Okla-homey
2/1/2006, 07:18 AM
February 1, 1885 Mormon president goes underground
On this day 121 years ago, John Taylor, then president of the Mormon Church, goes "underground" to avoid arrest and continue resisting federal demands for reforms within the community of his Latter-Day Saints.
http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/485/johntaylor2zm.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
3d "Prophet, Seer, Revelator, and President" John Taylor
Born in 1808 in England. Entered Canada in 1832, became a Mormon in 1836. With Parley Pratt, he led 1,500 converts to the Salt Lake Valley in 1847. Associate Judge, Provisional State of Deseret, 1849. Member, Utah Territorial House of Representatives, 1857-1876 (Speaker, 1857-1876). Utah Superintendent of Schools, 1877. Senior Apostle, 1877-1880. 3rd Prophet, Seer, Revelator, and President, 1880. Seven wives and 35 children. Died in hiding.
http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/4923/john20taylor20sij00013mp.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
A former Methodist minister, Taylor converted to Mormonism in 1836, not long after Joseph Smith founded the religion in New York. Taylor quickly became one of Smith's closest confidants and supporters, and he remained loyal to the controversial prophet and his church through years of persecution.
http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/4381/josephsmith4nz.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Joseph Smith, founder of the faith
When Smith was murdered in Illinois in 1844 by an angry mob, Taylor was by his side and suffered several wounds during the attack. He escaped serious injury because a heavy pocket watch carried in his waistcoat pocket stopped a potentially fatal bullet.
http://img56.imageshack.us/img56/5720/jbrighamyoung7fv.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Brigham Young, inherited church leadership from Smith. Speculation he was complicit in Smith's murder has abounded since the day Smith was shot. Nevertheless, the guy was a very effective leader and was persuasive enough to talk hundreds of thousands to sell everything and move out into the middle of the Utah desert to build a new Jerusalem.
After Smith's death, Taylor became an equally loyal follower of the new church president, Brigham Young. Taylor led one group of Mormon emigrants westward to Salt Lake City where Young was building a thriving theocratic empire in the desert. In Utah, he continued to ascend in the church hierarchy, and when Young died in 1877, Taylor took over leadership of the church.
Taylor's tenure as the leader of the Latter-day Saints was marked by growing tensions between the church and the federal government. The Mormon practice of polygamy became a lightning rod for federal criticism, yet this issue reflected a larger struggle regarding the church's power over its members and the future state of Utah.
http://img392.imageshack.us/img392/9990/john20taylor6uw.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
John Taylor as church president.
Although the Mormons treasured the freedom to develop their new society free from outside interference, they also sought the benefits of being a part of the United States. Inevitably, these two goals conflicted. In 1851, the Mormons won territorial status for Utah, but the government remained suspicious of Taylor's theocratic society.
http://img78.imageshack.us/img78/632/slcmormontempel1rv.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
The Temple in Salt Lake. Note the absence of crosses.
To the federal government, the Mormon political and economic domination of the region violated the separation of church and state. Additionally, most people considered Mormons a bizarre sect and frankly feared their polygamy and socialist approach to building their desert empire. By attacking polygamy, federal authorities hoped they could also undermine the secular power of the church since all the church leaders had multiple wives.
Taylor strongly opposed the federal attempts to undermine the Mormon theocracy. He believed the practice of polygamy was divinely ordained and state or federal anti-polygamy laws should not be allowed to prevail. Determined to assert the primacy of national secular law over the Mormon theocracy, U.S. marshals began arresting Mormons for practicing polygamy.
Vulnerable to arrest themselves, Taylor and his leading administrators went underground on February 1, 1885. For the next two-and-a-half years, Taylor conducted church business from a series of secret hideouts in Salt Lake City.
Taylor's underground administration managed to avoid arrest, but the federal actions were steadily undermining church power and influence. Grudgingly, in 1887, Taylor assented to one concession: making polygamy illegal in a proposed Utah state constitution. Congress found Taylor's proposed compromise inadequate and rejected the petition for statehood.
http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/8753/0000117big9tj.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Utah state flag. it features a beehive because early Mormon leadership placed a premium on industriousness and willingness to place individual needs below that of the "hive."
Taylor died that same year, still an exile in his own home. For several more years, the Mormon leadership continued the fight, but federal pressure eventually became so great that in 1890 Taylor's successor publicly rejected polygamy claiming God had changed His mind and told him polygamy was no longer a good thing. The theocratic government of the Latter-day Saints had been tamed on this fundamental tenet of their faith, and Utah achieved statehood in 1896. They held out in their officially stated view that black folks were inherently evil and couldn't be Mormons until well into the 1960's, but changed, at least officially, on that issue too when the political pressure of the civil rights era got too intense.
Perhaps interestingly, this issue of polygamy within the LDS church caused splinter sects to form and there are reputed to be hundreds, if not thousands of people involved in polygamous relationships around the western US, and especially in rural Utah to this day. These people generally espouse the view that the Church sold-out polygamy in order to achieve statehood and therefore went astray. The polygamous types claim therefore that theirs is the purer, or indeed only pure, strain of Mormonism.
http://img70.imageshack.us/img70/1206/insane7zo2es.jpg
On this day 121 years ago, John Taylor, then president of the Mormon Church, goes "underground" to avoid arrest and continue resisting federal demands for reforms within the community of his Latter-Day Saints.
http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/485/johntaylor2zm.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
3d "Prophet, Seer, Revelator, and President" John Taylor
Born in 1808 in England. Entered Canada in 1832, became a Mormon in 1836. With Parley Pratt, he led 1,500 converts to the Salt Lake Valley in 1847. Associate Judge, Provisional State of Deseret, 1849. Member, Utah Territorial House of Representatives, 1857-1876 (Speaker, 1857-1876). Utah Superintendent of Schools, 1877. Senior Apostle, 1877-1880. 3rd Prophet, Seer, Revelator, and President, 1880. Seven wives and 35 children. Died in hiding.
http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/4923/john20taylor20sij00013mp.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
A former Methodist minister, Taylor converted to Mormonism in 1836, not long after Joseph Smith founded the religion in New York. Taylor quickly became one of Smith's closest confidants and supporters, and he remained loyal to the controversial prophet and his church through years of persecution.
http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/4381/josephsmith4nz.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Joseph Smith, founder of the faith
When Smith was murdered in Illinois in 1844 by an angry mob, Taylor was by his side and suffered several wounds during the attack. He escaped serious injury because a heavy pocket watch carried in his waistcoat pocket stopped a potentially fatal bullet.
http://img56.imageshack.us/img56/5720/jbrighamyoung7fv.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Brigham Young, inherited church leadership from Smith. Speculation he was complicit in Smith's murder has abounded since the day Smith was shot. Nevertheless, the guy was a very effective leader and was persuasive enough to talk hundreds of thousands to sell everything and move out into the middle of the Utah desert to build a new Jerusalem.
After Smith's death, Taylor became an equally loyal follower of the new church president, Brigham Young. Taylor led one group of Mormon emigrants westward to Salt Lake City where Young was building a thriving theocratic empire in the desert. In Utah, he continued to ascend in the church hierarchy, and when Young died in 1877, Taylor took over leadership of the church.
Taylor's tenure as the leader of the Latter-day Saints was marked by growing tensions between the church and the federal government. The Mormon practice of polygamy became a lightning rod for federal criticism, yet this issue reflected a larger struggle regarding the church's power over its members and the future state of Utah.
http://img392.imageshack.us/img392/9990/john20taylor6uw.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
John Taylor as church president.
Although the Mormons treasured the freedom to develop their new society free from outside interference, they also sought the benefits of being a part of the United States. Inevitably, these two goals conflicted. In 1851, the Mormons won territorial status for Utah, but the government remained suspicious of Taylor's theocratic society.
http://img78.imageshack.us/img78/632/slcmormontempel1rv.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
The Temple in Salt Lake. Note the absence of crosses.
To the federal government, the Mormon political and economic domination of the region violated the separation of church and state. Additionally, most people considered Mormons a bizarre sect and frankly feared their polygamy and socialist approach to building their desert empire. By attacking polygamy, federal authorities hoped they could also undermine the secular power of the church since all the church leaders had multiple wives.
Taylor strongly opposed the federal attempts to undermine the Mormon theocracy. He believed the practice of polygamy was divinely ordained and state or federal anti-polygamy laws should not be allowed to prevail. Determined to assert the primacy of national secular law over the Mormon theocracy, U.S. marshals began arresting Mormons for practicing polygamy.
Vulnerable to arrest themselves, Taylor and his leading administrators went underground on February 1, 1885. For the next two-and-a-half years, Taylor conducted church business from a series of secret hideouts in Salt Lake City.
Taylor's underground administration managed to avoid arrest, but the federal actions were steadily undermining church power and influence. Grudgingly, in 1887, Taylor assented to one concession: making polygamy illegal in a proposed Utah state constitution. Congress found Taylor's proposed compromise inadequate and rejected the petition for statehood.
http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/8753/0000117big9tj.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Utah state flag. it features a beehive because early Mormon leadership placed a premium on industriousness and willingness to place individual needs below that of the "hive."
Taylor died that same year, still an exile in his own home. For several more years, the Mormon leadership continued the fight, but federal pressure eventually became so great that in 1890 Taylor's successor publicly rejected polygamy claiming God had changed His mind and told him polygamy was no longer a good thing. The theocratic government of the Latter-day Saints had been tamed on this fundamental tenet of their faith, and Utah achieved statehood in 1896. They held out in their officially stated view that black folks were inherently evil and couldn't be Mormons until well into the 1960's, but changed, at least officially, on that issue too when the political pressure of the civil rights era got too intense.
Perhaps interestingly, this issue of polygamy within the LDS church caused splinter sects to form and there are reputed to be hundreds, if not thousands of people involved in polygamous relationships around the western US, and especially in rural Utah to this day. These people generally espouse the view that the Church sold-out polygamy in order to achieve statehood and therefore went astray. The polygamous types claim therefore that theirs is the purer, or indeed only pure, strain of Mormonism.
http://img70.imageshack.us/img70/1206/insane7zo2es.jpg