Shortly after Governor West went to Utah on his appointment by the President, he visited the penitentiary of the Territory, and in an address to the Mormon inmates promised them pardon if they would hereafter obey the law; but after reflection, the following written reply was sent to him signed by forty-eight Mormon prisoners:
“Utah Penitentiary, May 24, 1886.
“To his Excellency Caleb W. West, Governor of Utah:
“Sir: On the 13th instant you honored the inmates of the Penitentiary with a visit and offered to intercede for the pardon of all those enduring imprisonment on conviction under the Edmunds law, if they would but promise obedience to it in the future, as interpreted by the courts. Gratitude for the interest manifested in our behalf claims from us a reply. We trust, however, that this will not be construed into defiance, as our silence already has been. We have no desire to occupy a defiant attitude toward the Government, or to be in conflict with the nation’s laws. We have never been even accused of violating any other law than the one under which we were convicted, and that was enacted purposely to oppose a tenet of our religion.
“We conscientiously believe in the doctrine of plural marriage, and have practised it from a firm conviction of its being a divine requirement.
“Of the forty-nine elders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints now imprisoned in the penitentiary for alleged violation of the Edmunds law, all but four had plural wives from its passage to thirty-five years prior to its passage. We were united to our wives for time and eternity by the most sacred covenants, and in many instances numerous children have been born as a result of our union, who are endeared to us by the strongest paternal ties.
“What the promise asked of us implied you declined to explain, just as the courts have done when appeals have been made to them for an explicit and permanent definition of what must be done to comply with the law.
“The rulings of the courts under this law have been too varied and conflicting heretofore for us to know what may be the future interpretations.
“The simple status of plural marriage is now made, under the law, material evidence in securing conviction for unlawful cohabitation, thus, independent of our act, ruthlessly trespassing upon the sacred domain of our religious belief.
“So far as compliance with your proposition requires the sacrifice of honor and manhood, the repudiation of our wives and children, the violation of sacred covenants, Heaven forbid that we should be guilty of such perfidy; perpetual imprisonment, with which we are threatened, or even death itself, would be preferable.