The political irrelevance of anti-Mormonism

Political anti-Mormonism was a real force in late nineteenth-century America. Commentators across the country denounced Mormonism as “the octopus of our political life” and as being distinctly “un-American.” Every level of the federal government weighed in. The Supreme Court ruled against Mormon polygamy in the Reynolds v. U.S. decision in 1879, and Congress passed anti-polygamy legislation in 1862, 1874, 1882, and 1887, all of which was accompanied with strident anti-Mormon sentiment. Anti-Mormonism also captivated the White House, as every president from Rutherford B. Hayes to Grover Cleveland made specific denunciations of Mormons and Mormonism, often in their annual addresses to Congress. In his annual address in 1881, Chester Arthur noted that the expansion of Mormonism “imposes upon Congress and the Executive the duty of arraying against this barbarous system all the power which under the Constitution and the law they can wield for its destruction.” That is what political anti-Mormonism looks like.

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