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?...
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 ...
Here, Sarah Gordon tells the stories of passionate believers who turned to the law and the courts to facilitate a diversity of spiritual practice. Legal deicisions revealed the exquisite difficulty of gauging where religion ends and government begins.
Here, Sarah Gordon tells the stories of passionate believers who turned to the law and the courts to facilitate a diversity of spiritual practice. Leg...
