"(2) That our views of the marriage relation are an essential portion of our religious faith.
"(3) That, in conceding the cognizance of the marriage relation as within the province of church regulations, we are practically in accord with all other Christian denominations.
"(4) That in our view of the marriage relation as a part of our religious belief we are entitled to immunity from persecution under the constitution, if such views are sincerely held; that, if such views are erroneous, their eradication must be by argument and not by force."
The bill, greatly amended, passed the House on March 23, 1870, by a vote of 94 to 32. The news of this action caused perhaps the greatest excitement ever known in Utah. There was no intention on the part of the Mormons to make any compromise on the question, and they set out to defeat the bill outright in the Senate. Meetings of Mormon women were gotten up in all parts of the territory, in which they asserted their devotion to the doctrine. The "Reformers," including Stenhouse, Harrison, Tullidge, and others, and merchants like Walker Brothers, Colonel Kahn, and T. Marshall, joined in a call for a mass-meeting at which all expressed disapproval of some of its provisions, like the one requiring men already having polygamous wives to break up their families. Mr. Godbe went to Washington while the bill was before the House, and worked hard for its modification. The bill did not pass the Senate, a leading argument against it being the assumed impossibility of convicting polygamists under it with any juries drawn in Utah.
The arrest of Brigham Young and others under the act to punish adulterers, and the proceedings against them before Judge McKean in 1871, have been noted. At the same term of the court Thomas Hawkins, an English immigrant, was convicted of the same charge on the evidence of his wife, and sentenced to imprisonment for three years and to pay a fine of $500. In passing sentence, Judge McKean told the prisoner that, if he let him off with a fine, the fine would be paid out of other funds than his own; that he would thus go free, and that "those men who mislead the people would make you and thousands of others believe that God had sent the money to pay the fine; that, by a miracle, you had been rescued from the authorities of the United States."
After the passage of the Poland law, in 1874, George Reynolds, Brigham Young's private secretary, was convicted of bigamy under the law of 1862, but was set free by the Supreme Court of the territory on the ground of illegality in the drawing of the grand jury. In the following year he was again convicted, and was sentenced to imprisonment for two years and to pay a fine of $500. The case was appealed to the United States Supreme Court, which rendered its decision in October, 1878, unanimously sustaining the conviction, except that Justice Field objected to the admission of one witness's testimony.
In its decision the court stated the question raised to be "whether religious belief can be accepted as a justification for an overt act made criminal by the law of the land." Next came a discussion of views of religious freedom, as bearing on the meaning of "religion" in the federal constitution, leading up to the conclusion that "Congress was deprived of all legislative power over mere opinion, but was left free to reach actions which were in violation of social duties, or subversive of good order." The court then traced the view of polygamy in England and the United States from the time when it was made a capital offence in England (as it was in Virginia in 1788), declaring that, "in the face of all this evidence, it is impossible to believe that the constitutional guaranty of religious freedom was intended to prohibit legislation in respect to this most important feature of social life." The opinion continued as follows:—"In our opinion, the statute immediately under consideration is within the legislative power of Congress. It is constitutional and valid as prescribing a rule of action for all those residing in the Territories, and in places over which the United States has exclusive control. This being so, the only question which remains is, whether those who make polygamy a part of their religion are excepted from the operation of the statute. If they are, then those who do not make polygamy a part of their religious belief may be found guilty and punished, while those who do, must be acquitted and go free. This would be introducing a new element into criminal law. Laws are made for the government of actions, and, while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with practices. Suppose one believed that human sacrifices were a necessary part of religious worship, would it be seriously contended that the civil government under which he lived could not interfere to prevent a sacrifice? Or, if a wife religiously believed it was her duty to burn herself on the funeral pile of her dead husband, would it be beyond the power of the civil government to prevent her carrying her belief into practice?
"So here, as a law of the organization of society under the exclusive dominion of the United States, it is provided that plural marriages shall not be allowed. Can a man excuse his practices to the contrary because of his religious belief? To permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself. Government could exist only in name under such circumstances.
"A criminal intent is generally an element of crime, but every man is presumed to intend the necessary and legitimate consequences of what he knowingly does. Here the accused knew he had been once married, and that his first wife was living. He also knew that his second marriage was forbidden by law. When, therefore, he married the second time, he is presumed to have intended to break the law, and the breaking of the law is the crime. Every act necessary to constitute the crime was knowingly done, and the crime was therefore knowingly committed.*
* United States Reports, Otto, Vol. III, p. 162.