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The "Second Manifesto" was a 1904 declaration made by Joseph F. Smith, the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), in which Smith stated the church was no longer sanctioning marriages that violated the laws of the land and set down the principle that those entering into or solemnizing polygamous marriages would be excommunicated from the church. [1]
In 1890, church president Wilford Woodruff had issued the initial Manifesto, in which he suspended the LDS Church's long-standing practice of plural marriage. However, after the Manifesto, it became clear that a number of church members, including members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, were continuing to enter into or solemnize polygamous marriages. [2] [3] [4] Smith issued the Second Manifesto near the beginning of the Reed Smoot hearings, United States Congressional hearings into whether LDS Church apostle Reed Smoot should be permitted to sit as a United States senator from Utah; Smoot's opponents alleged that the LDS Church hierarchy's continued tolerance or encouragement of plural marriage should exclude Smoot from sitting in the Senate.
The "Second Manifesto" was announced at the general conference of the church held on April 6, 1904. At a public meeting, Smith announced that he would like to read an "official statement" that he had prepared so that his words "may not be misunderstood or misquoted". Smith read:
Inasmuch as there are numerous reports in circulation that plural marriages have been entered into, contrary to the official declaration of President Woodruff of September 24, 1890, commonly called the manifesto, which was issued by President Woodruff, and adopted by the Church at its general conference, October 6, 1890, which forbade any marriages violative of the law of the land, I, Joseph F. Smith, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, hereby affirm and declare that no such marriages have been solemnized with the sanction, consent, or knowledge of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
And I hereby announce that all such marriages are prohibited, and if any officer or member of the Church shall assume to solemnize or enter into any such marriage, he will be deemed in transgression against the Church, and will be liable to be dealt with according to the rules and regulations thereof and excommunicated therefrom.
Joseph F. Smith,
President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. [5]
Francis M. Lyman, president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, then presented the following resolution of endorsement, which was seconded by B. H. Roberts and accepted unanimously by those in attendance at the conference:
Resolved that we, the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in General Conference assembled, hereby approve and endorse the statement and declaration of President Joseph F. Smith just made to this Conference concerning plural marriages, and will support the courts of the Church in the enforcement thereof. [6]
Smith's official statement was later published in the Improvement Era , an official magazine of the church. [1]
A number of church leaders were opposed to the enforcement of the so-called "second manifesto", including apostles John W. Taylor and Matthias F. Cowley. As a result of their opposition, both were pressured to resign from the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1905. In 1911 Taylor was excommunicated for continued opposition. [7] In 1909, Francis M. Lyman chaired a church committee to investigate plural marriages since the so-called "second manifesto" mandated excommunication for members who enter new plural marriages. [8] Although the so-called "second manifesto" more harshly ended the official recognition of new plural marriages, existing plural marriages were not automatically dissolved. Many Mormons, including prominent church leaders, maintained plural marriages into the 1940s and 1950s. [9]
As the church began to excommunicate those who continued to enter into or advocate plural marriages, some of those individuals began the Mormon fundamentalist movement. Many such dissidents were motivated by the belief that it was improper for the church to ban plural marriage, which they saw as an "eternal commandment", while others pointed out that neither the original nor the second so called "manifestos" were presented as revelations from God, as previous statements of important church doctrine had been. [10]
Unlike the 1890 Manifesto, [11] [12] [13] the LDS Church has not canonized the so-called "second manifesto" by printing it in the appendix of the Doctrine and Covenants as an "official declaration". However the so-called "second manifesto" remains an accurate description of the church's attitude towards its members who enter into, solemnize, or support polygamous marriages.
Those involved in plural marriages after 1904 were excommunicated; and those married between 1890 and 1904 were not to have church callings where other members would have to sustain them. Although the Mormon church officially prohibited new plural marriages after 1904, many plural husbands and wives continued to cohabit until their deaths in the 1940s and 1950s.
The history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is typically divided into three broad time periods:
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.
Reed Smoot was an American politician, businessman, and apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. First elected by the Utah State Legislature to the U.S. Senate in 1902, he served as a Republican senator from 1903 to 1933. From his time in the Senate, Smoot is primarily remembered as the co-sponsor of the 1930 Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act, which increased almost 900 American import duties. Criticized at the time as having "intensified nationalism all over the world" by Thomas Lamont of J.P. Morgan & Co., Smoot–Hawley is widely regarded as one of the catalysts for the worsening Great Depression.
Wilford Woodruff Sr. was an American religious leader who served as the fourth president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1889 until his death. He ended the public practice of plural marriage among members of the LDS Church in 1890.
Mormon fundamentalism is a belief in the validity of selected fundamental aspects of Mormonism as taught and practiced in the nineteenth century, particularly during the administrations of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and John Taylor, the first three presidents of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Mormon fundamentalists seek to uphold tenets and practices no longer held by mainstream Mormons. The principle most often associated with Mormon fundamentalism is plural marriage, a form of polygyny first taught in the Latter Day Saint movement by the movement's founder, Smith. A second and closely associated principle is that of the United Order, a form of egalitarian communalism. Mormon fundamentalists believe that these and other principles were wrongly abandoned or changed by the LDS Church in its efforts to become reconciled with mainstream American society. Today, the LDS Church excommunicates any of its members who practice plural marriage or who otherwise closely associate themselves with Mormon fundamentalist practices.
Joseph Fielding Smith Sr. was an American religious leader who served as the sixth president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was the nephew of Joseph Smith, the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, and was the last president of the LDS Church to have known him personally.
John Whittaker Taylor was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and was the son of John Taylor, the third president of the church. While he was an apostle, Taylor was excommunicated from the LDS Church for opposing the church's abandonment of plural marriage. He was subsequently posthumously re-baptized in 1965.
Abraham Owen Woodruff was an American missionary who was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was also the son of LDS Church president Wilford Woodruff.
Richard Roswell Lyman was an American engineer and religious leader who was an apostle in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1918 to 1943.
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."
Abraham Hoagland Cannon was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Matthias Foss Cowley was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1897 until 1905. He resigned from the Quorum of the Twelve due to his unwillingness to support the church's abolition of plural marriage. He and John W. Taylor are the most recent apostles of the LDS Church to have resigned from their positions.
This is a timeline of major events in Mormonism in the 20th century.
The Reed Smoot hearings, also called Smoot hearings or the Smoot Case, were a series of Congressional hearings on whether the United States Senate should seat U.S. Senator Reed Smoot, who was elected by the Utah legislature in 1903. Smoot was an apostle in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, one of the top 15 leaders of the church. The hearings began in 1904 and continued until 1907, when the Senate voted. The vote fell short of a two-thirds majority needed to expel a member so he retained his seat.
The Mormon colonies in Mexico are settlements located near the Sierra Madre mountains in northern Mexico which were established by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints beginning in 1885. The colonists came to Mexico due to federal attempts to curb and prosecute polygamy in the United States. Plural marriage, as polygamous relationships were called by church members, was an important tenet of the church—although it was never practiced by a majority of the membership.
Lorin Calvin Woolley was an American proponent of plural marriage and one of the founders of the Mormon fundamentalist movement. As a young man in Utah Territory, Woolley served as a courier and bodyguard for polygamous leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in hiding during the federal crusade against polygamy. His career as a religious leader in his own right commenced in the early twentieth century, when he began claiming to have been set apart to keep plural marriage alive by church president John Taylor in connection with the 1886 Revelation. Woolley's distinctive teachings on authority, morality, and doctrine are thought to provide the theological foundation for nearly ninety percent of Mormon fundamentalist groups.
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.
Joseph Smith, the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, privately taught and practiced polygamy. After Smith's death in 1844, the church he established splintered into several competing groups. Disagreement over Smith's doctrine of "plural marriage" has been among the primary reasons for multiple church schisms.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and a topical guide to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
