Excerpt from The Mormon Problem, the Nation's Dilemma: A New Data, New Method, Involving Leading Questions of the Day The Mormon problem is related to some of the deeper prob lems of civilization, as well as to questions of the greatest practi cal moment; while it also offers some of the finest, truest lessons, in. The ethics of reform. But we have lived virtually under a reign of terror as regards this question. There are few persons who cannot tell how the Mormons should be dealt with, but not one in ten thousand has taken any pains to get at the truth; while the silence of a large class accustomed to think for them selves is one of the strangest features of the controversy. Noth ing will prove truer than that Mormonism is providential in being the means of emphazing reforms which the conceit or lethargy of an age is wont to leave to chance or fate. It is time this anti-mormon crusade were at an end, and a reform inauger ated whose life is the music of principle. The course hitherto pursued toward Utah, even though it were to end in the sup pression of polygamy, must partake more of the nature of defeat than of victory. The future must reveal the lack of principle or wisdom in that legislation which betrays no consciousness of the fact, that the difficulties of this Mormon problem are closely allied to questions with which we are confronted outside of Utah. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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From the Mormon Church's public announcement of its sanction of polygamy in 1852 until its formal decision to abandon the practice in 1890, people on both sides of the "Mormon question" debated central questions of constitutional law. Did principles of religious freedom and local self-government protect Mormons' claim to a distinct, religiously based legal order? Or was polygamy, as its opponents claimed, a new form of slavery--this time for white women in Utah? And did constitutional principles dictate that democracy and true liberty were founded on separation of church and state? As Sarah Barringer Gordon shows, the answers to these questions finally yielded an apparent victory for antipolygamists in the late nineteenth century, but only after decades of argument, litigation, and open conflict. Victory came at a price; as attention and national resources poured into Utah in the late 1870s and 1880s, antipolygamists turned more and more to coercion and punishment in the name of freedom. They also left a legacy in constitutional law and political theory that still governs our treatment of religious life: Americans are free to believe, but they may well not be free to act on their beliefs.

First Published in 2001. This anthology of western history articles emphasizes the New Western History that emerged in the 1980s and adds to it a heavy dose of legal history, a field frequently ignored or misunderstood by the New Western historians. From first contact, American Indians knew that Europeans did not understand the gendered nature of America. Confusion regarding the role of women within tribes and bands continued from first contact well into the late nineteenth century. The journal articles that follow give readers a true sense of the gendered West. Racial and ethnic heritage played a role in female experience whether Hispanic, Japanese or Irish. Women's work was part western history, but women did not confine themselves to plow handles or brothels. Women were very much a part of most occupations or in the process of breaking down barriers of access. They worked in the fields for wages as well as for family welfare and prosperity. Women demanded access to the professions whether teaching or law, accounting or medicine. The process of eliminating barriers varied in time and space, but the struggle was constant. Yet the story of women in polygamous Utah or Idaho was different and an integral part of the fabric of western history. Because of their beliefs and practices these women suffered at the hands of the federal government and persevered.