ment to or be entitled to hold any office or place of public trust, honor, or emolument in, under, or for any such Territory or place, or under the United States."

Now to the first part of the section again:

"No polygamist, bigamist, or any person cohabiting with more than one woman,✶✶✶ shall be entitled to vote."

Who is a polygamist? I hold in my hand Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, which is very good authority, I believe:

"Polygamist: a person who practices polygamy, or maintains its lawfulness.” There is scarcely a man, woman, or child in Utah belonging to the Mormon church who does not maintain the lawfulness of polygamy.

Mr. Edmunds. The senator is mistaken about that, but that is not any part of the argument.

Mr. Brown. There may be a few

Mr. Edmunds. There may be a great number, and there are.

Mr. Brown. There are very few, if any, who doubt it.

Mr. Edmunds. I can tell you just how many there are, in a minute.

Mr. Brown. I will thank the senator. I suppose there are some in every country connected with every faith who do not believe in all that their particular church or sect holds. I have been among the Mormons, however; I have seen something of their society; and I know the great prevailing opinion there is that God by a divine revelation made known to the prophet, Joseph Smith, that a man in the Mormon church may have more than one wife, that he may practice polygamy. Only a small number of them do practice it, I admit; but it is almost, if not quite, the universal belief that they have the right to do it.

Mr. Edmunds. Of course we cannot have a judicial trial to-day to find out, as my brother from Alabama wishes to do on this political question, how the fact is; but according to the returns obtained by the census people (not always under the act of Congress, because they go beyond that) of what are called apostate Mormons, who do not hold up to the polygamy doctrine, there are 6.988 in the Territory, and of what are called Josephite Mormons who hold up to all the doctrines except that one thing-but I do not know precisely the distinction between the Apostate and Josephite Mormons-there are 820. So it would seem there are more than 7,000 of the Mormons, besides certain ones put down as doubtful whom I leave out, who do not appear to believe in this revelation of polygamy which occurred about_twenty or thirty years after the finding of the astonishing gold tablets and so on. That is the Book of the Covenant.

Mr. Brown. I think they were brass, not gold.

Mr. Edmunds. Perhaps they had most to do with brass.
Mr. Brown. I do not think they were pure gold.

Mr. Edmunds. As I have been reading the Book of Covenants of the Mormon church lately with assiduity, I think they were gold, but at any rate the polygamous thing came in more than twenty years after its supposed discovery and came in under circumstances that if my friend would read the very book itself to show how it came and why and so on, I think he would be satisfied that it would take a pretty stout-hearted man among the Mormons to think that that was of divine revelation, for it absolutely reversed the previous revelation from the invisible world. I did not want to interrupt the senator, however.

Mr. Brown. It is no interruption. I do not presume I am as well posted in Mormon literature as the honorable senator from Vermont, though I have read some of it. I agree with him that in the commencement Mormonism did not tolerate or practice polygamy; you may read the book of Mormon

and you will nowhere find in that book that polygamy is tolerated; but the Mormons believe that subsequently to the discovery of that book, which the senator says was on gold plates-I think they were brass

Mr. Edmunds. We will compound it and call it silver, which is a popular thing. [Laughter.]

Mr. Brown. Anywhere along between. [Laughter.] They say that since that discovery God revealed to Joseph Smith under circumstances, as the senator says, that do not carry conviction to my mind, though they do to theirs, that a man might have more than one wife. And now just in that connection let us say a little more about the Mormon faith.

As I understand the Mormon doctrine and the Mormon people, they profess to believe as firmly as we do in the Old Testament, but they say much of the Old Testament is repealed by the New. Then they profess to believe in all the New, that has not been repealed by later inspirations and revelations; but they believe that there are certain things in the New Testament which have been repealed by later revelations from Heaven. I am speaking of their faith, so far as I could learn it among them during the short stay I made there some two or three years since. I could hear of no one connected with the Mormon church who disbelieved this doctrine. At any rate, out of the one hundred and forty-odd thousand population in that Territory, or connected with that church, according to the estimate of the senator from Vermont, (if that is a correct census return,) there are only about six or seven thousand who do not believe in polygamy.

Mr. Edmunds. The whole population is 143,963, according to the census. Mr. Brown. Then it would leave 137,000 in round numbers, who do believe in it against 6,000 who do not.

Mr. Edmunds. Oh no, the senator is mistaken. I only speak of the Mormon population, the total Mormon population.

Mr. Brown. The senator is confining himself to the Territory of Utah. [Addressing Mr. Edmunds.] Do you not know that the Mormons have very strong church relatious witlī, and have planted colonies in, other Territories? Mr. Edmunds. I do not know anything about that. I was speaking of Utah alone.

Mr. Brown. Mr. President, they are as unanimous on this question as any church or any people anywhere are on any question. There may be some dissenters; doubtless there are some. They maintain, in other words, the lawfulness of polygamy. Then, according to the definition given by Webster, they are polygamists; and then, according to this bill, they are every one disfranchised. It is a sweeping disfranchisement of almost the entire people of a Territory. And in order to carry out that disfranchisement we must resort here to a practice better known in the South than it has been in the North. Whenever it is necessary to make a Republican State out of a Democratic State, or a Republican State out of a Democratic Territory, the most convenient machinery for that purpose is a Returning Board, and it has worked admirably in the South. By fraud, perjury, forgery, and vil lainy, the returning-board system cheated the people of these United States out of a legal election for President. It does not therefore specially commend itself to the American people. It stinks in the nostrils of honest men. We propose now to deal with this question by constituting a Returning Board of five persons to be appointed by the President of the United States, with the advice and consent of the senate, all of whom, says the bill, as brought forth by the Committee on the Judiciary, shall not be members of the same political party. I propose to amend it by saying not more than three of whom shall be members of the same political party, so as to compel the appointment of two Democrats in place of one; and on the other side of the

chamber that proportion is stoutly met and resisted. Why is it that it is necessary to have four of the five members of this board Republicans, and only one Democrat? Will not a majority do this job as well as a minority? Cannot three carry out the object? If the Democrats have two, it seems it is feared it might not work; and it is safer not to trust it to them, lest, to the great disappointment of some very patriotic gentlemen, it might turn up a Democratic State.

In my opinion the people of Utah have at least one good quality, and that is, that an overwhelming majority of them are Democrats. If we ever reach a point where they are to be admitted into the Union, they have a right to come in as a Democratic State; but under this Returning Board legerdemain, it is very fair to presume that they will not be permitted so to come. If not even two out of the five who are to manipulate the returns are to be Democrats, there can be but little hope of a Democratic State. And there may be a very good political reason just there, why the whole population, almost en masse, should be disfranchised. If they are permitted to vote, there is no chance for a Republican State. If a returning board manipulates the election, and the population of Utah, or a vast majority of them, are driven from the polls, then there is a prospect of a Republican State there.

Not only does this bill as reported by the Committee on the Judiciary propose to disfranchise and drive from the polls almost the entire population of Utah, but it proposes in the very teeth of the Constitution of the United States to disfranchise them from the right to hold office.

Mr. Edmunds. Will the senator from Georgia mind if in connection with that remark of his I should read the legal definition of a bigamist and polygamist as distinguished from his Webster definition.

Mr. Brown. Go on, sir.

Mr. Edmunds. Turning from the land of literature to the region of law, with which statutes are supposed to have something to do. I will read out of the first book I sent for at random-Burrill's Law Dictionary, supposed to be pretty correct, this clause:

"Bigamus. In old English law. One who has been twice married, or has married more than one wife; a bigamist. Applied originally in the canon law, to clerks or ecclesiastical persons, who were forbidden to marry a second time. * Bigamus is he that either hath married two or more wives, or that hath married a widow."

Under the old law a man who married a widow was a bigamist, I do not think under the modern law this statute would prevent a inan marrying a widow. Now I come to what is more to the point I am speaking to:

"A polygamist is he who has had two or more wives at the same time.— 3 Inst., 88. "

So that I beg to assure my distinguished friend from Georgia that the Judiciary Committee thought-very likely it was mistaken after what he and Webster have said that the legal definition of "bigamist" and "polygamist" was perfectly understood everywhere, not a matter of opinion, but a matter of fact. I thank my friend for allowing me to state this.

Mr. Brown. I much prefer that my friend from Vermont should state all his points as we go along.

Mr. Edmunds. I would not do it to interrupt the senator's remarks. Mr. Brown. The senator from Vermont has produced a book which defines a bigamist to be a man who has married a widow, and a polygamist a man who has had two or more wives at the same time. He himself repudiates the first definition; and the last does not embrace a man who now has two wives. I am certainly content if the senator is. And I am willing to

put Webster against Burrill as an authority on the definition of words, or the meaning of the English language.

No matter what Burrill may say, it will be very convenient for this Republican returning board, when they go to Utah, to take Webster in their hands and drive from the polls every voter who proposes to cast a ballot, if he is a member of the Mormon Church, on the ground that he is a polygamist. I would not like to leave it in the hands of such a board, with such an authority as Webster to sustain them. to determine whether a Democrat who believes in the lawfulness of polygamy, though he does not practice it, should he entitled to vote. It would be like leaving the lamb in the inclosure with the wolf. There would be no prospect of his vote being

received.

But at the time I was interrupted by the honorable senator from Vermont I had stated that I would proceed to show that this bill if passed disfranchises Mormons from holding office on account of their religious opinions, in the teeth of the Constitution of the United States. I read from article 6, section 3, of the Constitution of the United States:

"But no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."

It has been argued here that the Congress of the United States has absolute power over the Territories and over the District of Columbia; that we can give to the Territories and the District such government as we think proper. It is outside of my purpose to controvert that it is not necessary that I should. But nothing can give to Congress the right, in the teeth of the Constitution, to prescribe a religious test for a person living in the District or in the Territories that excludes him from holding office. I maintain that that is just what is done in this case. I know it is said sometimes that the action of the Mormons in practicing polygamy is an immorality, that there is no religion in it, and that we do not interfere with the constitutional rights of a Mormon when we prescribe the test that he shall not hold office if he believes in the lawfulness of polygamy. What is a religious test? To ascertain that it is necessary to inquire what is religion? Webster defines it thus:

"1. The recognition of God as an object of worship, love, and obedience; right feelings toward God as rightly apprehended; piety.

2. Any system of faith and worship; as, the religion of the Turks, of Hindoos, of Christians; true and false religion."

That is the definition of Webster, and I still think he is pretty good authority. I repeat it :

"Any system of faith and worship; as, the religion of the Turks, of Hindoos, of Christians; true and false religion."

That is Webster's definition of religion. Then, a religious test would be a test pertaining to religion as defined, or a law prescribing that a person should not hold office because he professed or practiced a particular religion, no matter whether we believe it to be a true or a false religion. According to Webster, it would be a violation of the Constitution if you say that a man shall not hold office because he believes and practices the Turkish religion, or the Hindoo religion, (for he mentions both,) or the Christian religion.

Mr. Edmunds. Would the senator really object to a law, supposing it were not unconstitutional, (which is another question,) which said that no man should be entitled to participate in the government of the State of Georgia that was in the practice of having all his father's wives, one or more, burned, Hindoo fashion, when his father died? There is some difference between facts and faith in the minds of most people, I submit to my friend, and it comes down (to state the point) to this essential distinction, that all

political society has recognized between regulating political rights-and I may say, for that matter, civil rights in a large degree, but I need not go into that now-depending upon certain conditions of fact, as the supreme court of the United States decided in the Reynolds case on this pretense of its being a religious faith to have four or five wives, and therefore you could not interfere with it. It comes down to a fact. There are many men in the State of Vermont who believe that they have an inherent right to sell liquor although it is prohibited, that it is a natural right that belongs to every man. The State says: "If you do that thing, you cannot do certain other things." Is it possible that my friend from Georgia really means to maintain the proposition that in a Republican country, a government of the people, it does not belong to a majority of the people to say that certain acts, certain conditions of bodily existence, shall not be made the test of participating in the government of that State? This is the point. You may call it religion or what you will.

Mr. Brown. The senator might have saved himself a discourse of some length, which must be printed in my speech, if he had noticed a little more carefully what I was saying, or if he had waited till I was through on that point. I do not deny the right of a State to punish any sort of immorality. Mr. Edmunds. I am not speaking of punishment; I am talking about po- · litical rights.

Mr. Brown. I will answer the question if you will keep quiet only a short time.

Mr. Edmunds. I will keep quiet entirely.

Mr. Brown. I do not ask that; but when I am replying to the senator's long questions I pre'er to be heard myself. I do not deny the power of the state to inflict punishment for immorality. I am willing to vote for a law to punish persons, not for what they have done in the past when there was no law prohibiting such acts, but what they may do in the future that is criminal, in the Territory of Utah or any other Territory. I believe that bigamy or the double wife system, if I may so term it, is immoral; and I am therefore willing to inflict penalties, or to vote for a law that does inflict them upon those who are legally convicted of that offense, committed after the passage of a law prohibiting it. But I am not willing to put it in the hands of returning boards, to drive from the polls in Utah every man who believes that he or any other man has a right to practice polygamy, if he does not practice it. I would only consent to punish him for his criminal conduct, not for his belief or his faith or his religious opinions.

Again, as to the instance put by the senator from Vermont in my State, if it were possible for there to be such an instance there; if any man there believed it was right to burn his father's wives-we do not allow them to have but one wife there-upon the funeral pile I would inflict penalties upon him for practicing it; but if he really believes it is right I have no right to exclude him from holding office because he says he believes it.

Mr. Edmunds. o say I; so say we all.

Mr. Brown. Then it turns out that there would have been but little reason for the interruption by the senator, had he heard me through. Mr. Edmunds. I think it turns out that there was.

Mr. Brown. That is a difference of opinion.

Mr. Edmunds. That is liberal.

Mr. Brown. Then I hope you are content. I say you have a right to punish a Mormon for adultery or fornication or bigamy. I make no issue with you there. But you have no right to punish him for it until you have legally convicted him of the crime; the court having a right to inflict the penalty by the proper officers, and I shall always approve it when so done; but I am