| 572 to issue licenses to the general officers of the church; that there be appointed a Secretary of the Church of Jesus
them husband and wife,' in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by virtue of the laws of the country and authority vested in him."
The claim put forth by the advocates of polygamy that a subsequent revelation authorizes the practice of polygamy, is rendered invalid by the law of the church in Book of Covenants, section 27, paragraph 4 (old ed. see. 51), which reads: "Neither shall anything be appointed unto any of this church contrary to the church covenants, for all things must be done in order and by common consent in the church."
That polygamy could not become a tenet of the church while the church existed in the several states of the union, is plainly indicated by a clause of the law governing the church from an early day, which reads: "Let no man break the laws of the land; for he that keepeth the laws of God hath no need to break the laws of the land." Book of Covenants, section 58, paragraph 5 (old ed. sec. 18).
In a careful examination of the publications of the gospel church from its earliest existence to the present time, your memorialists have not found one single clause authorizing, justifying, or even permitting polygamy. The New Testament; the Book of Mormon; the Book of Covenants; the standard works of the Latter Day Saints' Church; the periodicals of the church, embracing the Evening and Morning Star, the Messenger and Advocate, the Gospel Reflector, the Nauvoo Neighbor, the Times and Seasons, published in America; and the Millennial Star, published in England, are all silent on the question of polygamy, except wherein they refer to it historically, or to condemn either impliedly or directly its practice. The scriptures are opposed to it, and the works published in the church of Latter Day Saints most unqualifiedly condemn it. Not even the body that now practices and teaches polygamy made any public profession of it till the year 1851, and not officially to the outside world before 1852.
Four months before the death of Joseph Smith, and seven months after polygamists date the receiving of a revelation which they assert came through him, authorizing polygamy, this same Joseph Smith published in the Times and Seasons a notice of the excommunication of a man for "preaching polygamy and other false and corrupt doctrines in the county of Lapeer, State of Michigan," in the following terse language: "This is to notify him and the church in general that he has been out cut from the church for his iniquity, and he is further notified to appear at the special conference on the 6th of April next to answer to these charges." (Signed) Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith, Presidents of said Church. This expulsion, we submit, could not have taken place had polygamy been made a church tenet seven months previously.
In addition to this, Mr. John Taylor, now one of the apostles of the polygamic doctrine, in a public discussion held in Boulogne, France, July 11, 1850, impliedly denied the doctrine of polygamy and condemned it in the following language: "We are accused here of polygamy, and actions the most indelicate, obscene, and disgusting, such that none but a corrupt and depraved heart could have contrived." (Taylor's Discussion, p. 8.)
We, your memorialists, would therefore submit for the consideration of Congress in its action on the Utah question, and in its legislation on the question of the right of Congress to interfere with polygamy as being a part of the faith of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints:-
1. That the law of the church found in the Bible, the Book of Mormon,
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