From the Mormon Church's public announcement of its sanction of
polygamy in 1852 until its formal decision to abandon the practice
in 1890, people on both sides of the "Mormon question" debated
central questions of constitutional law. Did principles of
religious freedom and local self-government protect Mormons' claim
to a distinct, religiously based legal order? Or was polygamy, as
its opponents claimed, a new form of slavery--this time for white
women in Utah? And did constitutional principles dictate that
democracy and true liberty were founded on separation of church and
state?
As Sarah Barringer Gordon shows, the answers to these questions
finally yielded an apparent victory for antipolygamists in the late
nineteenth century, but only after decades of argument, litigation,
and open conflict. Victory came at a price; as attention and
national resources poured into Utah in the late 1870s and 1880s,
antipolygamists turned more and more to coercion and punishment in
the name of freedom. They also left a legacy in constitutional law
and political theory that still governs our treatment of religious
life: Americans are free to believe, but they may well not be free
to act on their beliefs.