{"id":160,"date":"2009-06-01T12:30:38","date_gmt":"2009-06-01T12:30:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/mormoninquiry\/2009\/06\/lincoln-douglas-and-the-mormon.html"},"modified":"2009-06-01T12:30:38","modified_gmt":"2009-06-01T12:30:38","slug":"lincoln-douglas-and-the-mormon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mormoninquiry\/2009\/06\/lincoln-douglas-and-the-mormon.html","title":{"rendered":"Lincoln, Douglas, and &#8216;the Mormon Problem&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Mormon Times reports on <a href=\"http:\/\/mormontimes.com\/studies_doctrine\/research_discoveries\/?id=8060\">the remarks of historian William P. MacKinnon<\/a> at the recent MHA meetings. MacKinnon summarized his paper, &#8220;Stephen A. Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, and the Mormon Problem: The 1857 Debate.&#8221; Relying on what he admitted to be &#8220;rumors and reports,&#8221; Douglas supported the use of military force to &#8220;to remove Brigham Young and all his followers from office.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>In his own remarks, Lincoln did not provide his own answer to &#8220;the Mormon Problem,&#8221; but criticized Douglas. Keep in mind that Douglas&#8217;s proposed solution to the vexing slavery question was <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Stephen_A._Douglas\">popular sovereignty<\/a>: let the voters of the state or territory in question decide to permit or bar slavery. So here was the tricky question the canny Lincoln posed to Douglas: &#8220;If the people of Utah shall peacefully form a state constitution tolerating polygamy, will the democracy admit them into the Union? These questions, so far as I know, (Douglas) never answers. It might require democracy to answer them either way.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In the end it was democracy that ended the slavery question, in the form of the 13th Amendment: &#8220;Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.&#8221; Ending polygamy wasn&#8217;t quite so simple.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Mormon Times reports on the remarks of historian William P. MacKinnon at the recent MHA meetings. MacKinnon summarized his paper, &#8220;Stephen A. Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, and the Mormon Problem: The 1857 Debate.&#8221; Relying on what he admitted to be &#8220;rumors and reports,&#8221; Douglas supported the use of military force to &#8220;to remove Brigham Young&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":173,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lds-history"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Lincoln, Douglas, and &#039;the Mormon Problem&#039; - Mormon Inquiry<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mormoninquiry\/2009\/06\/lincoln-douglas-and-the-mormon.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lincoln, Douglas, and &#039;the Mormon Problem&#039; - Mormon Inquiry\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Mormon Times reports on the remarks of historian William P. MacKinnon at the recent MHA meetings. MacKinnon summarized his paper, &#8220;Stephen A. Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, and the Mormon Problem: The 1857 Debate.&#8221; Relying on what he admitted to be &#8220;rumors and reports,&#8221; Douglas supported the use of military force to &#8220;to remove Brigham Young&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mormoninquiry\/2009\/06\/lincoln-douglas-and-the-mormon.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Mormon Inquiry\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-06-01T12:30:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dave Banack\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Lincoln, Douglas, and 'the Mormon Problem' - Mormon Inquiry","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mormoninquiry\/2009\/06\/lincoln-douglas-and-the-mormon.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Lincoln, Douglas, and 'the Mormon Problem' - Mormon Inquiry","og_description":"The Mormon Times reports on the remarks of historian William P. 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