The bipartisan Independent Anti-Mormon Party of Oneida County was a short-lived minor political party in 1870s and 1880s territorial Idaho. The party came to prominence under the leadership of Fred Dubois, a Yale graduate from Illinois, a state that had experienced its own groundswell of anti-Mormonism not 40 years earlier.
The first of several anti-Mormon campaigns in Idaho was sparked by citizens' preference in the Idaho Panhandle, in the state's north and adjacent to Washington, for some kind of boundary reform due to the dominant Democratic Mormon vote in the south. The plan was to create either a new territory combining Washington east of the Cascades and northern Idaho (preferably), to or allow Washington to absorb the panhandle altogether. Southern Idahoans, wishing to keep their state intact, rallied to the anti-Mormon cause by founding a new bipartisan party in 1879 before their combine fell apart the next year. [1]
With northern Idaho having declared its intention to be annexed by Washington, Republican Dubois revived the Independent Anti-Mormon Party of Oneida County. Due to the GOP's slight majority in the territorial legislature in 1884, he and other Republicans were able to form a large enough anti-Mormon caucus to prevent and enact legislation. That same year, the legislature passed a law banning Mormons from holding office. [1] On Feb. 3, 1885, it was extended to prevent Mormons from voting or serving on juries. (Elements of these laws survived until 1982.) [2] That same May, Dubois conducted a raid of the largely Mormon town of Paris, Idaho to enforce the newly passed Test Oath and sentence polygamous men. [3]
Dubois later wrote of his time as U.S. Marshal: "I became absolutely obsessed with the Mormon problem. The government was determined to stamp out polygamy and I felt I was the agent of the government and the people of the United States, and that the duty devolved upon me to see that the laws of the land were obeyed by the Mormon people in respect to their practices." [3]
Though, Dubois' opposition to polygamy seems to have been born out of convenience: "Those of us who really understood the situation were not nearly so much opposed to polygamy as we were the political domination of the church. We realized however that we could not make those who did not come actually in contact with it understand what this political domination meant. We made use of polygamy in consequence as our great weapon." [4]
Mormons did create their own political party for the eight years being, while they were disallowed from politics, in order to combat the statutes.[ clarification needed ] Hostile courts saw to it that their constitutional challenges lost in court, while anti-Mormon Idaho was admitted as the 43rd state to the Union against their wishes in 1890. [1]
While the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints twice condemned polygamy with the Manifesto of 1890 and the Second Manifesto, anti-Mormonism took a back seat to new issues like the debate on free silver and increasingly progressive agendas like conservation. Only Fred Dubois himself would try to revive the movement once more in his second tenure as U.S. Senator, this time as a member of the Democratic Party. Caused in no small part by Dubois' obsession with anti-Mormonism and his involvement with the Reed Smoot hearings, he was soundly defeated by Republican attorney William Borah. Democrats in Idaho didn't recover from their electoral losses that year for over a decade. [5]
Idaho is a landlocked state in the Pacific Northwest subregion of the Western United States. It borders Montana and Wyoming to the east, Nevada and Utah to the south, and Washington and Oregon to the west; it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border to the north, with the province of British Columbia. The state's capital and largest city is Boise. With an area of 83,569 square miles (216,440 km2), Idaho is the 14th largest state by land area. With a population of approximately 1.8 million, it ranks as the 13th least populous and the 7th least densely populated of the 50 U.S. states.
Polygamy was practiced by leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for more than half of the 19th century, and practiced publicly from 1852 to 1890 by between 20 and 30 percent of Latter-day Saint families.
Ezra Taft Benson was an American farmer, government official, and religious leader who served as the 15th United States Secretary of Agriculture during both presidential terms of Dwight D. Eisenhower and as the 13th president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1985 until his death in 1994.
Frank Forrester Church III was an American politician and lawyer. A Democrat, from 1957 to 1981 he served as a U.S. Senator from Idaho, and is currently the last Democrat to do so. He was the longest serving Democratic senator from the state and the only Democrat from the state who served more than two terms in the Senate. He was a prominent figure in American foreign policy and established a reputation as a member of the party's liberal wing.
George Laird Shoup was an American politician who served as the first governor of Idaho, in addition to its last territorial governor. He served several months after statehood in 1890 and then became one of the state's first United States Senators.
William Edgar Borah was an outspoken Republican United States Senator, one of the best-known figures in Idaho's history. A progressive who served from 1907 until his death in 1940, Borah is often considered an isolationist, because he led the Irreconcilables, senators who would not accept the Treaty of Versailles, Senate ratification of which would have made the U.S. part of the League of Nations.
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The Idaho panhandle—locally known as North Idaho, Northern Idaho, or simply the Panhandle—is a salient region of the U.S. state of Idaho encompassing the state's 10 northernmost counties: Benewah, Bonner, Boundary, Clearwater, Idaho, Kootenai, Latah, Lewis, Nez Perce, and Shoshone. The panhandle is bordered by the state of Washington to the west, Montana to the east, and the Canadian province of British Columbia to the north. The Idaho panhandle, along with Eastern Washington, makes up the region known as the Inland Northwest, headed by its largest city, Spokane, Washington.
William John McConnell was the third governor of Idaho from 1893 until 1897. He had previously represented the new state as one of its first United States Senators; Idaho achieved statehood in July 1890.
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Fred Thomas Dubois was a controversial American politician from Idaho who served two terms in the United States Senate. He was best known for his opposition to the gold standard and his efforts to disenfranchise Mormon voters.
The Idaho Democratic Party is the affiliate of the Democratic Party in the U.S. state of Idaho.
William Malcolm Bunn was an American newspaperman and Governor of Idaho Territory from 1884 to 1885. He began his political career holding a series of local and state offices while serving as a member of a local political machine. After purchasing a Philadelphia newspaper, he traded positive coverage for political favors. At the same time Bunn cultivated an active social life and became known for his after dinner speeches. During his tenure as governor, Bunn was caught between competing factions within his party fighting over polygamy and concerns with the territory's Mormon population.
Possibly as early as the 1830s, followers of the Latter Day Saint movement, were practicing the doctrine of polygamy or "plural marriage". After the death of church founder Joseph Smith, the doctrine was officially announced in Utah Territory in 1852 by Mormon leader Brigham Young. The practice was attributed posthumously to Smith and it began among Mormons at large, principally in Utah where the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had relocated after the Illinois Mormon War.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and a topical guide to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Early in its history, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had a series of negative encounters with the federal government of the United States. This led to decades of mistrust, armed conflict, and the eventual disincorporation of the church by an act of the United States Congress. The relationship between the church and the government eventually improved, and in recent times LDS Church members have served in leadership positions in Congress and held other important political offices. The LDS Church becomes involved in political matters if it perceives that there is a moral issue at stake and wields considerable influence on a national level with over a dozen members of Congress having membership in the church in the early 2000s, and about 80% of Utah state lawmakers identifying as LDS.
The 1900 United States presidential election in Utah took place on November 6, 1900, as part of the 1900 United States presidential election held in each of the forty-five contemporary states. State voters chose three representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
The 1896 United States presidential election in Idaho took place on November 3, 1896. All contemporary 45 states were part of the 1896 United States presidential election. State voters chose three electors to the Electoral College, which selected the president and vice president.
The 1936 Idaho gubernatorial election was held on November 3. Vying for an open seat, Democratic nominee Barzilla Clark defeated Republican nominee Frank Stephan with 57.19% of the vote.
The 1934 Idaho gubernatorial election was held on November 6. Incumbent Democrat C. Ben Ross defeated Republican nominee Frank Stephan with 54.58% of the vote.
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