The Split Spills Into Politics

The LDS Church's abandonment of plural marriage in 1890 may be the most recognized milestone in the faith's relations with the outsiders they once called "gentiles." But it wasn't the only one, or necessarily the most important.

The year before, under intense federal pressure, LDS leaders publicly renounced their long-held belief that the church was "an independent, temporal kingdom of God."

"Polygamy died with a bang, the political kingdom of God with a whimper," historian Klaus J. Hansen wrote.

During the 40 years after Brigham Young brought the Saints to "the tops of the mountains," polygamy was the rhetorical cudgel used by the church's enemies at home and in Congress to inflame anti-Mormon sentiment.

But long before that, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints stood accused of being "un-American" for its refusal to separate politics, education and business from religion. All were one in the Mormon Kingdom of God.

The Mormons' renunciation of American pluralism not only fueled the persecutions that drove them westward, but it also placed them at bitter odds with the federal government soon after Utah became a federal territory in 1850. The next year, four federal appointees fled the territory, their efforts to perform their duties frustrated at every turn by Young and his shadow government. They were the first of at least 16 federal officials to prematurely abandon their posts during the next 12 years.

"Let them send who they will, and it does not diminish my influence one particle," Young said.

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