Governor Murray to Governor Bate
Governor Eli H. Murray, of Utah, was so filled with animus against the Latter-day Saints that it was impossible for him to communicate with Governor W. B. Bate, of Tennessee, regarding the massacre, without abuse of the Latter-day Saints. Governor Bate offered a reward for the detection and arrest of the murderers. Evidently fearing that they might be caught and punished, Governor Murray, without any reason or excuse, sent a dispatch to the governor of Tennessee in which he said: “Lawlessness in Tennessee and Utah are alike reprehensible, but the murdered Mormon agents in Tennessee were sent from here as they have been for years by the representatives of organized crime, and I submit that as long as Tennessee representatives in Congress are, to say the least, indifferent to the punishment of offenders against the national law in Utah, such cowardly outrages by their constituents as the killing of emigration agents sent there from here will continue.”
The Trial of Rudger Clawson
Charles S. Zane became chief justice of Utah in 1884. He came to the territory, August 23, of that year. He was a man whose moral life was above reproach, but he was possessed of an intolerant spirit, and was determined to conduct a strict enforcement of the Edmunds Law. The first case to be tried under that law came before his court October 15, 1884. It was the case of Rudger Clawson, who was found guilty, and when asked by the court if he had any legal cause to show why judgment should not be pronounced he replied:
“Your honor, I very much regret that the laws of my country should come in conflict with the laws of God; but whenever they do, I shall invariably choose the latter. If I did not so express myself, I should feel unworthy of the cause I represent. The constitution of the United States expressly says that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. (It cannot be denied I think, that marriage, when attended and sanctioned by religious rites and ceremonies, is an establishment of religion.) The law of 1862 and the Edmunds Law were expressly designed to operate against marriage as practiced and believed in by the Latter-day Saints. They are therefore unconstitutional, and of course cannot command the respect that a constitutional law would. That is all I have to say, your honor.”
The speech was characteristic of the man. It was bold, sincere, but not defiant. It struck the judge with amazement and he determined on a heavy penalty. It was the third day of November when Elder Clawson was before the court. He was sentenced to pay a fine of eight hundred dollars and imprisonment for four years. Elder Clawson remained in prison until December 12, 1887—three years, one month and ten days —when he received a pardon from President Grover Cleveland.
The Segregation Ruling
Following this trial there was inaugurated a cruel and determined persecution. Women were sent to prison for contempt because they would not testify against their husbands. The courts ruled that indictments might be found against a man guilty of cohabitation “for every day.” To be seen at the home of a plural wife, or to support his plural family, was sufficient to create an offense against a man. Each “distinct and separate violation of the law,” as interpreted by the judges, was a separate offense and was liable for punishment.
This order of segregation, as it was called, drove many of the leading brethren into exile, for it was virtually an announcement that the violation of the Edmunds Law could be punished by life imprisonment. Later, however, while the supreme court of the United States upheld the Edmunds Law, it condemned the action of the judges in Utah in establishing the “segregation” policy. This came in the habeas corpus case of Elder Lorenzo Snow in February, 1887. While, however, this ruling was being enforced, the First Presidency were in retirement and communicated with the Saints from time to time in general epistles.