Scott Woodward:  
 Hi, this is Scott from Church History Matters. As we near the end of this series, we want to hear your questions about the practice of plural marriage in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Next week, on our final episode of this series, we will be honored to have with us a special guest to help us respond to your questions, Dr. Brian Hales, an author and scholar on all things related to polygamy in the church. He is endlessly insightful on this topic, so please do yourself and other listeners a favor by submitting your thoughtful questions. You can submit them any anytime up to June 22, 2023 to podcasts@scripturecentral.org. Let us know your name, where you’re from, and try to keep each question as concise as possible when you email them in. That helps out a lot. OK, now on to the episode. In 1852, only eight years after Joseph Smith’s death, church leaders in Utah publicly announced to the astonished world what some had suspected: that Latter-day Saints did indeed practice the principle of plural marriage. But now that it was out there in the open, it could be openly challenged and attacked, and it was, relentlessly, for decades. In today’s episode of Church History Matters, we’ll walk through the history of how plural marriage came to a rocky end under the draconian legislation and crushing pressure of the United States government. We’ll dive into the George Reynolds trial, President Wilfred Woodruff’s Manifesto, the Reed Smoot Trials and Second Manifesto, the resignation of two members of the Quorum of the Twelve over this, the beginning of the FLDS church, and more. I’m Scott Woodward, and my co-host is Casey Griffiths, and today we dive into our fifth episode in this series dealing with plural marriage. Now, let’s get into it. Hello, Casey. How we doing?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Good. How are you doing, Scott?

Scott Woodward:  
Good.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Good to see you. We’re hoping we’re going to wrap up our discussion on plural marriage by talking about after Joseph Smith’s death. So Scott, why don’t you give us a recap of what we talked about last time, and then we’ll dive into today’s topic?

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah, so last time we talked about the struggles with plural marriage that Emma Smith had, very real struggles, but that she and Joseph eventually came to a workable resolution with that principle, it appears.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:  
The last eight months of his life, and there was no further plural marriages entered into, and for all intents and purposes, the way that Brian Hales tells the story is they seem to live a fairly monogamous marriage that last portion of Joseph’s life. But his life was brought to an abrupt end because of plural marriage. That’s not the only reason that factored into his death, but it was a primary reason. It led to some apostates turning against Joseph, chief of which was William Law, and that’s going to lead to a conspiracy against his life. And we talked a little bit about what happened there, and we intend to talk a great deal more about the martyrdom in future episodes. But—

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:  
—Joseph himself said of the principle of plural marriage, according to Brigham Young’s recollection, “I shall die for it.” And so this is a principle Joseph would pay for with his life, and it did what D&C 132 said it would do, and that was to try the faith of the saints like Abraham.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:  
So that’s something that doesn’t end, right? We want to talk about the next phase today. What happens next? We know that in Nauvoo Joseph marries 30-something wives, and the practice is going to spread slowly at first. And by the time Joseph dies, we’re going to have about 29 other men and about 50 women who have entered into plural marriage, in addition to Joseph and his wives. And then when the Saints enter Salt Lake Valley, we want to talk about that today and what kind of happens between Joseph Smith and the end of plural marriage.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
That’s where we’re going to try and go, and we’re covering a lot of ground today, more than we have in the other podcasts. But—

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
—we felt like the big points to hit are the beginnings of plural marriage and then the end of plural marriage in the church.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Just like you said, plural marriage is not a public practice in Nauvoo, for obvious reasons. It’s a factor in Joseph Smith’s death. And the people that are practicing plural marriage when Joseph Smith is killed are worried that the same thing could happen to them.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And so the practice remains private until 1852, when they announce it publicly and this—

Scott Woodward:  
Who announces it?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. And that’s something we could talk about, too, is Orson Pratt is the one that announces it. He gets up in a meeting held in the Salt Lake Tabernacle, August 1852. He says “It is quite unexpected to be—brothers and sisters—to be called upon to address you this afternoon and still more so to address you upon the principle which has been named, namely a plurality of wives.”

Scott Woodward:  
Ooh. I think that talk got everybody’s attention.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Well, that—to be a fly on the wall, right?

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah. I think everybody was listening to that talk.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. You’re looking at the woodwork, and all of a sudden “the plurality of wives” is said over the pulpit.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah. Wow.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
He says “the congregation is aware that the Latter-day Saints have embraced the doctrine of plurality of wives, but it is new ground to the inhabitants of the United States,” and that’s a big understatement.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
To start with.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It’s interesting that they choose Orson Pratt. Orson Pratt is assigned, it appears, by Brigham Young, to introduce the principle. And that’s interesting, given his history with plural marriage in Nauvoo a little bit earlier.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah. So tell us about Orson Pratt and Nauvoo.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Orson had some serious issues with plural marriage in Nauvoo. First of all, his wife, Sarah Pratt, was one of the women that was involved with John C. Bennett, and this is devastating to Orson to find out. He’s on a mission in England while a lot of this is happening, and then he comes home and finds out about what’s happened between his wife, Sarah, and John C. Bennett. And then, on top of that, Joseph Smith takes him aside and basically says, “Look, this doctrine of plurality of wives doesn’t have anything to do with John C. Bennett, but it is true. It’s something that the Lord’s revealed to me.” And Orson struggles. Like, he leaves Nauvoo. There’s worries for a while that he may have been thinking about harming himself. They eventually find him and bring him back, but he’s excommunicated and then is rebaptized a couple months later and placed back into the Quorum of the Twelve. In fact, this will play a role in succession in the presidency down the line.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Orson would’ve been president of the church when Brigham Young died, but Brigham Young reorganized the Twelve based on continuous service, and Orson had that gap of several months when he wasn’t a church member or a member of the Quorum of the Twelve before he was rebaptized and reinstated into the Twelve. So it’s an interesting choice that they ask Orson to do this. But—

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
There’s also good reasons, too. I—he’s incredibly eloquent. He’s well spoken. Brigham Young trusts him and thinks that he could do the best job introducing this,

Scott Woodward:  
And it doesn’t seem like he had much advanced notice, right? He says, “It’s quite unexpected to me to be called upon to address you this afternoon.” He, he’s so good. He can, at a moment’s notice, stand up and announce one of the most shocking announcements made in the church.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. And it seems like the pressure to do this had been gradually building. Utah, at this point, is a territory of the United States. And even though Brigham Young is the governor, a lot of the territorial functions related to the federal government are carried out by outside people. And the judges that get sent to Utah aren’t exactly the cream of the crop. I don’t think Utah was the plum assignment, but it’s a guy named Perry E. Brocchus who gets sent as a federal judge to Utah, and he presses the Saints on this question until they feel like, “Let’s just announce it on our own terms.” He gives a speech in September 1851, where he calls upon the Mormon women to be virtuous, which is apparently a veiled reference to plural marriage. And he and other federal officials start reporting to newspaper reporters in the east that the saints were practicing plural marriage and defending the principle of plural marriage.

Scott Woodward:  
So it’s starting to leak out.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:  
It’s starting to leak out through the wrong sources.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:  
Mm-hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And I’m guessing they’re still frightened over what had happened to Joseph Smith with this, but at this point, you know, it’s one of those things where, “Let’s get ahead of the story. Let’s control the narrative.” And they announce it.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Tons of fallout from it. But Orson also, in the talk, gives a pretty good rundown of some of the primary reasons for why they are practicing plural marriage. And so what Orson is saying here could be a good companion to section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants. He covers some of the same ground, but he also brings up some new points that we might consider really quickly.

Scott Woodward:  
Like what?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
He ties plural marriage back to the promises made to Abraham. This idea of eternal posterity and lineage and fulfilling the covenants that were made to the ancient Old Testament patriarchs is the first and foremost one is.

Scott Woodward:  
So that’s not new content there, yet, he’s, yeah, rephrasing section 132.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:  
Does he give any other reasons?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Actually, he takes kind of an unconventional route, too, and I think it was because, in part, Judge Bracchus was accusing them of being immoral, that he talks about how plural marriage was designed to prevent immorality.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah, that’s new.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. He says “Immorality is to be prevented in the way the Lord devised in ancient times. That is by giving his faithful servants a plurality of wives, by which a numerous and faithful posterity can be raised up and taught in the principles of righteousness and truth.” And then he goes on to say, “After they fully understood those principles that were given to the ancient patriarchs, if they keep not the law of God, but commit adultery and transgression, let their names be blotted out from under heaven, and they have no place among the people of God.” So he actually argues that plural marriage is designed to prevent immorality. It’s the same system that’s been given to the patriarchs. Again, he’s centering all this in the Bible. One of Orson Pratt’s most famous speeches he gives after this is called, “Does the Bible sanction polygamy?”

Scott Woodward:  
Mm-hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And he’s doing a good job, scripturally saying, “Yep, that’s one of the reasons, too.” Like I said, Orson Pratt is an interesting choice. He and Brigham Young at various points are going to have conflict.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
But I think Brigham respected Orson’s ability to defend the faith. There’s one point where Brigham Young and Orson Pratt have had their conflicts, but Brigham Young says, “If Brother Orson were chopped up into inch pieces, each piece would cry out that Mormonism was true.” So he shows a ton of trust in Orson.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah. He’s not questioning his loyalty.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:  
But they didn’t always see eye to eye on doctrine, that’s for sure.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:  
Orson gives another talk in 1869 called “Celestial Marriage,” where he reiterates some of these principles and—and really on that point of preventing immorality, he says, “What happens in societies that don’t allow for plural marriage is that there’s always going to be an abundance of females to males.” He makes this case—I don’t know if it’s defensible today, statistically, but he makes the case that because of death rates are higher among men, and by the time you get to marriageable age, there’s a surplus of females to males, and if they are not brought into a wholesome marriage, which plural marriage can provide, then they usually end up either old maids or prostitutes, he says. It is a pretty provocative talk, but he’s trying to defend this idea like, “This is the opposite of immorality.” That’s his point.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:  
This is the opposite of immorality. This is where a man devotes himself to a woman and takes care of her and helps raise children with her and is committed to her to the end, right? It’s not that this isn’t a case where— in fact, I think in this 1852 talk, he said at the very beginning that—he said, “It is not, as many have supposed, a doctrine embraced by the Latter-day Saints to gratify the carnal lusts and feelings of man. That is not the object of the doctrine.” And then he goes into those reasons that you’ve articulated. So this is not what it looks like from the outside or what the spin masters would want to make it look like is happening among the Latter-day Saints.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:  
It’s actually honorable men and women joining together and committing to be true to each other and to raise families together and to protect each other’s virtue and all the things you would have in a normal marriage. Very interesting.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. And he makes another interesting point, which is the majority of the human race does practice “plural marriage” at this point in time. I don’t know if that’s the case today, but according to one study that was carried out in the 19th century, that probably was true at that point in time, that monogamy was the less common practice than plural marriage. And Orson Pratt was basically tying their practice into that as well, which is an interesting case to take, too.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Another thing that happens is—kind of the peak of Orson Pratt’s career as an apologist for plural marriage is in 1870. J. P. Newman, who’s the chaplain of the United States Senate, challenges him to a public debate.

Scott Woodward:  
Bad idea.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So they debate over three days in the Salt Lake Tabernacle, and they fire back and forth at each other, but even though both side at the end kind of claims victory, the general consensus is that poor Newman got his clock cleaned by Orson Pratt. There’s one Catholic writer, for instance, that writes, “Newman, whatever his qualifications as chaplain of the Senate or his merits as an orator proved neither a scripture scholar nor an apt debater.” And another newspaper reporter says, “Someone carrying guns other than Dr. Newman will have to be sent out missionarying among the Mormons.

Scott Woodward:  
That’s funny. I pity the man who debates Orson Pratt.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. So plural marriage is out there.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And everybody knows. And before we get into the next part of the story, I think we wanted to take a minute and talk about, what are the numbers? I always have students ask me, “Did most people practice plural marriage in the church?” How did it work? We’re drawing some information here from the Gospel Topics essay, but they draw from scholars like Kathryn Daynes and Jessie Embry, Lowell C. Bennion, and a few others. So here’s what we’ve got—the breakdown. Most families that practice plural marriage—in fact, two-thirds is the figure they cite—were only two wives at a time. So when we think of people like Brigham Young or Heber C. Kimball who have multiple wives, I think Heber C. Kimball is the record holder.

Scott Woodward:  
Oh, how many does he have? What’s the record?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Oh, gosh. I’m trying to remember.

Scott Woodward:  
I’m Googling it right now.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
OK. If you’re looking it up, I’ll keep going while you’re looking that up. About two-thirds of marriages that they’re defending here, these plural marriages, are two wives.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And another thing to keep in mind is that the 1852 laws on marriage passed in Utah have a fairly generous range for divorce. So divorces were fairly easily allowed. I mean, that’s going to sound bad, that divorces were easy in Utah, but I think they also recognized how difficult this was.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah. Normally we’re against divorce, right? We try to work it out, try to make it work before we would ever encourage divorce. But that’s different during this time.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:  
Now, why is that?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It was partially the way the church approached it and the way the laws of Utah were written. According to almost every source we have, this is a system that’s very directly administered by leaders of the church, and they were fairly generous in granting a divorce. If a person entered into plural marriage and they didn’t feel good about it, especially a woman, they would allow them to get a divorce fairly easily.

Scott Woodward:  
Without the social stigma attached to that.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:  
Which is pretty unique. There was no, no social stigma attached to a divorce if she wanted it.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. One of the advantages of the system that they pointed out, too, is that, well, almost all women married, and so did a large percentage of men, and most people were in stable relationships. It was like marriages today: You had a wide spectrum ranging from really happy marriages to unhappy marriages.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
There were some people, like Emmaline B. Wells, who struggled with it. Emmaline B. Wells is a prominent church leader, eventually becomes the Relief Society president. She was pretty candid in saying she felt lonely as a plural wife.

Scott Woodward:  
Mm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Then there were other people, like I wrote a book on Joseph F. Merrill, this apostle who grew up in a polygamous household. His dad was Marriner Merrill, who had eight wives.

Scott Woodward:  
Mm-hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And when he was asked about it, he said, “I thought it was a good system. Like, my mom didn’t feel lonely. She was fairly independent. She had her own farm and property that she took care of, and I felt like her and my dad really loved each other.” A large number of Marriner’s kids go on to get PhDs. Joseph is the first native Utahn to get a PhD, and he has a lot of brothers and sisters. Now, that’s probably the best case scenario, but it seems like, yeah, it was fairly atypical.

Scott Woodward:  
So there’s a spectrum.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:  
There’s a spectrum. Just like you said, with marriages today, you wouldn’t highlight a super sad marriage and say, “Therefore, marriage is a bad system,” because there’s always going to be great marriages. There’s always going to be those who are handled irresponsibly or selfish or neglectful in whatever way. So it’s not that plural marriage itself was either good or bad. It was as good as the people who were involved made it, is what I’m hearing you say.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. And there’s some really harrowing stuff out there, like about Annie Tanner and a few others that had a terrible experience with plural marriage, but that has to be measured against other people that really upheld the principle and thought that it was good and felt good about it. Now, the average trends that they showed were that plural marriage generally declined over time. And when we see a spike, that’s usually when the United States government was intervening, trying to stop them from practicing, plural marriage, that everybody would run out and enter into one just to indicate that they could or—

Scott Woodward:  
Spite the government.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah, stick it to the man, I guess you’d say.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah, so is it—I’m remembering from the gospel topics essay that in 1857, about half of those living in Utah are somehow involved as husband, wife, or child in plural marriage household, correct?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:  
And then by 1870 it’s gone down by almost half, is that right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. By 1870, the numbers cited are 25-30% of the population lived in polygamous households. And again, this is as a husband, wife, or child, that’s the best way to kind of calculate it as we go.

Scott Woodward:  
So this is never, like, the majority. This is never the way that everybody’s living in Utah. This is its peak. It was close to half.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:  
But never the majority.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. And that’s probably the high point. And like we said, Kathryn Daynes wrote this great book called More Wives Than One, where she just basically took a single community, Manti, Utah, and studied the records that were there. And she showed that the number of plural marriages was always continuously on the decline, and then there’d be a spike when a new law came out or a new effort was made by the government to try and end plural marriage. So the majority of the church never practiced it, and without outside interference, it’s interesting to think about what might have happened to it if it was left alone. It’s like the saints kept upholding it because of this outside pressure, but in general, they trended towards monogamy. I don’t think their society was ever really strategically built to accommodate plural marriage. So they trended towards monogamy in their own life.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah. It seems like with each generation, yeah, it was—it was starting to become, “That’s what my parents and my grandparents did,” but the next generations were not following suit, at least not wholesale. It wasn’t growing. It was declining, which is interesting. Yeah. What would’ve happened? What would’ve happened had government just stayed out of it?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:  
Should we talk about the government’s intervention? What did happen? Why did the government get involved?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Let’s talk about that.

Scott Woodward:  
Oh, wait. By the way, Heber C. Kimball had 43 wives. Just had to get that out there. There you go.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Most people are aware, but the Republican Party, founded in 1856, is founded with the goal of eradicating the twin relics of barbarism, which are slavery and polygamy.

Scott Woodward:  
That’s right.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And four years after the party’s founded, we get the first Republican president, who’s Abraham Lincoln. But as most people know, Lincoln had a lot on his plate to deal with, and so he doesn’t do a lot when it comes to plural marriage. In fact, the most famous exchange with a Latter-day Saint when Lincoln’s in office, according to T. B. Stenhouse, who’s a reporter, who’s a Latter-day Saint, he asked about—this is June 1863. He asked Abraham Lincoln about his intentions for the Mormons. According to T. B. Stenhouse Lincoln said, “Stenhouse, when I was a boy on the farm in Illinois, there was a great deal of timber on the farm, which had to be cleared away. Occasionally, we’d come to a log which had fallen down that was too hard to split, too wet to burn, and too heavy to move. So we just plowed around it. You go back and tell Brigham Young, if he will let me alone, I will let him alone.” So Lincoln’s the first Republican president, but his position is basically, “I’ve got too much to deal with right now.”

Scott Woodward:  
Wait, wait, wait, wait. So 1856, the Republican Party is founded with the aim of eradicating the twin relics of barbarism: slavery and polygamy.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:  
And yet the first Republican president says, “I’m OK leaving them alone if they’ll just leave me alone.” That’s interesting.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. And Latter-day Saints really love to quote that story, and I think the story’s true. I mean, we’ve got several other settings where Lincoln uses that whole “tree that can’t be cleared away” analogy. At the same time, too, the whole picture is that the Republican Party, even though its biggest concern is the Civil War, also hasn’t forgotten about the saints and plural marriage. First law that they pass is passed in the middle of the Civil War in 1862. It’s called the Moral Act.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And this levies a $500 fine and five years of imprisonment if a person is caught living in a polygamous relationship.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
But I don’t think this one really goes anywhere, does it?

Scott Woodward:  
No. This—this had no teeth, right? As a policy—it was in the middle of the Civil War. There’s no federal officers to enforce this. So in some ways it’s more of a statement than it is a law that’s in force. But it’s definitely saying, “We see you, polygamists, and we’re coming for you.”

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:  
With slavery and polygamy, it’s just a matter of priority, right? They tackle slavery first, and once that’s settled, that’s when it seems like the pressure just is laid on hard and heavy coming after plural marriage, wouldn’t you say?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:  
So you get the ’62 act—Moral Bigamy Act, and then the Civil War ends in what, ’65?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:  
And then what happens? Tell us the next legislation.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It’s like, for a couple years they’re concerned with reconstruction in the wake of the Civil War.

Scott Woodward:  
Right.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
But then that becomes knotty and twisted, and they’re not making headway there. And so they turn their attention back to plural marriage and start to pass increasingly stringent laws. Like—a lot of the saints, we should mention, did not think that this was legal.

Scott Woodward:  
Right.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
That the First Amendment of the Constitution, free exercise of religion, allowed them to live the law of plural marriage. And so the next step that they take is the Poland Law, which is in 1874, and that’s designed specifically to take apart Utah’s judicial system. So a lot of the judges in Utah were Latter-day Saints who interpreted the Constitution the same way and wouldn’t prosecute a person practicing plural marriage. So the next step is we’ve got to get them out of the judicial system.

Scott Woodward:  
Mm-hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Another irony here is that women were granted the right to vote fairly early on in Utah. But these anti-polygamy legislations are eventually going to take that away because women didn’t vote against the church. Women voted in general in favor of the church, and people wondered, “What’s going on here?”

Scott Woodward:  
Explicitly in favor of polygamy, right? Didn’t they write a bunch of—didn’t they sign a bunch of petitions and sent them to Washington D.C., saying, “We’re not oppressed by plural marriage”?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:  
That was a major surprise for some in the East. But of course that was interpreted as, “Well, that’s what the Mormon men are making you say,” you know, kind of a thing.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:  
But there were women that were in favor of this, and they were making their voices known.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. One of the ironies of plural marriage is that it did, in some ways, allow women some opportunities that they didn’t have. Because, you know, if you’re a woman in the 19th century, your—especially a married woman with children—your big concern is taking care of your kids. Plural marriage creates this kind of shared sisterhood system where you have some women that are able to excel in professions, like Martha Hughes Cannon, the first woman elected to a state legislature, is a plural wife. She actually runs against her husband and beats him. She’s also a medical doctor. Ellis Shipp goes to med school. Some of the most important suffragettes, women that agitate on behalf of women receiving the right to vote, are plural wives, like Leonard Arrington said that Emmaline B. Wells would be known alongside Elizabeth Katie Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony as one of the most important figures in securing women the right to vote if it hadn’t been for the fact that she was a Latter-day Saint and a plural wife.

Scott Woodward:  
Wow.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And so it’s way more complex. In fact, let me show you something. This is a statement Eliza R. Snow makes, OK? At a suffragette rally, she addresses the popular image of Latter-day Saint women, and she says this: “Were we the stupid, degraded, heartbroken beings that we have been represented, silence might better become us, but as women of God, women filling high and responsible positions performing sacred duties, women that stand not as dictators, but as counselors to their husbands and who in the purest, noblest sense of the refined womanhood are truly their helpmates, we not only speak because we have the right, but justice and humanity demand that we should.”

Scott Woodward:  
Oh, wow.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So they’re pushing back against this image, and they’re part of the fight, too.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
In fact, as time goes on, some of these laws, like the Edmunds Act passed in 1882, some of these are draconian, like when we say the Constitution will hang by a thread, the Saints saw this as way overstepping. The Edmunds Act makes unlawful cohabitation illegal, excludes people from serving on juries, and denies them the right to vote or hold public office if they’re practicing plural marriage. That is extreme stuff.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And the next law that comes down the pike is going to be even more extreme.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah. That’s the most crushing. You’re talking about the Edmunds–Tucker Act, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:  
1887?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah. That one’s the most brutal. That one’s the first law to come after the church as a corporation, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:  
This isn’t now just punishing those who practice plural marriage, but coming against The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as such as a corporation.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:  
It disenfranchises them, unincorporates them. This is as heavy-handed as it gets, I think, in our nation’s history.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:  
Of singling out one people and then legislating in a way to crush them to the ground.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:  
For instance, the Edmunds–Tucker Act is going to make it so that you have to swear an anti-plural-marriage oath even to vote, and it’s going to take away the right of women to vote, and it’s going to stop anyone who is Mormon from coming to Utah. They disenfranchise the Perpetual Emigration Fund, cutting off funding for people to gather to Utah. But then the biggest whopper was the taking away of property. Any property over what, $50,000?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:  
So that’s coming after the temples. We got what? Manti Temple, Logan Temple, and St. George are on the chopping block there with the Edmunds–Tucker Act.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:  
This is just intended to destroy and dismantle the church itself.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. And we should mention that the Saints fight back against the legality of these laws.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Probably the most famous case is the George Reynolds trial, where George Reynolds actually goes up against the Moral Act, the first anti-polygamy act that’s passed during the Civil War, as a test case. So George Reynolds is this nice, like, conservative guy, who, you know—he’s modest. He’s unassuming. He’s a clerk who works for the First Presidency and a bookkeeper. He’s devout and faithful, but he’s married to two women, and they get him to agree to serve as a test case. So he is asked in October 1874 if he’ll agree to submit to the law so that they can take this out for a test drive and see if this actually holds up under the Constitution.

Scott Woodward:  
They were pretty confident that this would not be held up as constitutional, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:  
Hence, the test case.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah, they feel really strongly that the First Amendment, the free exercise clause of the Bill of Rights would protect them from what they saw as a religious obligation.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Plural marriage was religious in their mind. It was a commandment from God. Unfortunately, Reynolds Trial turns into a media circus, basically. They even drag his second wife, Amelia, while she’s pregnant, to the court, put her on the stand and force her to admit that she’s a plural wife, which was humiliating for her, difficult for her. J. G. Sutherland, who is arguing on behalf of Reynolds, argued, “Latter-day Saints believe that polygamy is a divine institution, and they will be indebted for their highest happiness in another life to their fidelity and obedience to it in this.” Nonetheless, George Reynolds loses the case and winds up going to the territorial penitentiary. In fact, this goes all the way up to the Supreme Court, which in 1879 upholds Reynolds‘ conviction.

Scott Woodward:  
Mm-hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And whew, that is a tough blow to the church, because they’re trying to reconcile this commandment with living the laws of the land, and part of their argument is, “We don’t feel like these laws align with the other laws—that they’re unconstitutional.”

Scott Woodward:  
And wasn’t the conclusion of those prosecuting saying that the First Amendment only protects religious belief but not religious conduct? Not religious action?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. There’s a great book called Zion in the Courts by Ed Firmage, and I can’t remember the name of his other author, but they basically interpreted the Supreme Court’s decision as followed. They said, “Unless it leaves for some practices, for the majority are protected by the First Amendment, the free exercise clause is redundant and devoid of practical content.” That basically the interpretation that you could draw from the Supreme Court’s decision was that it’s OK to believe whatever you want to believe, but you can’t practice what you want to practice when it comes to your religious belief.

Scott Woodward:  
Mm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Which, I don’t think that’s how the law would be interpreted today. When George Reynolds was asked what he thought of the decision, he said, “I regard the decision a nullification of the Constitution so far as religious liberty is concerned.”

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
“To say the Constitution simply grants freedom of religious opinion, but not the exercise of that opinion is twaddle.”

Scott Woodward:  
Did he just drop the twaddle word?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
He—yeah, in the 19th century, you’re serious if you’re using the T word, right?

Scott Woodward:  
Woo. Calm down, George. Calm down.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
That’s about as spicy as George Reynolds got, as far as I can tell.

Scott Woodward:  
That’s a bunch of twaddle is what that is. Ah, dang.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Now, the good news is while he’s in prison, he has to spend 18 months living in penitentiaries in Nebraska and Utah.

Scott Woodward:  
Mm-hmm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
He actually writes the first concordance to the Book of Mormon while he’s there.

Scott Woodward:  
That’s a good use of time.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. You can still find this if you go to the D. I., big, old, red concordance, which isn’t that, you know, useful today because we’ve got the whole thing digitized, but he makes good use of his time, and he’s a good guy. So Edmunds–Tucker is really setting us up for Official Declaration 1, or the manifesto, and is an important part of the circumstances there. Scott, walk us through a little bit about the lead-up to the manifesto.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah, so we’ve got the civil disobedience, can we call it that? Where Saints believe they still have legal recourse, and they still have a way to continue to challenge these things in the courts during the ’80s, the 1880s. And so they are practicing plural marriage while trying to avoid arrest. And when 1887 happens with the Edmunds–Tucker Act—now, much of church leadership is going to go underground, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:  
They’re going to start to be hunted as fugitives by U. S. Deputies. In fact, there’s even, you can find these wanted posters still, if you Google them. John Taylor, president of the church, George Q. Cannon, counselor. There’s one I’m looking at now that says, “$800 reward to be paid for the arrest of John Taylor and George Q. Cannon. $500 for Cannon, $300 for Taylor.” I don’t know why Cannon was so much more valuable than the president of the church, but there you go. John Taylor, as president of the church during this time, he’s going to go into exile in Kaysville, Utah, and he’ll die there that same year, 1887, July 25.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:  
So for two years after his death, the church is without a first presidency. So the Quorum of the Twelve is leading. Wilfred Woodruff is the president of that quorum, assuming leadership during that interim period. So in April 1889, Wilford Woodruff is sustained, the first presidency’s reorganized. He’s now officially the president of the church 1889. They’ve continued to appeal the case all the way to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court has officially ruled against them and upheld the Edmunds–Tucker Act as constitutional.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:  
Meanwhile, many church leaders have been caught and put in prison. There’s some great pictures you should Google sometime. Listeners, check out some church leaders in the stripes of shame, George Q. Cannon and others in the Utah Territorial Prison, arrested under the Edmunds–Tucker Act. And so 1890, Wilford Woodruff is considering all of this. We now have no more legal recourse. And the question is what is to be done?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:  
So in September of 1890, Wilford Woodruff seeks divine guidance on this about the path that should be pursued, and what we know as the Manifesto was the result. I think maybe the best way to think about this is “What’s our highest priority,” right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:  
Because we can’t have it all. Either we can retain our determination to practice plural marriage and lose the temples and lose much church leadership, many of the heads of households, be disincorporated, everything the Edmunds Tucker Act was doing, undermine Zion, undermine the ordinances that are to be done in the temples, but hold on to polygamy or let go of polygamy and retain the temples, retain church leadership and heads of households, retain the ordinances of salvation and exaltation. What is the most fundamental, what’s the most indispensable? And that’s when the revelation comes that Wilford Woodruff later explains. Actually, about a year after the manifesto, he starts explaining, going on little speaking tours, and starts explaining to people exactly what happened.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. And I think, you know, even before he says something like, “I’m under the necessity of acting for the temporal salvation of the church.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Some people have said this was politically motivated, this revelation, but President Woodruff gives the reasons why the revelation came.

Scott Woodward:  
Mm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I would point out Official Declaration 1 doesn’t look like the other sections of the Doctrine and Covenants.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Wilford Woodruff is clear in stating it came as a result of revelation. He was told by God to do this.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah, it’s probably important to point out that the official declaration itself is not the revelation, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:  
It’s a declaration that revelation had been received and now I’m telling you about it.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:  
It’s—in fact, when he comes back, his counselors know about it, and then about a week later—it was October, wasn’t it, when the Quorum of the Twelve meet, and they sustain it, even though some of them are still wrestling with it a little bit, but they do sustain it. And then it’s presented to the church in October 1890, and it kind of reads very much like the government is listening, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:  
He says, for instance—I’ll read directly from the declaration itself. He talks about how he had heard of a case where someone had used the Endowment House in Salt Lake to perform a plural marriage ceremony, which was not authorized by him. And so he says, “When I heard about that I had the endowment house torn down without delay.” And then he said, “Inasmuch as laws have been enacted by Congress forbidding plural marriages, which laws have been pronounced constitutional by the court of last resort,” that’s the Supreme Court. We have pushed this thing all the way to the Supreme Court, and they have found the Edmunds–Tucker Act constitutional, “So I hereby declare my intention to submit to those laws and to use my influence with the members of the church over which I preside to have them do likewise.” This is clearly because of what is happening in their external circumstance, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:  
We’ve done everything we can. We’ve done everything in our power, and there’s nothing left for us to do legally other than submit. And so I declare my intentions to submit. Now behind this are some revelations that he’ll explain to church members later, but this first public announcement is very business, a proclamation of our intention to be good citizens of the United States of America.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. And oof, this is tough stuff, right? But he makes the action. It’s just as difficult to end plural marriage, I guess is a point we should make, as it was to begin plural marriage.

Scott Woodward:  
Oh, yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
This is a system that two and a half generations have defended.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
He takes it very seriously, but he does basically say, “This is a revelation. I was commanded by God to do this. I had to act for the temporal salvation of the church.”

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah. He says this, actually, on that day in his conference talk where this was read. He said, “The Lord has required at our hands things that we were prevented from doing. And then he mentions this: he says, “The Lord required us to build a temple in Jackson County. We were prevented by violence from doing it. The Lord has given us commandments concerning many things, and we have carried them out as far as we could. But when we cannot do it, we are justified.” And then he said, “The Lord does not require at our hands things that we cannot do.” That alone is a pretty powerful principle, right? If you’ve been legitimately kept from keeping a commandment because of external circumstances, the Lord doesn’t require that commandment. I’m thinking about many missionaries who had to come home early because of COVID-19. You shouldn’t feel like a failure, right? External circumstances brought you home early. You served an honorable mission the best you could.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Right.

Scott Woodward:  
Or people who yearn to be married, but they can’t because of external circumstances, or married couples who want to have children, but they can’t. The Lord does not require at our hands things that we cannot do. So that alone’s a pretty powerful principle, but when you apply it to this situation, that’s telling to see inside the heart of President Woodruff. And we should also say that not every member of the church just eagerly, wholeheartedly accepted this. The minutes of that general conference do say that it was sustained unanimously.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:  
But it doesn’t seem to clear up all confusion in the hearts of the Latter-day Saints, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Right.

Scott Woodward:  
Is this a temporary thing that we’re just doing this to appease the government? Are we all going to go to Mexico, up to Canada? Was this just a political maneuver? Are we just giving a nod to the government so they look the other way, and then we can do our own thing?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:  
And Wilford Woodruff, that’s what begins his speaking tour the next year where he begins then to explain, “No, this was a revelation from the Lord.”

Casey Paul Griffiths:
He immediately has to make a clarification, too, like right after the manifesto’s issued, he says, “This manifesto only refers to future marriages and does not affect past conditions. I did not, I could not, and I would not promise that you would desert your wives and children. This you cannot do in honor.”

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
But the language of the manifesto, which is basically, “We’re going to comply with the law. If the law has been upheld by the highest court, we’ll follow it”—

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
—opens questions.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
During the struggles with the federal government, some Latter-day Saints had moved to Canada, some had moved to Mexico. And does the law apply to them? Because if you’re in a country where it’s not illegal to practice plural marriage, can you still practice plural marriage, including creating new plural marriages?

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Is the question that comes up.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah. That’s outside the U. S. jurisdiction. You could see people easily coming to the conclusion that, “Yeah, that’s fine. Because this is all about the U. S. government, right?”

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah. Lots of questions still left. Let me just highlight a few of the things that I think make it absolutely clear that this came by revelation. In fact, he actually says this in, if you look in your Official Declaration, in your Doctrine and Covenants, you’ll notice there’s these excerpts from three addresses that President Woodruff gave, right? I’m on the second page of that, and he said, “I have had some revelations of late, very important ones to me, and I’ll tell you what the Lord has said to me. Let me bring to your minds what’s termed the manifesto.” He said, “The Lord has told me to ask the Latter-day Saints a question. And he also told me that if they would listen to what I said to them and answer the question put to them by the Spirit and power of God, they would all answer alike, and they would all believe alike with regard to the matter.” And then he says, here’s the question, “Which is the wisest course for the Latter-day Saints to pursue? To continue to attempt to practice plural marriage with the laws of the nation against it, and the opposition of 60 millions of people, and at the cost of the confiscation and loss of all the temples and the stopping of all the ordinances therein, both for the living and the dead and the imprisonment of the First Presidency and the Twelve, and the heads of families in the church, and the confiscation of personal property of the people, all of which of themselves would stop the practice of plural marriage, or after doing and suffering what we have through our adherence to this principle, to cease the practice and submit to the law, and through doing so, leave the prophets, apostles, and fathers at home so that they can instruct the people and attend to the duties of the church, and also leave the temples in the hands of the saints so that they can attend to the ordinances of the gospel, both for the living and the dead? Which course should we pursue?” He said, “You should all, if you’ve got the Spirit of God, answer that question the same. Shall the work go on or shall it cease?” he asks. And so that was really what this was about.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:  
The Lord showed me. The Lord told me. I’ve had revelations of late. “The Lord,” he goes on to say, “showed me by vision and revelation what would’ve happened had we not stopped this. Now the Lord has manifested to us. I saw what would come to pass. I’ve had this spirit upon me for a long time.” I’m still quoting from him. “The God of Heaven commanded me to do what I do. I wrote what the Lord told me to write. I’ll tell you what was manifested to me,” just over and over again evidence this is not Wilfred Woodruff buckling to external pressure. I mean, that—that’s a criticism, isn’t it? Some people say, “This just goes to show that this is just President Woodruff buckling to external pressure, political pressure came, and he conveniently got a revelation, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Right.

Scott Woodward:  
That basically the government was stiff-arming him into that decision anyway, and so he’s just capitulating to that and calling it revelation. No. Absolutely that’s not what’s happening. How do you respond to that, by the way, Casey? What would you say? I’ll tell you my response in a second, but how do you respond to that?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I’ve had students bring it up in class before. Did they just do this because of what the government did? And I’m like, they have never tried to cover that up.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah. That’s in the announcement.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. Yeah. Wilford Woodruff was absolutely plain that he sought the revelation because of the pressure that was being placed on them.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
He was open in every single way about saying, “Yeah, here’s why I asked God if it was time for us to make a change,” but this assumption that it just has to come out of nowhere, just doesn’t fit in with any revelations that the church has ever received.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah. Ever.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. Revelation is always born out of necessity.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah. I wanted to say, like, what other kind of revelation is there than revelation in response to external circumstances, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:  
Prophets don’t operate in a timeless, circumstance-less vacuum. They live in time and space, and they receive revelations based upon external circumstances that they find themselves and their people in. That’s what drives prophets to their knees again and again. And that’s what got Wilford Woodruff to go before the Lord, as he said, is because of that.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:  
Sometimes with my students, I’ll say, “To attack a prophet on that point’s kind of like saying, ‘The only reason that you asked the Lord about whether it was wise to marry the person that you did was because you were seriously dating them, and you really liked them.’ You know, ‘It was just the external circumstance of dating them seriously that made you seek a revelation.’” So, yeah. Yeah. That’s how it works, actually, is it’s always external circumstances.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:  
That then drive you to seek revelation. So, yeah, I think that’s just an unfair attack.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. Like we mentioned, the manifesto, Official Declaration 1, says we’re going to comply with the law, but it leaves open this thread that a lot of saints wonder about, which is “What if it’s not the law?”

Scott Woodward:  
Mm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And some of them, just, frankly, it seems, do think that this is a delaying tactic until the Second Coming or whatever. So during the decade after the manifesto, there’s ambiguity.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Plural marriage couldn’t be stopped immediately. It gradually ends. In fact, most people don’t realize this, but the last president of the church to openly practice plural marriage was Heber J. Grant, who’s president of the church into the 1940s.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
He has three wives, two of whom die relatively young. So by the time he becomes president of the church, he is monogamous. But those are his wives. He believes in it and accepts them.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
You could argue we still accept it in principle today, but the first Official Declaration—

Scott Woodward:  
Wait, whoa. Whoa. You’ve got to go back to that. You got to go back to, what do you mean? What do you mean?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Well, I bring this up with my classes. Who’s the last president of the church to be sealed to more than one person? It’s President Nelson, right? President Nelson’s first wife, Dantzel, passed away in 2005. A few years later he met and married Wendy Watson. He’s sealed to both of them. Does that make him a practitioner of plural marriage? I mean, technically, yes.

Scott Woodward:  
Well—well, wait. So you would say that is practicing plural marriage?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Well, I mean, he’s sealed the two people. So is that plural marriage?

Scott Woodward:  
I don’t know. Is it?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
In principle, we still believe that a person can be sealed to more than one other person.

Scott Woodward:  
Oh, OK. I see.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
The latest handbook of the church indicates that a deceased woman who was married to several people can be sealed to them as well.

Scott Woodward:  
Mm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And so when you believe in eternal marriage, you believe marriage lasts beyond this life, that opens the door to some complicated things.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And that complexity is something we’ve got to be OK with.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah, I remember President Oaks being asked, because he’s also in that situation, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:  
He’s sealed to two women, and he was asked, “What’s life going to be like in the next life when you’re married to two women?” And he said, “I honestly have to say, I don’t know. I don’t know how it’s going to work. All I know is that we’ve made those covenants and that there are promises associated with those, and I don’t know what the arrangement’s going to be like in the next life.” So I like to just assure my students that there’s ambiguity here, and we’ve just got to be careful how we might picture the next life in circumstances such as President Oaks and President Nelson. Because, as President Oaks said, he doesn’t even know what it’s going to be like. And if he doesn’t know, then I don’t think it does us any good to pretend like we do, you know?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:  
We just know it’s going to turn out well for covenant keepers, and I’m talking about everyone involved, the men and the women.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:  
Everybody. Things turn out well for those who keep covenants with Jesus Christ. I’m convinced of that.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. The manifesto’s issued, but certain members of the church have questions, and some are still performing new plural marriages in Mexico, in Canada, and there’s even a record of a handful that take place in America. So the catalyst to issue the second manifesto, which is the final end for plural marriage in the church is that Reed Smoot, who is a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, but also monogamous, is elected to the United States Senate in 1903. And this leads to the Reed Smoot hearings, which go on—I mean, the guy gets elected in 1903 and isn’t formally seated in the Senate until 1907, because the hearings go on for four years.

Scott Woodward:  
Wow.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And the hearings also exposed this difficulty in ending the practice of plural marriage. Like, Joseph F. Smith is asked to come to the stand and openly admits that he is still cohabitating with some of his wives and has had children with them.

Scott Woodward:  
And he’s the president of the church, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah, he’s the president of the church.

Scott Woodward:  
Mm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I’m on his side here. Like, honestly. He says when he’s asked, “Why are you doing this?” this is the answer he gave: “I simply took my chances, preferring to meet the consequences of the law rather than to abandon my children and their mothers. And I have cohabitated with my wives, not in a manner that I thought would be offensive to my neighbors, but I’ve acknowledged them. I’ve visited them. They have borne me 11 children since 1890, and I have done it knowing the responsibility and knowing I was amenable to the law.” So this is another case where he’s saying, “I’m not going to abandon my wife and children that I’ve already made covenants to because of the law. And this whole exchange, oh my goodness. It’s such a thing. At BYU we have the Reed Smoot papers, and Reed Smoot kept a very detailed scrapbook of the newspaper articles about him. It was everything including a paper that basically showed the temple clothing and the temple ordinances in its front page.

Scott Woodward:  
Wow.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
But it seems like a lot of the questions were centered around, “Has the church actually stopped practicing plural marriage?”

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
There was an exchange between Joseph F. Smith and one of the senators. So the senator says, “Now I will illustrate what I mean by the injunction of scripture, what we call the New Testament.” President Smith said, “That’s our scripture also.” The senator, kind of surprised, goes, “That’s your scripture also?” “Yes, sir.” Then the senator says, “The apostle says that a bishop must be sober and must be the husband of one wife.” And Joseph F. Smith’s reply was, “Yes, at least.” That was basically the whole exchange that happens in the Senate.

Scott Woodward:  
At least one wife.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
At least one wife. And so, as a result of this, Reed Smoot and Joseph F. Smith work together, and they eventually produced what’s known as the second manifesto. So this is sort of the manifesto with teeth, with a method of enforcement, and also clears up that ambiguity of, “Are we just doing this to obey the law, and therefore it doesn’t apply in other countries? Or is the church ending the practice of living plural marriages?”

Scott Woodward:  
And when you say “teeth,” you’re saying that this one, if you practice, then excommunication will be the consequence, correct?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. Yeah. Here is the text of the second manifesto Joseph F. Smith reads, April 1904. “Inasmuch as there are numerous reports in circulation that plural marriages have been entered into, contrary to the official declaration of President Woodruff of September 24, 1890, commonly called the manifesto, which was issued by President Woodruff and adopted by the church at its general conference, October 6, 1890, which forbade any marriages violative of the law of the land, I, Joseph F. Smith, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, hereby affirm and declare that no such marriages have been solemnized with the sanction, consent, or knowledge of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. And I hereby announce that all such marriages are prohibited, and if any officer or member of the Church shall assume to solemnize or enter into any such marriage, he will be deemed in transgression against the Church, and will be liable [to] be dealt with according to the rules and regulations thereof and excommunicated therefrom.”

Scott Woodward:  
Bam.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So now if you perform a new plural marriage, you’re going to be excommunicated.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And this basically gives them the method to, within a generation or so, have plural marriage gradually end within the church.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
As a way of illustrating it, two apostles, John W. Taylor, this is the son of President John Taylor, and Matthias Cowley, were both removed from the Quorum of the Twelve. They both voluntarily resigned. In fact, in the Smoot papers, their resignation letters are there. But there’s no better way to illustrate how serious they are.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah. Within a day of each other.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah, that’s true.

Scott Woodward:  
Yep. So after the second manifesto is issued, and it’s very clear that this is churchwide, and it is an excommunicable offense if you enter into new plural marriages, you have two apostles who say, OK, if that’s the terms and conditions, then I tender my resignation, correct?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:  
That’s their language: I tender my resignation from the Quorum of the Twelve apostles.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. This is the letter John W. Taylor writes: “I find that I have been out of harmony with the set authorities as to the scope and meaning of the manifesto issued by President Woodruff. Inasmuch as I have not been in harmony with my brethren on these subjects and have been called into question concerning them, I now submit myself to their discipline and save further controversy and tender my resignation and hope for such clemency in my cases they may deem right and just and merciful. And he is eventually excommunicated from the church.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Matthias Cowley, who submits his letter the exact next day, is not excommunicated from the church. I gave a presentation once where I said they were both excommunicated and I had some Matthias Cowley descendants come up and correct me. That was tough, but I don’t want to get him in trouble. This allows Reed Smoot to be seated in the Senate. In fact, a lot of people point out that Reed Smoot doesn’t practice plural marriage.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
One senator from Pennsylvania gets up and points out that some of the men who are accusing Reed Smoot of being a polygamist aren’t faithful to their wives. In fact, he has the classic quote: he says, “I’d rather have seated beside me in this chamber a polygamist who doesn’t ‘polyg’ than a monogamous who doesn’t ‘monog,’” and—

Scott Woodward:  
Wait. So I’ve got to unpack that: So I’d rather be seated next to someone who’s accused of polygamy but who’s actually true to his one wife than someone who claims monogamy but is actually unfaithful to his one wife.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yep.

Scott Woodward:  
These other politicians I’m sitting with.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yep.

Scott Woodward:  
That’s so good.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And this is a big deal because what’s at stake in the Reed Smoot trials is whether a Latter-day Saint can ever be seated in the Senate.

Scott Woodward:  
Mm.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Prior to this time you had B. H. Roberts, who was elected to the House of Representatives. He is a polygamist. He’s not allowed to take his seat. George Q. Cannon was elected as a non-voting representative, wasn’t allowed to take his seat, either. Reed Smoot breaks that barrier, and there we are now, where a couple years ago, a Latter-day Saint man was nominated for President of the United States.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
There’s no barrier anymore.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah. We should probably point out that this is not going to sit well with a certain segment of Latter-day Saints, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Right.

Scott Woodward:  
There’s going to be a group that’s going to break off from the church actually on this. In 1912 a guy named Loren C. Woolley, a member of the church at the time, he purported that there was an 1886 revelation to John Taylor, and they saw that President Woodruff’s manifesto went against that revelation, and so they’re going to make a case in 1912 that Wilfred Woodruff was basically a fallen prophet.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Right.

Scott Woodward:  
And that they were going to continue with the fundamental practice of plural marriage. They’ll call it “the principle.” And so this is where we’re going to get the FLDS church, right? That’s a break off in essentially 1912, the FLDS church, Fundamental Latter-day Saints. And that’s actually interesting and insightful, right? When—you remember when Wilford Woodruff was wrestling as the revelations were coming and the Lord saying, “Think about which one’s better to give up,” right? In other words, which one’s more fundamental: temple practice, the ordinances of the temple, or plural marriage?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Right.

Scott Woodward:  
President Woodruff understood by revelation the temple was more fundamental. But this other group is saying, “What’s fundamental is plural marriage.”

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:  
That’s how we get this break off. And that’s going to lead to the continuation of the practice of plural marriage, even to this day with some groups. And that’s why there’s still rumors that we’re guilty by association with them—they’re FLDS, and we’re LDS. And so many people misunderstand. We would love if that went away.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yep.

Scott Woodward:  
But they head down to a place called Short Creek, down on the border. Is that by Arizona, border of Arizona?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:  
Anyway, that’s a whole ‘nother hour or two hours of discussion of all of that, but I think it’s helpful for our listeners to know that this is where the FLDS Church came from. It was right after this second manifesto. It became very clear that there was no room whatsoever anymore for plural marriage to continue to happen in the church. And so that’s when they made their break.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. And, I mean, these groups coming out of the woodwork in the early 20th century, the First Presidency does issue a statement.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah, explicitly about them.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah, that—one of the things they say is this: “No one better knew the principle regarding authority for the sealing power than President John Taylor, and he would not have attempted to violate it. It’s sacrilege to its memory, the memory of a great and true Latter-day Saint, a prophet of the Lord, that these falsehoods should be broadcast by those who professed to be his friends while he lived.”

Scott Woodward:  
Ooh.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
They also point out that, “At President Taylor’s death the keys of the sealing ordinances,” this is this 1933 First Presidency statement, “with their powers and limitations, passed, by regular devolution in the way and manner prescribed by the Lord and in accordance with the custom of the church, to President Woodruff.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So President Woodruff has the keys that John Taylor had, and he’s the one that gave the declaration, and that’s that.

Scott Woodward:  
Boy, and that’s such an important principle, and maybe this is a good place to land our discussion today is this idea of the keys, and this 1933 statement of the First Presidency, this is—President Heber J. Grant is the president of the church at the time, and this claim that continues to be made that Wilford Woodruff violated John Taylor’s revelation somehow, and—which, by the way, you can look at that revelation. You can find it online, and there’s nothing in there that goes against the manifesto, but that’s the claim they made. But this point about the keys, I think this is the crucial thing, and I try to emphasize this with my students as we’re talking about this principle, just to say, “The key issue in all of this is the key issue, right?”

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yep.

Scott Woodward:  
Plural marriage was begun by Joseph Smith, who was acknowledged explicitly in Section 132 as the one man on earth who held the keys of the kingdom, the keys of the sealing power that can authorize this kind of thing. And then, in 1890, the one man on earth who had the keys of the sealing power, the keys of the kingdom, discontinued the practice.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:  
The key thing is the key thing. In fact, Lorenzo Snow, when he put this in 1890 for the vote of the Latter-day Saints to accept as binding, he said this. Listen to this language. “I move that recognizing Wilford Woodruff as the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the only man on the earth at the present time, who holds the keys of the sealing ordinances, we consider him fully authorized by virtue of his position to issue the manifesto.” So anytime you see someone going against the one that’s got the keys of the ordinances, objecting, rejecting them, calling them fallen prophets, that’s instantly a red flag area.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:  
That 1933 statement from the First Presidency emphasizes keys, I want to count them—1, 2, 3, 4—5 times in just a few paragraphs.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:  
I’ll just read a little bit: “There has been no change in the law of succession of the priesthood and of the keys appertaining thereto, nor the regular order of its descent. President Grant today is the only man on the earth at this time who possesses these keys. He’s never authorized anyone to perform polygamist or plural marriages. He’s not performing such marriages himself. He’s not violating the pledge that we made to our government at the time of the manifesto,” right? So the only one who can authorize or deauthorize, who can commission or decommission the practice of plural marriage, is the one man on earth who holds the keys to the kingdom. And Joseph Smith was authorized to begin it. Wilford Woodruff was authorized to begin its end, and Joseph F. Smith was authorized to officially end it. And Heber J. Grant was authorized to officially say, “No, for reals. For reals. For reals.” The issue is the keys.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:  
And the key holders have been very clear on this. And so if we just keep our eyes riveted on the keys, they might take us on a ride in the 1830s, ’40s, plural marriage might be introduced, but then in the 1890s, we might take a 180-degree turn, and it might be discontinued. And that’s totally fine, because it’s the one who holds the keys who’s doing that.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:  
I think that’s the important principle here for me.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. Challenging issues linked to discipleship, but also a clear thread of the person that has the keys gets the revelation to initiate, end, or whatever with the practice. That’s right. The keys today are with Russell M. Nelson. The sealing keys that were used to seal me to my wife continue on the earth today, and that’s the person that we look towards to get our direction and guidance from Jesus Christ.

Scott Woodward:  
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Tons of stuff, like. Oh my gosh, we’ve done five hours on this. We could probably do 15 hours more, easy, and then keep going. But we thank you for hanging in with us as we’ve discussed this challenging and difficult topic. Look for more resources on doctrineandcovenantscentral.org, and we’ll talk to you next time.

Scott Woodward:  
Thank you for listening to this episode of Church History Matters. Next week we wrap up this series by responding to your questions about plural marriage in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And we will be honored to have with us Dr. Brian Hales as our special guest to help us respond to your questions. He’s a scholar of all things related to plural marriage in the church, and you’re not going to want to miss it. Today’s episode was produced by Scott Woodward and edited by Nick Galieti and Scott Woodward, with show notes and transcript by Gabe Davis. Church History Matters is a podcast of Scripture Central, a nonprofit which exists to help build enduring faith in Jesus Christ by making Latter-day Saint scripture and church history accessible, comprehensible, and defensible to people everywhere. For more resources to enhance your gospel study, go to scripturecentral.org, where everything is available for free because of the generous donations of people like you. Thank you so much for being a part of this with us.