1890 Manifesto - Aftermath and Post-Manifesto Plural Marriage

Aftermath and Post-Manifesto Plural Marriage

Within six years of the announcement of the Manifesto, Utah had become a state and federal prosecution of Mormon polygamists subsided. However, Congress still refused to seat representatives-elect who were polygamists, including B. H. Roberts.

D. Michael Quinn and other Mormon historians have documented that some church apostles covertly sanctioned plural marriages after the Manifesto. This practice was especially prevalent in Mexico and Canada because of an erroneous belief that such marriages were legal in those jurisdictions. However, a significant minority were performed in Utah and other western American states and territories. The estimates of the number of post-Manifesto plural marriages performed range from scores to thousands, with the actual figure probably close to 250. Today, the LDS Church officially acknowledges that although the Manifesto "officially ceased" the practice of plural marriage in the church, "the ending of the practice after the Manifesto was ... gradual."

Rumors of post-Manifesto marriages surfaced and began to be examined by Congress in the Reed Smoot hearings. In response, church president Joseph F. Smith issued a "Second Manifesto" in 1904 which reaffirmed the church's opposition to the creation of new plural marriages and threatened excommunication for Latter-day Saints who continued to enter into or solemnize new plural marriages. Apostles John W. Taylor and Matthias F. Cowley both resigned from the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles due to disagreement with the church’s position on plural marriage. Plural marriage in violation of local law continues to be grounds for excommunication from the LDS Church.

The gradual cessation of plural marriage within LDS Church gave rise to the Mormon fundamentalist movement.