. See also Thomas G. Alexander, Things in Heaven and Earth: The Life and Times of Wilford Woodruff, a Mormon Prophet (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1991), 266–67.

[6] Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145, 168 (1878).

[7] Rutherford B. Hayes, Third Annual Message, December 1, 1879, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/third-annual-message-12.

[8] Edmunds Act, sec. 5, ch. 47, 22 stat. 30 (1882).

[9] Edmunds Act, sec. 8.

[10] Edmunds Act, sec. 9.

[11] US Congress, Congressional Record, 1882 47th Cong., 1st sess., vol. 13, pt. 2: 1197; see also Mary K. Campbell, “Mr. Peay’s Horses: The Federal Response to Mormon Polygamy, 1854–1887,” Yale Journal of Law and Feminism 13 (2001): 42–45.

[12] Congressional Record, 1882, 1156.

[13] Utah Commission, The Edmunds Act, Reports of the Commission, Rules, Regulations and Decisions (Salt Lake City, Tribune Publishing Company, 1884), 29; see also Murphy v. Ramsey, 114 U.S. 15, 15 (1885).

[14] Cummings v. The State of Missouri, 71 U.S. 277 (1866).

[15] Ex Parte Garland, 71 U.S. 333 (1866).

[16] The First Presidency, “An Address to the Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints,” Deseret News, September 6, 1882.

[17] See Murphy v. Ramsey, 114 U.S. 15 (1885). The many individuals who ended up as plaintiffs were Jesse Murphy, Mary Ann Pratt, Alfred and Mildred Randall, Hiram and Ellen Clawson, and James Barlow.

[18] “Supreme Court Calendar,” Deseret News, June 4, 1884; “The Cases Against the Commissioners,” Deseret News, February 18, 1885.

[19] Mary Ann M. Pratt, Appellant v. Alexander Ramsey et al. . . . Brief and Argument for Appellant (Washington: Gibson Bros., 1885), 8. Lawyers for the Saints were annoyed by the lack of a written opinion. In their brief to the Supreme Court, they wrote, “No opinion was filed either by the District Court or the Supreme Court of the Territory, and the points upon which the judgment below went are not in the record except as shown by the general demurrer. It will, therefore, be necessary to consider the whole case anew.”

[20] Pratt, 15; quoting Congressional Record, vol. 13, pt. 2, p. 1156.

[21] Pratt, 25.

[22] Pratt, 31; see also Orma Linford, “The Mormons and the Law: The Polygamy Cases, Part II,” Utah Law Review 9 (1965): 543–46.

[23] “The Cases Against the Commissioners.”

[24] George Q. Cannon, journal, February 16, 1885, https://www.churchhistorianspress.org/george-q-cannon/1880s/1885/02-1885.

[25] Cannon, journal, March 4, 1885, https://www.churchhistorianspress.org/george-q-cannon/1880s/1885/03-1885.

[26] Cannon, journal, March 11, 1885, https://www.churchhistorianspress.org/george-q-cannon/1880s/1885/03-1885.

[27] Cannon, journal, March 14, 1885, https://www.churchhistorianspress.org/george-q-cannon/1880s/1885/03-1885.

[28] Cannon, journal, March 17, 1885, The Journal of George Q. Cannon, Church Historian’s Press, https://www.churchhistorianspress.org/george-q-cannon/1880s/1885/03-1885.

[29] Murphy v. Ramsey, 36–37.

[30] Murphy v. Ramsey, 39.

[31] Murphy v. Ramsey, 44.

[32] Edmunds-Tucker Act, sec. 20, 24, ch. 397, stat. 635, at 639.

[33] Edmunds-Tucker Act, sec 24.

[34] First Presidency, “An Address.”

[35] For example, just prior to the passage of the Edmunds-Tucker Act, President John Taylor and Franklin D. Richards “went to Ogden [Utah] reconstituted the City Council & County Court leaving only Mayor & Judge Polygamous because those bodies have not the power to fill by appointments—2 changes in Court—6 in Council all done by midnight.” Minutes of the Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1835–1983 (Salt Lake City: privately published, 2010), 405, quoting Franklin D. Richard’s diary.

[36] George Q. Cannon to Daniel Manning, secretary of the treasury, August 7, 1885, Grover Cleveland Papers, Church History Library.

[37] Eric N. Moody, “Nevada’s Anti-Mormon Legislation of 1887 and Southern Idaho Annexation,” Nevada Historical Society Quarterly 22, no. 1 (1979): 23.

[38] US Congress, Congressional Record, 1882 47th Cong., 1st sess., vol. 13, pt. 1: 529; US Congress Congressional Record, 1882 47th Cong., 1st sess., vol. 13, pt. 2: 1706.

[39] “Thirteenth Session,” Morning Appeal, January 13, 1887.

[40] Winston Bowman, “A Civil Death: Mormon Disenfranchisement in the Inner-Mountain West,” Western Legal History 27 (2014): 15; see also Joseph H. Groberg, “The Mormon Disfranchisements of 1882 to 1892,” BYU Studies 16, no. 3 (1976): 402.

[41] “Nevada Proposes to Take a Backward Step,” Deseret News, February 23, 1887.

[42] Moody, “Nevada's Anti-Mormon Legislation,” 25.

[43] “The Defeat of the Annexation Scheme,” Idaho Tri-Weekly Statesman, March 8, 1887. In later recollections, Fred T. Dubois wrote, “About the time the Annexation Bill reached the President, Governor Stevenson and the leading Democrats sent him a long telegram stating that the people of Idaho had evidently changed their minds in regard to this subject.” Louis J. Clements, Fred T. Dubois: The Making of a State (Rexburg: Eastern Idaho Publishing Company, 1971), 139. I have been unable to locate this telegram in the papers of President Cleveland.

[44] State v. Findlay, 20 Nev. 198, 19 P. 241 (1888).

[45] “Against the Test Oath,” Silver State, September 10, 1888.

[46] Findlay, 241.

[47] Findlay, 422.

[48] Findlay, 422–23.

[49] Findlay, 423.

[50] “Statutory Twins,” Deseret News, November 11, 1888.

[51] Organic Act of the Territory of Idaho, sec. 5, Qualifications of voters and of holding office, 12 Stat. L. 808, ch. 117 (1863).

[52] Robert H. Blank, Individualism in Idaho: The Territorial Foundations (Pullman: Washington State University Press, 1988, 24).

[53] M. E. Hollister to George H. Williams, December 9, 1872, in Letters Received by the Attorney General, 1871–1884: Western Law and Order (University Publications of America, 2015).

[54] J. C. Rich to Ann Eliza Rich, February 1, 1880, in correspondence, photographs, and manuscripts related to the Rich family: 1854–1908, Huntington Library.

[55] H. S. Wooley to John Taylor, December 16, 1882, First Presidency (John Taylor) correspondence, Church History Library.

[56] Clements, Fred T. Dubois, 39–40.

[57] Idaho Legislature, Journal of the Council of the Thirteenth Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Idaho, Eighth day of December 1884 and adjourned on the 5^th day of February, Idaho State Archives.

[58] The Saints lost two legislative seats in the contentious 1884 election. The Saints accused the victors, including H. W. Smith, of ballot stuffing and forgery. See, generally, John S. Dinger, “Forgery and the Idaho Test Oath,” Journal of Mormon History 47, no. 2 (2021): 136–42.

[59] Russel R. Rich, Land of the Sky Blue Water: A History of the L.D.S. Settlement of the Bear Lake Valley (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 1963), 146.

[60] Bear Lake Stake priesthood meeting, January 3, 1885, Paris Idaho Stake Minutes—General 1875–1938, Church History Library.

[61] George Q. Cannon, journal, January 16, 1885, https://www.churchhistorianspress.org/george-q-cannon/1880s/1885/01-1885; see also George Q. Cannon to Horton D. Haight, January 16, 1885, First Presidency Letter book, Church History Library.

[62] On April 7, 1885, Judge John T. Morgan refused to seat Latter-day Saint jurors in Cassia County, Idaho. The following month Governor E. J. Curtis declared the Bear Lake County Commissioners’ seats vacant because the three elected commissioners were Latter-day Saints. Morgan’s successor, Judge James B. Hays, heard arguments on both issues. In September 1885 Judge Hays heard argument on the use of Latter-day Saints as jurors. He declared that based on the test oath law, Latter-day Saints could not serve as jurors. On October 25, 1886, Judge Hays declared that Saints were not fit to serve as county commissioners and that their removal was correct.

[63] Richard Z. Johnson, Idaho Test Oath, Delivered in the Supreme Court of Idaho Territory, Feb. 10, 1888 (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1888).

[64] Johnson, Idaho Test Oath, 3, 7–9, 45.

[65] Innis v. Bolton, 2 Idaho 442, 451 (1888).

[66] Woolley v. Watkins, 2 Idaho 590 (Idaho 1889).

[67] Woolley v. Watkins, Affidavit of H.S. Woolley October 3, 1888, Territorial Supreme Court, Idaho State Archives.

[68] Affidavit of H. S. Woolley; see also Stipulation, October 10, 1888, Territorial Supreme Court, Idaho State Archives.

[69] Woolley Affidavit, 36.

[70] Woolley Affidavit, 37.

[71] Reynolds v. United States, 98 US 145.

[72] Woolley, 601.

[73] Woolley, 602–3.

[74] George Q. Cannon, journal, April 1, 1889, The Journal of George Q. Cannon, Church Historian’s Press, https://www.churchhistorianspress.org/george-q-cannon/1880s/1889/04-1889?lang=eng.

[75] “The Conspiracy Case,” Deseret Weekly, October 5, 1889.

[76] “Somewhat Absurd,” Deseret Weekly, September 21, 1889.

[77] “The Conspiracy Case,” Deseret Weekly, October 10, 1889.

[78] “The Idaho Test Oath Case,” Deseret Weekly, January 11, 1890.

[79] “The Idaho Test Oath Case;” see also Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145, 162 (1878).

[80] Reynolds, 166.

[81] Edmunds Act, sec. 9.

[82] “The Idaho Test Oath Case.”

[83] Leonard John Nuttall, In the President’s Office: The Diaries of L. John Nuttall, 1879–1892 (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2007), 400.

[84] “The Idaho Test Oath Case.”

[85] Davis v. Beason, 133 U.S. 333, 341 (1890).

[86] Davis, 344. See also Sarah Barringer Gordon, The Mormon Question: Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict in Nineteenth-Century America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 224–28.

[87] Davis, 347.

[88] Kenneth L. Cannon II, Candid Insights of a Mormon Apostle: The Diaries of Abraham H. Cannon, 1889–1895 (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2012): 60–61.

[89] Wilford Woodruff and Joseph F. Smith to President William King, February 3, 1890, First Presidency Letter Book, Church History Library.

[90] Bear Lake Stake Quarterly Stake Conference, February 1890, Paris Idaho Stake Minutes 1875–1938, Church History Library.

[91] “Annual Report of the Utah Commission,” RS1 (1890), 3:414–21.

[92] Franklin S. Richards address, Church History Library.

[93] Official Declaration 1, October 6, 1890.