The 1890 Manifesto, the Second Manifesto and the FLDS

For half a century, plural marriage was the most famous and most contested practice of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Its leaders taught that it was commanded by God, and thousands of families lived it at great cost. Then, in 1890, church president Wilford Woodruff issued the Manifesto, and the church began a long road back to monogamy. Today the church excommunicates members who practice polygamy, while groups that refused to give it up, the best known of them led by the convicted Warren Jeffs, still claim to be the true heirs of Joseph Smith.

How did a practice once called essential end, and did it end cleanly? This article traces the revelation of 1843, the Manifesto of 1890, the plural marriages that continued afterward, the "Second Manifesto" of 1904, and the fundamentalist movements, using the church's own scripture and essays alongside independent historians. It closes with the Orthodox Christian teaching on marriage and an Orthodox verdict on the revelation that began it all.

In brief

Doctrine and Covenants 132, recorded in 1843, presents plural marriage as part of a "new and an everlasting covenant" and warns, "if ye abide not that covenant, then are ye damned." After the church announced the practice publicly in 1852, Congress outlawed it, and the Supreme Court upheld the laws in 1879. Facing the confiscation of church property, Wilford Woodruff issued the Manifesto in September 1890, declaring his intention to submit to the law. New plural marriages nevertheless continued quietly, some with approval from members of the First Presidency, until the Reed Smoot hearings in the U.S. Senate brought them into public view. In April 1904 Joseph F. Smith's "Second Manifesto" made new plural marriage grounds for excommunication. Members who refused formed fundamentalist movements, among them the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose leader Warren Jeffs was sentenced in Texas in 2011 to life in prison for sexually assaulting girls aged 12 and 15. The main church today forbids plural marriage on earth, though Section 132 remains in its scripture.

Thesis: The Manifesto ended Latter-day Saint polygamy slowly and under legal pressure, not cleanly; and the revelation behind it, which made plural marriage part of an everlasting covenant, is not the word of God but contradicts Christ's teaching that marriage is one man and one woman made one flesh.

The revelation of 1843

Section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants was recorded at Nauvoo, Illinois, on July 12, 1843. It begins with Joseph Smith asking how God "justified my servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as also Moses, David and Solomon ... as touching the principle and doctrine of their having many wives and concubines." The answer presents "a new and an everlasting covenant," with a warning: "if ye abide not that covenant, then are ye damned; for no one can reject this covenant and be permitted to enter into my glory." Those sealed under it are promised that "Then shall they be gods, because they have no end." Later verses set out the law of plural wives: "if he have ten virgins given unto him by this law, he cannot commit adultery, for they belong to him."¹

The church's essays explain that only the church president "held the keys authorizing the performance of new plural marriages," that the practice was introduced privately and announced publicly in 1852, and that the Book of Mormon gives one reason for it: to "raise up seed unto [the Lord]" (Jacob 2:30). Probably half of those living in Utah Territory in 1857 experienced life in a polygamous family at some point.² How Joseph Smith himself practiced it is treated elsewhere on this site, in Why Did Joseph Smith Marry Other Mormon Men's Wives? and Why Did Joseph Smith Destroy the Nauvoo Expositor?

The federal campaign

From 1862 Congress passed laws against plural marriage. Latter-day Saints argued that the Constitution protected their religious practice, but in Reynolds v. United States (1879) the Supreme Court held that laws "cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with practices," adding that "Polygamy has always been odious among the northern and western nations of Europe."³ LDS Church leaders urged members to obey God rather than man, and many entered a decade of civil disobedience. The Edmunds Act of 1882 punished "unlawful cohabitation"; the Edmunds-Tucker Act of 1887 dissolved the church's corporation and ordered church property over $50,000 forfeited. Between 1885 and 1889 most apostles and stake presidents were in hiding or in prison. In May 1890 the Supreme Court upheld the Edmunds-Tucker Act, and the confiscation could proceed.⁴

The Manifesto of 1890

On September 25, 1890, Woodruff wrote in his journal that he was "under the necessity of acting for the Temporal Salvation of the Church," and released a statement dated the day before.⁵ It denied reports of recent plural marriages: "We are not teaching polygamy or plural marriage, nor permitting any person to enter into its practice." It declared, "Inasmuch as laws have been enacted by Congress forbidding plural marriages, which laws have been pronounced constitutional by the court of last resort, I hereby declare my intention to submit to those laws," and closed: "my advice to the Latter-day Saints is to refrain from contracting any marriage forbidden by the law of the land." On October 6, 1890, a general conference accepted it as "authoritative and binding."⁶

The Manifesto is now printed in the Doctrine and Covenants as Official Declaration 1, with excerpts from Woodruff's later sermons. At Logan on November 1, 1891, he said, "The Lord showed me by vision and revelation exactly what would take place if we did not stop this practice," including the loss of the temples. At the October 1890 conference he had given the assurance: "The Lord will never permit me or any other man who stands as President of this Church to lead you astray."⁷

The text itself spoke of submitting to the laws of the United States. As the church's essay acknowledges, "It said nothing about the laws of other nations," and "At first, many Church leaders believed the Manifesto merely 'suspended' plural marriage for an indefinite time."⁸

Plural marriages after the Manifesto

For decades official statements said that new plural marriages ended in 1890. In 1985 the historian D. Michael Quinn, then a believing Latter-day Saint, published a long study in Dialogue showing otherwise. He counted "twenty-four denials" by members of the First Presidency between 1890 and 1904 that any new plural marriages were being performed, and set beside them the documentary record of marriages performed in Mexico, Canada and the United States. He showed, for example, that the Joseph F. Smith presidency authorized Anthony W. Ivins to perform a plural marriage in Mexico in 1903, and estimated that "50,000 or more living descendants" came from men who "married polygamously with Church authority from 1890 through 1904."⁹ Quinn, writing as a believer, admitted that the practice "at times required men we revere as prophets, seers, and revelators to say and do things that do not strictly conform to our definitions of veracity and consistency."¹⁰

The church's essay, published long after Quinn, now concedes the substance. Plural marriages "continued to be quietly performed" in Mexico and Canada after October 1890, and "a smaller number" in the United States. A ledger of marriages performed outside temples lists 315 marriages from 1890 to 1903, of which 25 were plural. "For a time, post-Manifesto plural marriages required the approval of a member of the First Presidency." A few new plural marriages were performed even in the early years of Joseph F. Smith's presidency after 1901.¹¹ {{very-strong: New plural marriages continued after the 1890 Manifesto, some with the approval of members of the First Presidency, while church leaders publicly denied it.}} How many there were remains uncertain.

Reed Smoot and the Second Manifesto (1904)

In 1903 Utah elected the apostle Reed Smoot to the U.S. Senate. Protests poured in, and on January 27, 1904, the Senate ordered an investigation that lasted more than two years and filled five volumes of testimony.¹² LDS Church president Joseph F. Smith testified in March 1904 that he had continued to live with his plural wives since 1890, and that "There never has been a plural marriage by the consent or sanction or knowledge or approval of the church since the manifesto." The church's essay explains that he "carefully distinguished" between actions sanctioned by the church as a body and those of individual members, and that he "sought to protect the Church while stating the truth."¹³ Quinn judged more severely that the president's testimony concealed evidence harmful to the church.¹⁴

At the April 1904 general conference Smith issued what is called the Second Manifesto: "If any officer or member of the Church shall assume to solemnize or enter into any such marriage he will be deemed in transgression against the Church and will be liable to be dealt with according to the rules and regulations thereof and excommunicated therefrom." The church's essay calls it "a watershed event": "For the first time, Church members were put on notice that new plural marriages stood unapproved by God and the Church." Two apostles, John W. Taylor and Matthias F. Cowley, kept performing and encouraging plural marriages and were dropped from the Quorum of the Twelve; Taylor was later excommunicated.¹⁵ On February 20, 1907, the Senate voted 28 to 42 against denying Smoot his seat, and he served thirty years.¹⁶

The fundamentalists and the FLDS

The church's essay says that some excommunicated members "coalesced into independent movements and are sometimes called fundamentalists," and that "These groups are not affiliated with or supported by" the church.¹⁷ Quinn noted that within a few years of 1904, men such as John W. Woolley would "perform and enter into scores of new plural marriages without claiming authorization from the Church president." Fundamentalists argued that John Taylor had set up an authority for plural marriage "wholly apart and independent of the Church," and they used the church's own denials of post-Manifesto marriages to claim that they, not the church, kept the principle alive.¹⁸

A major fundamentalist community grew at Short Creek on the Utah-Arizona border, now Hildale and Colorado City. On July 26, 1953, Arizona's governor sent more than 100 officers and National Guard soldiers into the town and took women and children into custody. The raid became a public-relations disaster. The arrested men received only probation, and according to the historian Martha Sonntag Bradley every man, woman and child eventually returned to Short Creek. The raid became a rallying point for the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS), and "Remember Short Creek" is still a motto among polygamists.¹⁹

Under Warren Jeffs the FLDS became notorious. Jeffs was arrested as a fugitive in 2006 after a period on the FBI's most-wanted list; his 2007 Utah conviction as an accomplice to rape, for conducting the marriage of a 14-year-old girl, was overturned by the Utah Supreme Court in 2010. Evidence seized in a 2008 raid on the FLDS ranch near Eldorado, Texas, led to his trial there. In August 2011 a Texas jury sentenced him to life in prison for the aggravated sexual assault of a 12-year-old girl, plus 20 years for the assault of a 15-year-old, both of whom he claimed as "brides." A journal entry from 2005 shown at trial read: "If the world knew what I was doing, they would hang me from the highest tree." The Christian Science Monitor estimated FLDS followers at about 10,000 in Utah, Arizona and Texas.²⁰ {{very-strong: Warren Jeffs was convicted in Texas in 2011 of sexually assaulting girls aged 12 and 15 whom he called his wives.}} The site's article The Restoration That Fractured places these groups among the many movements that claim Joseph Smith.

Fairness requires a clear line here. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has no connection with the FLDS, and its members should never be blamed for Jeffs's crimes.

The church's position today

In 1998 Gordon B. Hinckley told the church's general conference: "I wish to state categorically that this Church has nothing whatever to do with those practicing polygamy," and "If any of our members are found to be practicing plural marriage, they are excommunicated, the most serious penalty the Church can impose." He added that God "clearly revealed" to Woodruff that plural marriage "should be discontinued, which means that it is now against the law of God."²¹ The church's essay states: "Marriage between one man and one woman is God's standard for marriage, unless He declares otherwise, which He did through His prophet, Joseph Smith."²²

Two points complete the picture. Section 132 remains in the Doctrine and Covenants, unchanged.²³ And the church's General Handbook provides that "If a husband and wife have been sealed and the wife dies, the man may be sealed to another woman if she is not already sealed to another man," while a widow may not be sealed to a second husband unless the first sealing is canceled.²⁴ Plural marriage on earth has ended; the revelation that commanded it, and a man's sealing to more than one wife for eternity, have not. {{strong: The church today forbids plural marriage on earth and excommunicates those who practice it, but Section 132 remains in its canon.}}

Objections and replies

"Abraham, Jacob and David had several wives, so why not the Latter-day Saints?"

Section 132 itself makes this argument. But the patriarchs' households are described in Scripture, not held up as the pattern, and their stories are full of the strife that polygamy brought. Christ returned marriage to "the beginning." The site's article Does the Bible Endorse Polygamy? treats the hard Old Testament texts in detail.

"Continuing revelation explains the change."

Latter-day Saints believe God may reveal His will "line upon line," and the church's essay presents the Manifesto that way.²⁵ But the Manifesto's text speaks of submitting to the law of the land, Woodruff's journal speaks of "the Temporal Salvation of the Church," and leaders privately allowed new plural marriages for more than a decade while publicly denying them. A practice declared part of an "everlasting covenant," the rejection of which brought damnation, was ended when the government threatened the temples. That pattern fits human leaders under pressure better than the unchanging God.

"Then the fundamentalists are the faithful ones."

Fundamentalists say so, and the church rejects them. The Orthodox answer is that both stand on the same mistaken foundation, Section 132, which is not the word of God. The crimes of the FLDS do not belong to the main church, but neither group's claim to Joseph Smith's authority is true.

The Orthodox teaching on marriage

Christ answered the question of marriage by going back before Moses: "Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh." St Paul then calls this union "a great mystery," spoken "concerning Christ and the church."²⁶ Christ has one Bride, the Church; marriage, a holy Mystery of the Church, is its icon, one man and one woman. That is why the Church has never blessed plural marriage. St Basil the Great, whose canonical letters belong to the Church's canons, would not even call a third successive marriage, contracted after two spouses had died, a true marriage: "this is no longer described as marriage at all, but as polygamy; nay rather as limited fornication." If the Church dealt so strictly with remarriage after death, a husband with several living wives stands wholly outside anything she has recognized as marriage.²⁷

The Orthodox verdict on Section 132 is therefore firm. It is not scripture, and Joseph Smith, who recorded it, was not a prophet of God. A revelation that promised men they would become "gods" through sealed and plural marriage teaches a different God and a different salvation from the Gospel, in which human beings are united to the one true God by grace, in Christ, through the Holy Spirit, never becoming gods by nature (see Theosis vs. Mormon Exaltation). Latter-day Saints are not Christians in the historic, Nicene sense, and their leaders' sincerity does not change that. Toward the persons, many of them devoted to their families and to Christ as they understand Him, the Church owes courtesy and the plain invitation to the apostolic faith.

What we can say confidently

• Doctrine and Covenants 132 (1843) presents plural marriage within a "new and everlasting covenant" whose rejection brings damnation; it remains in the Latter-day Saint canon.
• The 1890 Manifesto declared Woodruff's intention to submit to U.S. law after the Supreme Court upheld the confiscation of church property.
• New plural marriages continued from 1890 to 1904, some approved by members of the First Presidency, as the church's own essay now acknowledges.
• The 1904 Second Manifesto made new plural marriage grounds for excommunication, and apostles Taylor and Cowley were removed for continuing it.
• Fundamentalist groups, including the FLDS, are not affiliated with the main church; Warren Jeffs was sentenced in 2011 to life plus 20 years.
• Orthodox Christian teaching, from Christ's words in Matthew 19 and the Fathers, holds that marriage is one man and one woman.

What remains disputed

• How many plural marriages were performed between 1890 and 1904, and exactly who authorized each.
• How to judge Joseph F. Smith's 1904 testimony: careful truth-telling, as the church's essay says, or concealment, as Quinn judged.
• How many members the FLDS and other fundamentalist groups have today; published estimates vary.

Conclusion

The Manifesto of 1890 is often told as a clean turn from polygamy to monogamy. The record, including the church's own essays, shows a slower and more troubled path: a declaration framed around the law of the land, years of quiet exceptions and public denials, a second manifesto forced by a Senate inquiry, and splinter groups that took the original revelation more literally than the church that gave it. The church deserves credit for publishing much of this history, and its members deserve to be distinguished from the crimes of the FLDS.

The deeper question is the revelation itself. The Orthodox Church receives marriage as Christ gave it, one man and one woman joined by God, an image of His love for His one Church. No later revelation can make a covenant everlasting that Christ never gave. The way back to that "beginning" is open to all who seek the faith once delivered to the saints.

Notes

1. Doctrine and Covenants 132 (recorded July 12, 1843), The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/132.
2. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, "Plural Marriage and Families in Early Utah," Gospel Topics Essays, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/plural-marriage-and-families-in-early-utah.
3. Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145 (1879), Legal Information Institute, https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/98/145.
4. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, "The Manifesto and the End of Plural Marriage," Gospel Topics Essays, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/the-manifesto-and-the-end-of-plural-marriage.
5. "The Manifesto and the End of Plural Marriage" (see note 4).
6. Official Declaration 1, with "Excerpts from Three Addresses by President Wilford Woodruff Regarding the Manifesto," Doctrine and Covenants, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/od/1.
7. Official Declaration 1 and excerpts (see note 6).
8. "The Manifesto and the End of Plural Marriage" (see note 4).
9. D. Michael Quinn, "LDS Church Authority and New Plural Marriages, 1890-1904," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 18, no. 1 (Spring 1985): 9-105, https://dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V18N01_11.pdf.
10. Quinn, "LDS Church Authority and New Plural Marriages" (see note 9).
11. "The Manifesto and the End of Plural Marriage" (see note 4).
12. United States Senate, "Expulsion Case of Reed Smoot of Utah (1907)," https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/expulsion/091ReedSmoot_expulsion.htm.
13. "The Manifesto and the End of Plural Marriage" (see note 4).
14. Quinn, "LDS Church Authority and New Plural Marriages" (see note 9).
15. "The Manifesto and the End of Plural Marriage" (see note 4).
16. U.S. Senate, "Expulsion Case of Reed Smoot" (see note 12).
17. "The Manifesto and the End of Plural Marriage" (see note 4).
18. Quinn, "LDS Church Authority and New Plural Marriages" (see note 9).
19. "Parallels to Short Creek raid in 1953 are pointed out," Deseret News, April 10, 2008, https://www.deseret.com/2008/4/10/20081346/parallels-to-short-creek-raid-in-1953-are-pointed-out; on the probation, Ben Cosgrove, "Short Creek: A Notorious 1953 Raid on a Polygamist Town," Time, April 20, 2014, https://time.com/3879612/short-creek-raid-photos-arizona-polygamy-mormon/.
20. "Prophet to pedophile: Polygamist Warren Jeffs sentenced to life in prison," Christian Science Monitor, August 9, 2011, https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2011/0809/Prophet-to-pedophile-Polygamist-Warren-Jeffs-sentenced-to-life-in-prison; on the Utah case, "Warren Jeffs: Utah court overturns polygamist's rape conviction," Christian Science Monitor, July 27, 2010, https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2010/0727/Warren-Jeffs-Utah-court-overturns-polygamist-s-rape-conviction.
21. Gordon B. Hinckley, "What Are People Asking about Us?" General Conference, October 1998, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1998/10/what-are-people-asking-about-us.
22. "The Manifesto and the End of Plural Marriage" (see note 4).
23. D&C 132 (see note 1).
24. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, General Handbook, 38.4.1.3, "Sealing of Living Members after a Spouse's Death," https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/general-handbook/38-church-policies-and-guidelines.
25. "The Manifesto and the End of Plural Marriage" (see note 4).
26. Matthew 19:4-6; Ephesians 5:31-32 (NKJV).
27. Basil the Great, Letter 188 (First Canonical Letter, to Amphilochius), canon 4, trans. Blomfield Jackson, NPNF2 8, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3202188.htm. Basil uses "polygamy" for marriage beyond a second, successive one (compare Letter 217, canon 80).

Bibliography

Primary sources

• The Holy Bible, New King James Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982.
• Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145 (1879).
• United States Senate. "Expulsion Case of Reed Smoot of Utah (1907)." Senate Historical Office.

Orthodox and patristic sources

• Basil the Great. Letters 188 and 217 (First and Third Canonical Letters, to Amphilochius). Trans. Blomfield Jackson. NPNF2 8. 1895.

Other scholarship and reporting

• Quinn, D. Michael. "LDS Church Authority and New Plural Marriages, 1890-1904." Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 18, no. 1 (Spring 1985): 9-105.
• "Parallels to Short Creek raid in 1953 are pointed out." Deseret News, April 10, 2008.
• "Prophet to pedophile: Polygamist Warren Jeffs sentenced to life in prison." Christian Science Monitor, August 9, 2011.
• "Warren Jeffs: Utah court overturns polygamist's rape conviction." Christian Science Monitor, July 27, 2010.
• Cosgrove, Ben. "Short Creek: A Notorious 1953 Raid on a Polygamist Town." Time, April 20, 2014.

Latter-day Saint sources

• Doctrine and Covenants 132 and Official Declaration 1 (with excerpts from three addresses by Wilford Woodruff).
• The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. "The Manifesto and the End of Plural Marriage." Gospel Topics Essays.
• The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. "Plural Marriage and Families in Early Utah." Gospel Topics Essays.
• The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. General Handbook: Serving in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, chapter 38.
• Hinckley, Gordon B. "What Are People Asking about Us?" General Conference, October 1998.