A Foreign Kingdom: Mormons and Polygamy in American Political Culture, 1852-1890

273 Pages·2013·4.085 MB·English

by  Christine Talbot

A For ei g n K i n g d o m
Mormons and Polygamy in American Political Culture
1852 – 18 9 0
Christ ine Talbot
A Foreign
Kingdom
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A Foreign
Kingdom
Mormons and Polygamy
in American Political Culture,
1852–1890
Christine tAlbot
University oF illinois Press
Urbana, Chicago, and springfield
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© 2013 by the Board of Trustees
of the University of Illinois
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
1 2 3 4 5 c p 5 4 3 2 1
∞ This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Talbot, Christine, author.
A foreign kingdom : Mormons and polygamy in
American political culture, 1852–1890 / Christine Talbot.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-252-03808-2 (hardcover : alk. paper) —
ISBN 978-0-252-07957-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) —
ISBN 978-0-252-09535-1 (e-book)
1. Polygamy — Religious aspects — Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints – History — 19th century.
2. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints –
History — 19th century. 3. Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints — Controversial literature — History
and criticism. 4. Mormon Church – History — 19th
century. I. Title.
BX8643.P63T35 2013
289.3'7309034—dc23 2013015222
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Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
1. “That These Things Might Come Forth”:
Early Mormonism and the American Republic 19
2. “We Shall Then Live Together as One
Great Family”: Mormonism and the
Public/Private Divide 34
3. “More the Companion and Much Less the
Subordinate”: Polygamy and Mormon
Woman’s Citizenship 63
4. “The Utter Destruction of the Home Circle”:
Polygamy and the Perversion of the
Private Sphere 83
5. “They Can Not Exist in Contact with Republican
Institutions”: Consent, Contract, and Citizenship
under “Polygamic Theocracy” 105
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6. “The Foulest Ulcer on the Body of Our
Nation”: Race, Class, and Contagion
in Anti-Mormon Literature 129
7. “Suffer a Surrender . . . ? No, Never!”:
The End of Plural Marriage 147
Conclusion 161
Notes 169
Bibliography 215
Index 255
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Acknowledgments
Many people have helped this manuscript come to fruition, and I owe all of
them gratitude. First, I thank the professors at the University of Michigan who
nurtured this project through its beginning stages. María E. Montoya’s faith
in me and the project, her outstanding feedback, her straightforward advice,
and her general goodwill have made this project much better than it otherwise
would have been. Richard Cándida Smith ameliorated my journey through the
beginnings of this project with astute guidance, superb criticism, encyclopedic
knowledge, and a gentle sensibility. June M. Howard honed my theoretical and
literary voices with encouragement, sharp advice, and good humor. Martha S.
Jones offered the right thoughts at the right times, precisely the critiques that
made me rethink everything.
Archivists, too, have proven priceless resources. Walter Jones and Peter Kraus
at the University of Utah provided answers to endless questions and generosity
in finding and lending materials. Stan Larson and Greg Thompson also offered
valuable support in navigating University of Utah holdings. David Whittaker
and Russ Taylor at Brigham Young University Special Collections were tire-
less in answering my many questions. However, I owe Larry Draper at BYU
my special gratitude for acting well beyond his call every time I needed his as-
sistance. His encyclopedic knowledge of the L. Tom Perry Special Collections
and of Mormon and anti-Mormon sources more generally has been invaluable.
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Acknowledgments
Archivists and volunteers at the LDS Church History Library were also helpful
in finding rare materials.
I have been fortunate to receive generous grants for portions of this research
from the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies and the Joseph Fielding
Smith Institute of LDS History, both at Brigham Young University; the Friends
of the Marriott Library at the University of Utah; and Rackham Graduate
School at the University of Michigan. Chapter 2 appeared in slightly different
form in the Journal of Mormon History, volume 37, number 4, Fall 2011, under
the title “The Church Family and the American State: Mormonism and the
Public Private Divide.” It is published here with their permission. Portions of
chapter 6 appeared in different form in the Journal of Law and Family Studies,
volume 8, number 2, Summer 2006, under the title, “‘Turkey is In Our Midst’:
Orientalism and Contagion in Nineteenth-Century Anti-Mormonism,” and
are reprinted here with their permission.
Numerous people have been generous with their time and thoughts in com-
menting on pieces of this work. Elizabeth Clement, Martha Ertmann, Marga-
ret Toscano, and Dawn Anderson have been particularly kind in this regard.
My thanks as well to Irwin Altman, John Carson, Brian Cannon, Kathryn M.
Daynes, Jill Mulvay Derr, Laura DuPaix, Amy Farrell, Paul Finkelman, Sarah
Barringer Gordon, Aaron Haberman, Hendrik Hartog, Erin Jordan, Laura Kes-
sler, Ann Little, Michelle Low, Lorie Sauble-Otto, Donald Strassberg, Nicholas
Syrett, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Diane Vecchio, John F. Wilson, Dan Wother-
spoon, and the anonymous reviewers for the University of Illinois Press for their
helpful and astute feedback. I also thank my family and friends who have read
and commented on drafts and helped with editing, proofreading, compiling,
fact checking, and the rest of the endless work of completing a manuscript. I
am indebted as well to my many professors, mentors, colleagues, and friends
at the University of Utah, the University of Michigan, Dickinson College, the
University of Northern Colorado, and elsewhere who have offered friendship,
advice, and sometimes commiseration.
I owe significant gratitude to my father, who endured constant interrup-
tions that I might exploit his extensive lay knowledge of LDS Church history
and doctrine. He has tolerated my invasions not only into his time, but into
his rather large personal library of Mormon studies monographs. One per-
son, however, has spent more time with this manuscript than anyone besides
me—my mother. Her steadiness, ear, and editorial ruthlessness have made this
project better than I could by myself. In these respects, my parents have indeed
brought forth the best robe, put shoes on my feet, and killed the fatted calf in
celebration of me, their prodigal daughter.
viii
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introduction
In the 1830s, a young American named Joseph Smith founded a new religion
that would come to be called The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,
commonly known as the Mormons. As the Church developed, the practice of
plural marriage became central to Mormon theology. Mormons practiced “the
principle” in secret from the 1830s until 1852, when its public announcement
launched Mormonism onto the national stage. This book explores the national
controversy following that announcement. It maps two parallel and opposed
ideological paradigms—Mormon and anti-Mormon—during Mormonism’s
most controversial period, from 1852 to 1890, when Mormon Church leader-
ship publicly endorsed plural marriage.1
Polygamy generated decades of cultural conflict that contemporaries re-
ferred to, broadly, as “the Mormon question.” The conflict was more than a
simple condemnation of sexual and marital practices unacceptable to Victorian
norms. Rather, it was a contest over the very meaning of Americanness. Ad-
vocates on both sides formulated what it meant to be American, each in very
different ways. The Mormon question generated national discussions about
gender, family, and the nature of citizenship that would define the parameters
of membership in the late-nineteenth-century American body politic.
Essential to understanding the Mormon question are the conceptual cat-
egories of public and private. Over the nineteenth century, white middle-class
northern Protestants regarded the separation of public and private spheres as
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