Stumbling Blocks to Statehood

By ednagonzalezhuff

  • Deseret is Created

    Four days after arriving in the Salt Lake Valley, LDS President Brigham Young names the region, Deseret.

  • Mormons Arrive in Salt Lake Valley

    In July 1847 the Mormon pioneers enter the Salt Lake Valley. Mexico ownes the land.

  • 1849: Statehood requested and denied

    Mormon representative John Bernhisel submits a memorial to Congress asking for special permission for local citizens to elect their own territorial officials. Senator Stephen A. Douglas subsequently asks for admission of Deseret as a state or a territorial government, leaving the choice to Congress.President Taylor is unsympathetic to granting the Mormons their desires. The Utah Terrritory is created. MEMORIES Utah Size and Shape

  • 1865: A Warning About Polygamy

    House Speaker Schuyler Colfax spends a week in Salt Lake City meeting with prominent church leaders, and he warns that statehood cannot be attained until polygamy had ceased,

  • 1852: Plural Marriage Announcement

    LDS apostle Orson Pratt offers a public announcement and defense of plural marriage as an aspect of Mormon faith, Citizens throughout the nation are shocked.

  • 1856: Second Petitoin for Statehood

    LDS leaders submitt a second petition for statehood which is rejected by Congress, in light of strong Republican Party resistance to prohibit in U.S. territories the twin relics of barbarism – polygamy and slavery.

  • 1862: Third Petition for Statehood is Denied

    Congress rejects the petition for statehood. It then passes the Morrill Anti-bigamy Act. This Act prohibits polygamy in the territories and disincorporates the LDS church.

  • 1867: Fourth Petition for Statehood

    The Utah legislature petitions Congress to repeal the Morrill Act and asks again to be let into the Union as a state. Congress does neither.

  • 1870: The Liberl Party is Formed

    Formed in 1870 to oppose The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Liberal Party represented opposition to government controlled by organized religious groups.

  • 1870: Immigration reaches an all-time high in Utah

    One of every three Utah residents is foreign-born. Persecutors of the Church resent the annual arrivals of foreign converts and call the Church "un-American". To ensure legal title to property and to protect the Latter-day Saint vote, immigrants are repeatedly admonished to take out citizenship papers,

  • 1870: People's Party is formed

    Backed by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and its newspaper, the Deseret News, the party opposed Utah's Liberal Party.

  • 1887: PEF Dissolved

    The Perpetual Emigration Fund Company is dissolved by an amendment to the Edumunds-Tucker Bill.

    ""By this act [of incorporation in 1850] the whole system of emigration is handed over by the legislature to
    a corporation under the control of the Church. No other system has by law been authorized or permitted in Utah, and this rich corporation continues as a part of the Church and State machinery to gather converts from all
    parts of the world."

  • 1888: Christian Convention and the "Mormon Problem"

    Education is seen as part of the "Mormon Problem". It was held by many non-Mormons that the Latter-day Saints did not value education, and, as such, their children were poorly educated and therefore credulous enough to believe those hysterical, superstitious Mormon beliefs. But, it was thought, education could free the Mormon children from their defective beliefs. When armed with a good education “there is no room then for the errors of Mormonism” .

  • 1890 Manifesto

    The 1890 Manifesto, sometimes simply called “The Manifesto”, was a historical statement which officially renounced the practice of polygamy in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the LDS Church). Signed by LDS President Wilford Woodruff in September of 1890, the Manifesto was a dramatic turning point in LDS Church history.

  • 1891: Utahns establish national political parties

    Mormons disbanded the People’s party and leaders advised the members to join one of the two national parties, the Democrats and Republicans.

  • 1893: Mormons are excluded from Parliament of Religions

    The Mormon Church, while “officially” having “renounced” polygamy in 1893 is excluded from the Parliament of Religions at the Chicago World's Fair.

  • 1894: Congress passes the Enabling Act

    This sets forth the steps Utah must take to achieve statehood. One of these requirements is to ban polygamy in the state constitution.

  • 1896: Statehood Granted

    Utah becomes the 45th state in the Union.