This post is an excuse to publish a cartoon from the original Keepapitchinin publication of 1870. This post is not about polygamy, and is not an invitation to debate the origins, blessings, or crimes of historical plural marriage, or present-day fundamentalism, or whether the Church practices polygamy when a widower sealed to a deceased wife marries a second time, nor to speculate about polygamy in the afterlife. This is about a cartoon and its background. Thanks.

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Beginning with the 1862 Poland Act, and continuing through the Edmunds-Tucker Act of 1887, the United States Senate passed a number of legislative acts designed to end the practice of polygamy in Utah. The names of at least some of these laws are probably familiar to you whether or not you know the ins and outs of their regulations. Probably less familiar are the numerous bills that were proposed but never enacted as law. One of the proposed-but-never-passed bills was introduced by Senator Aaron Harrison Cragin (1821-1898) of New Hampshire, first in 1867 and again in December 1869.

The long Cragin Bill – 41 sections – was especially punitive, proposing the abolition of significant elements of the Bill of Rights. It abolished the right to trial by jury in cases involving polygamy. It interfered with the freedom of religion to such an extent that merely attending a sealing ceremony – even when it did not involve a plural marriage – was criminalized. The right of Latter-day Saint clergymen to solemnize marriages – even non-polygamous ones – was abolished. With the exception of constables, who could still be appointed by Territorial law, all other civil officers, from governor to dogcatcher (well, okay, they didn’t have dogcatchers) were to be appointed by federal authority, without the input of local residents – except that residents of the Territory of Utah were to continue to pay the salaries and expenses of offices formerly selected by those residents. The United States Marshal could seize any public building within Utah, and furnish it as a court, and charge the citizens of Utah to pay the expense. All Church property beyond the paltry sum of $20,000 was made taxable – schools, Relief Society halls, granaries and every tiny meeting house in every community would become a financial liability, a source of revenue to enforce actions against plural marriage. The Governor of Utah was, in effect, installed as the Chief Financial Officer of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, with the president of the Church required to report annually to the Governor, in minute detail, the financial affairs of the Church.

An editorial in the Deseret News reported the bill:

No American citizen who is a Mormon has any rights – he is not a free man but a slave, to be tried, convicted, fined, imprisoned, at the will of his masters – to be made to pay taxes, but to have those funds spent by his masters in persecuting and torturing him, and enriching them for the service – to wear the form of man, but to have none of the privileges of manhood – to have no right to believe the Bible, practice its precepts, follow its examples, or to worship its. God.

In short, the Cragin bill was a serious threat to the Latter-day Saints, or so many of them as lived in Utah. They condemned it in serious tones and words.

And they condemned it with satire. One pundit suggested incorporating these regulations in its provisions:

And be it further enacted that the book called the Holy Bible, or so much thereof as pertains to plural marriage or provides for the legal inheritance of property by the children of such plural marriage, is hereby annulled, disapproved and repealed, and declared null and void.

And be it further enacted, that every person before holding any office, voting at any election, sitting as a juror or holding any position of honor, profit or trust under the government of the United States, shall take and subscribe a solemn oath, under the pains and penalties of perjury, that he does disbelieve and always will disbelieve the Holy Bible, so far as it pertains in any way to plural marriage, and that he detests Moses, Jacob, Abraham, the father of the faithful, Gideon and all the prophets who taught and practiced plurality of wives, together with the Savior, St. Paul and the other apostles who set forth these men a examples of faith, purity and virtue.

And be it further enacted, that the names of the twelve tribes of israel, being children of polygamists, be expunged from the gates of the city of the New Jerusalem.

On 18 May 1870, Senator Cragin gave a speech in support of his bill. It’s a vile thing, one that draws heavily on anti-Mormon stereotypes of the era, and quotes voluminously from the 1857 book of John Hyde, Jr. (presenting him as an intimate friend and counselor to Brigham Young – Hyde had perhaps met Young, but he was in no way Young’s associate or adviser during Hyde’s brief stay in Utah). He purports to know all sorts of private details of life within the home of Brigham Young:

Brigham Young in his harem is an interesting character. As before stated he has about forty wives. He has his “discarded wives,” those who have ceased to bear children. These live in his house and eat at his table, but all attentions from him as a husband have ceased. He has many “spiritual wives,” (temporarily married to other husbands,) and widows of dead brothers, including four of Smith’s widows; and many women to whom he has been “sealed” as proxy for some dead brother. Out of all this number he lives with about twenty-five. Most of them live in the “Lion House” or “Harem,” so called. Many others live in the “Bee-hive House,” so called from the fact that a bee-hive surmounts the top. His senior wife and her family formerly lived in this house; but since the bees have swarmed so many times, and he has taken so many younger wives, she was removed to the barn-like house, or penitentiary, on the hill. It is said he scarcely ever pays her a visit, though she is an excellent woman. She has five children, and is much attached to them. No one can tell what this poor woman has suffered from the conduct of her wicked and infidel husband. Her heart is crushed, and she is subject to fits of insanity.

These houses and some others for business purposes, constitute what is called “Brigham’s Block.” They are in an inclosure of about twenty acres, which is surrounded by a high wall. The “Lion House” is three stories high, and contains nearly all the wives who have been “favorites” of the prophet. Under this house are apartments where it is said Brigham secretes [sic] his wealth and punishes his refractory wives. It is also believed that there are underground passages from Brigham’s houses to Kimball’s on the north and Wells’s on the south

It would be interesting to describe the various “women” in these houses, their rooms, ind of work, &c., but I cannot go into such details. Emeline Free Young, the great “favorite” of the prophet, resided in the “Lion House for many years. She had great influence over him, and he showed her more than usual attention. She led him into the un-Mormon-like folly of curling his hair, and he was often seen with it in papers. She had the best room assigned to her, and Brigham constructed a private passage to it, so that he might not be seen by the other “women” in making his frequent visits. But alas! “The course of true love never did run smooth;” and the beautiful Emeline was doomed to become a rejected mistress, and is now dragging out her days as a faded and cast-off woman, after bringing her pretended husband eight children.

When the immaculate Prophet, at the age of sixty-four, fell violently in love with the young and beautiful Amelia, Emeline was taken very sick, and her life for a long time was despaired of. From her “sisters,” who had long been jealous of her, she received no sympathy. They were glad to see her fall, for they had tasted the same bitter cup. She was removed from her beautiful room, and has taken up her abode in some lonely place.

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Polygamy is not the only revolting feature of Mormonism. The whole system is a compound of monstrosities and frauds. It enjoins falsehood, theft, and murder as sacred religious duties, as well as the systematic degradation of woman in the name of Almighty God. It teaches the shedding of blood for the remission of sins, or, in other words, if a Mormon apostatizes his life is to be taken.

And on and on. The only detail that relieves the monotony of these endlessly repeated scurrilities is that this speech was given on the floor of the United States Senate, a place which theoretically had the power to back such hate with the military and judicial forces to crush the citizens of a territory under that Senate’s jurisdiction.

The old Keepapitchinin resorted to mockery of the speech, the speaker, and the men who listened. From the 1 July 1870 issue of Keepapitchinin we pull this cartoon. (I’ve retyped the caption below the image, since the printing quality of the old publication was not of the best.) It purports to show Cragin speaking, and how the few Senators in attendance listened to him.

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READING OF CRAGIN’S SPEECH BEFORE THE SENATE.—Midnight Session.

Fearing that the Speech on Utah Affairs Might Prove Dry, the 1/2 Dozen Members Who Presented Themselves Came Well Prepared to Liquidate.

Synopsis of Speech:

Mr. President:—I rise before you on one of the most momentous occasions which has ever interviewed a gu-r-r-eat and fr-r-r-ree people. The mind of man faints, staggers and falls back (to take a drink) when it attempts to grasp the horrible situation of affairs in Utah. The people there, in spite of Congress, Law, Gospel and the list in J. Silver’s window, being instigated by the Devil and not having the fear of my Bill before their eyes, still persist in marrying their grandmothers! (A shudder runs through the large assembly of six.) My policy is to send, forthwith, some competent General with 40,000 troops and full authority to tear every man in Utah from his grandmother’s bosom, throughout the length and breadth of the land, and, sir, if it is necessary that blood should flow, I would let it flow freely and copiously—the rivers should flow blood and the inhabitants should drink it until every vestige of this unnatural affection for grand parents should be entirely eradicated from the face of this broad continent; and I would shoot hot shot and shell, and the sword should devour until the land should be utterly wasted, and blasted, and destroyed, and ruined and used up and —and—” (here he sank back into his seat in a state of exhaustion and feebly requested that 5,000 copies be printed and sent to his constituents in New Hampshire.)