The Liberal Party believed the economic future of Utah Territory lay in mining, and Utah miners, typically non-Mormon, often became key Liberal Party voters.
The Liberal Party formed in 1870 to oppose The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the LDS Church; popularly known as the "Mormons"), which dominated local politics via the People's Party. The Liberal Party thus represented opposition to government controlled by organized religious groups.
Though vastly outnumbered, the Liberal Party offered an opposing voice and won several local elections. Anti-Mormonism remained a central theme of the party until it disbanded in 1893 and became absorbed by the national parties.
Origins
The impetus for the setting up of the Liberal Party came from William S. Godbe, a successful businessman and Latter-day Saint who founded a journal called Utah Magazine in 1868. Godbe and several business associates challenged the economic policies of LDS Church President Brigham Young in the monthly periodical, especially Young's opposition to mining. When increasingly harsh condemnations aimed at LDS leadership appeared, the LDS Church excommunicated key "Godbeites" on October 25, 1869.
Corresponding during the winter, key Godbeites and non-Mormons made an uneasy alliance based on their shared opposition to LDS control over temporal matters in the territory.
The Deseret Evening News, owned by the LDS Church, served as the de factoPeople's Party organ and regularly denounced the Liberal Party in its pages.
The Liberal Party formed after a meeting on February 9, 1870 to select independent candidates for the Salt Lake Citymunicipal election. The organizers billed the occasion as a meeting of the "people." A crowd of Latter-day Saints, encouraged by local bishops and a Deseret Evening News editorial, attended in numbers and nearly hijacked the meeting. After the LDS crowd had selected its own slate of candidates, frustrated Godbeite Eli B. Kelsey asked the Mormons to leave, which they did. The remaining non-Mormons selected an independent municipal ticket, forming the Liberal Party. Liberal leaders intended that their party's name suggest reform and evoke Britain's Liberal Party.
In response, Latter-day Saints formed the People's Party, a title that was selected to suggest popularity; it alluded to the Liberal Party's disrupted meeting of "the people". Latter-day Saints had previously won virtually all elections unchallenged.
Early Liberal Party speakers carefully avoided condemning LDS theology or polygamy, because several Godbeites themselves practised polygamy. Eli B. Kelsey and Henry W. Lawrence, both Godbeites, gained election as the first officers of the new party. Non-Mormons, including R. N. Baskin, George R. Maxwell, and Judge Dennis Toohy of Corinne, played an active role in the party but stayed in the background initially, hoping that ex-Mormon Godbeites would prove more effective leaders and candidates.
Godbeites believed they should reform Utah and the LDS Church to adopt more politically-progressive policies, but the non-Mormon element of the party took a more adversarial line. Non-Mormon partisans, especially miners and railroad workers, would increasingly dominate party leadership. Through the 1870s, the Liberal Party grew less appeasing of Godbeites and more openly anti-Mormon and anti-polygamy. Waning Godbeite influence was shown even by 1871, when Liberals Dennis Toohy and George R. Maxwell infuriated Godbeites at a party meeting by calling polygamists "dupes" and criminals of perverse sensuality.
Like many political parties of the time, the Liberal Party ran a newspaper although unofficially. Godbe's Utah Magazine became the Mormon Weekly Tribune and in 1873, three anti-Mormon newcomers from Kansas bought it and it became The Salt Lake Tribune. Until the Liberal Party disbanded in 1893, the Tribune would operate as the Liberal Party's de facto political organ. Similarly, the Deseret Evening News, owned by the LDS Church, often functioned as a People's Party organ.
History
The Old Tooele County Courthouse, the site of the contentious Tooele Republic power struggle in 1874
Unsurprisingly, the Liberal Party performed poorly against the Mormon majority. In the 1870 Salt Lake City mayoral race, Liberal Henry W. Lawrence lost to Daniel H. Wells 321 to 2301. Statewide contests produced even more lopsided figures, with Liberals regularly failing to garner 10% of the vote. Although Liberals never won a single statewide office, the party served as a political foil and won several local elections, including:
When the party first formed in 1870, party officials tried to win offices in the town of Corrine and reasoned that they could more readily overwhelm the small local population. They failed but continued to scout other promising areas.
In Tooele County, perhaps the only non-Mormon majority in the territory existed. Its residents, mostly transitory miners, congregated in Utah after US Army General Patrick Edward Connor encouraged his men to prospect for minerals, which they discovered west of Salt Lake City in 1864.
The Liberal Party, campaigning voraciously in mining towns, won a disputed election in August 1874. The People's Party incumbents, citing fraud, refused to yield their positions even as US Marshals authorized by the 3rd District federal court attempted to intervene and install the Liberal candidates. Brigham Young advised his followers to abide by the federal court, which they finally did.
Liberals carried all offices in the county, which they called the Tooele Republic. Running unopposed in 1876, Liberals held the county until the Utah territorial legislature passed bills in 1878 that required voter registration and instituting women's suffrage. The Liberal Party, typically supported by male miners casually interested in politics, opposed both measures. In 1878 the Liberal electoral majority in Tooele County disappeared, and the People's Party regained control in 1879, after more than six months of Liberal procedural delays.
By 1880, the Liberal Party had become severely atrophied, but it was openly supported by the newly appointed strongly anti-Mormon territorial governor, Eli H. Murray. Thus, the 1880 statewide election for the US House of Representatives unexpectedly proved the closest that the Liberal Party got to sending a representative to Washington, DC.
The Liberal candidate, Allen G. Campbell, with 1357 votes, lost resoundingly to Mormon General AuthorityGeorge Q. Cannon who had 18,567 votes. In fact, the election marked the all-time low percentage-wise showing for any Liberal House candidate. However, before Governor Murray certified the election, a protest on behalf of Campbell was filed. The protest listed a dozen claims, chiefly that Cannon, born in Liverpool, England; was not a naturalizedalien, and was a polygamist, which was incompatible with the law and a delegate's oath of office. Murray agreed, and issued certification to Campbell in spite of the latter's poor showing.
George Q. Cannon, then in Washington, DC, argued that only Congress could decide on a member's qualifications. He furthermore received a certificate from sympathetic territorial election officials that stated he had received the most votes. The document convinced the House of Representatives clerk to enter Cannon's name on the roll and so Cannon began drawing delegate's salary.
Both Murray and Campbell traveled to Washington to dispute the seat. Each side battled over the position for over a year even despite the assassination and eventual death of PresidentJames Garfield. On February 25, 1882, the House of Representatives finally rejected both candidates. The House refused Cannon his seat not for his dubious citizenship but for his practice of polygamy.[1] The entire ordeal actually brought unfavorable national attention to the "Mormon Situation" on polygamy.
In a November 7, 1882 election to fill the vacated seat, the Liberal Party fielded Philip T. Van Zile, but the seat was ultimately won by John T. Caine, of the People's Party.[2] Of the 33,266 registered voters, 23,039 votes were cast for Caine, and Van Zile received 4884. About 12,000 people were excluded from registering based on suspicion of polygamy.[3]
National outrage against polygamy benefited the Liberal Party in Utah. On March 23, 1882, the anti-polygamy Edmunds Act became law. The even stronger Edmunds-Tucker Act, was enacted on March 3, 1887. Among other things, the acts required candidates and prospective voters to submit to an anti-polygamy oath. Enforcement of these bills furthermore put significant numbers of Latter-day Saint polygamists into federal prisons, including one built in Sugar House specifically for that purpose. The measures, which often brought punishment on anyone unwilling to take the oath, intimidated and decimated the Latter-day Saint voter pool.
The Salt Lake Tribune triumphantly declares Liberal Party victory in Salt Lake City.
The Liberal Party swept the city government of Ogden, Utah in 1889 but did not succeed in carrying the Weber County government. In 1890, the Liberal Party took Salt Lake City, and George M. Scott became the first non-Mormon mayor of Salt Lake, by a margin of 808 votes. Two years later, long-time Liberal stalwart R. N. Baskin became mayor on a "fusion ticket" between moderate Liberals and elements of the old People's Party.
Propelled by success in Salt Lake City and Ogden, the Liberal Party won a third of the Utah territorial legislature in the August 1891 election. That election proved particularly notable, as the People's Party had disbanded just prior to the election and urged all members to join national parties. Thus, non-Mormon Liberals ran (and several won) against mostly-Mormon Democrats and Republicans.
Disbanding
However, the Liberal Party had reached its twilight. In September 1890, the LDS Church issued the so-called 1890 Manifesto, which promised to end the practice of polygamy. The national support that the Liberals previously enjoyed for opposing polygamy in Utah thus disappeared. In 1893, all polygamists were given executive pardon, and statehood for Utah seemed imminent. Polygamy, often the focus of Liberal scorn, made the party irrelevant when Mormons abandoned the practice.
Following the lead of the People's Party 18 months earlier, most members of the Liberal Party joined national parties in early 1893 in anticipation of Utah statehood.
On January 4, 1896, Utah became the 45th state in the Union. Former Liberals continued to be involved in politics, and most of the Mormon majority continued to view them unfavorably.
The Deseret Evening News and other LDS papers characterized Liberal Party governments as wasteful. The party outspent revenue in Tooele, Ogden, and Salt Lake City, accumulating relatively large public debts. However, the Liberal Party characterized its expenditures as essential for civic improvements. In Salt Lake City, the Liberals constructed the city's first sewer, called the "gravity sewer," which the Deseret News characterized as graft. The Salt Lake Liberals also constructed an ornate and expensive joint Salt Lake City and County Building. Former Liberals such as Baskin defended the reputation and legacy of the Liberal Party well into the 20th century.
The Salt Lake City Council Hall is currently home to offices of the Utah Office of Tourism and the Utah Film Commission and is located on Capitol Hill in Salt Lake City, Utah. Built in 1864-66, the building is historically important as the Old Salt Lake City Hall or just Old City Hall from 1866 to 1894. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1975, as an emblem of the conflicts between the governments of the Utah Territory and the United States in the 19th century.
George Quayle Cannon was an early member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and served in the First Presidency under four successive presidents of the church: Brigham Young, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, and Lorenzo Snow. He was the church's chief political strategist, and was dubbed "the Mormon premier" and "the Mormon Richelieu" by the press. He was also a five-time Utah territorial delegate to the U.S. Congress.
The 1890 Manifesto is a statement which officially advised against any future plural marriage in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Issued by church president Wilford Woodruff in September 1890, the Manifesto was a response to mounting anti-polygamy pressure from the United States Congress, which by 1890 had disincorporated the church, escheated its assets to the U.S. federal government, and imprisoned many prominent polygamist Mormons. Upon its issuance, the LDS Church in conference accepted Woodruff's Manifesto as "authoritative and binding."
The People's Party was a political party in Utah Territory during the late 19th century. It was backed by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its newspaper, the Deseret News. It opposed Utah's Liberal Party.
William Samuel Godbe was a British convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He is remembered for leading a Mormon faction called the Church of Zion, better known as the "Godbeites".
The Godbeites were members of the Godbeite Church, officially called the Church of Zion, organized in 1870 by William S. Godbe. This dissident offshoot of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was aimed toward embracing all belief systems. Known for embracing spiritualism and mysticism, the church died out by the 1880s.
Martha Maria "Mattie" Hughes Cannon was a Utah State Senator, physician, Utah women's rights advocate, suffragist, polygamous wife, and a Welsh-born immigrant to the United States. Her family immigrated to the United States as converts to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and traveled West to settle in Utah territory with other Saints. She started working at the age of fourteen. At sixteen she enrolled in the University of Deseret, now called the University of Utah, receiving a Bachelors in Chemistry. From there she attended the University of Michigan and received her MD. She became the fourth of six wives in a polygamous marriage to Angus M. Cannon, a prominent Latter-day Saint leader during the anti-polygamy crusade. Cannon exiled herself to Europe so she wouldn't have to testify against her husband. Upon returning to Utah, Cannon worked as a doctor and fought for women's rights. She helped put women enfranchisement into Utah's constitution when it was granted statehood in 1896. On November 3, 1896 Cannon became the first female State Senator elected in the United States, defeating her own husband, who was also on the ballot. Martha Hughes Cannon was the author of Utah sanitation laws and was a founder and member of Utah's first State Board of Health.
Angus Munn Cannon was an early Latter Day Saint leader and Mormon pioneer.
The Edmunds Act, also known as the Edmunds Anti-Polygamy Act of 1882, is a United States federal statute, signed into law on March 23, 1882 by President Chester A. Arthur, declaring polygamy a felony in federal territories. The act is named for U.S. Senator George F. Edmunds of Vermont. The Edmunds Act also prohibited "bigamous" or "unlawful cohabitation", thus removing the need to prove that actual marriages had occurred. The act not only reinforced the 1862 Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act but also made the offense of unlawful cohabitation much easier to prove than polygamy misdemeanor and made it illegal for polygamists or cohabitants to vote, hold public office, or serve on juries in federal territories.
George Darling Watt was the first convert to Mormonism baptized in the British Isles. As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Watt was a secretary to Brigham Young, the primary editor of the Journal of Discourses and the primary inventor of the Deseret Alphabet.
The Short Creek raid was an Arizona Department of Public Safety and Arizona National Guard action against Mormon fundamentalists that took place on the morning of July 26, 1953, at Short Creek, Arizona. The Short Creek raid was the largest mass arrest of polygamists in American history. At the time, it was described as "the largest mass arrest of men and women in modern American history."
Edward Wheelock Tullidge was a literary critic, newspaper editor, playwright, and historian of the Utah Territory. During his life he was a member and leader in several different denominations of the Latter Day Saint Movement, including the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the New Movement (Godbeite) movement, and the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He played a significant role in the creation of the Salt Lake Tribune.
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.
Women's suffrage in Utah was first granted in 1870, in the pre-federal period, decades before statehood. Among all U.S. states, only Wyoming granted suffrage to women earlier than Utah. Because Utah held two elections before Wyoming, Utah women were the first women to cast ballots in the United States after the start of the suffrage movement. However, in 1887 the Edmunds–Tucker Act was passed by Congress in an effort to curtail Mormon influence in the territorial government, disallowing the enfranchisement of the women residents within Utah Territory.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Utah refers to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its members in Utah. Utah has more church members than any other U.S. state or country. The LDS Church is also the largest denomination in Utah.
The American Party was a political party in Utah from 1904 to 1911. It was designed to counter the influence of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Utah politics and is often described as an anti-Mormon party.
Elias Lacy Thomas Harrison was an architect and writer in Salt Lake City, Utah, who became important in the history of Utah and the Latter Day Saint movement.
Thomas Brown Holmes Stenhouse was an early Mormon pioneer and missionary who later became a Godbeite and with his wife, Fanny Stenhouse, became a vocal opponent of 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 United States federal government. 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 Latter-day Saints.
Charlotte Ives Cobb Kirby was an influential and radical women's rights activist and temperance advocate in the state of Utah as well as a well-known national figure. Charlotte was born in Massachusetts and at six-years old moved to Utah with her mother as new members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, her mother later becoming Brigham Young's fifth plural wife. Charlotte, previously a plural wife herself, spoke out against polygamy and gained much opposition from polygamous women suffragists because of it. Her first marriage was to William S. Godbe, the leader of the Godbeite offshoot from the LDS Church. After divorcing Godbe, Kirby married John Kirby, a non-LDS man, and they were together until Charlotte's death in 1908. Charlotte was a leading figure of the Utah Territory Woman Suffrage Association, and served as a correspondent to the government and other suffragist organizations, including the National Women's Suffrage Association. Charlotte often traveled to the East Coast to deliver lectures regarding women's rights and temperance, the first Utah woman and the first woman with voting rights to speak to national suffragist audiences. Charlotte Ives Cobb Kirby died on January 24, 1908, at age 71 in Salt Lake City, Utah.
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