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Originally Posted by wolf
I think it had more to do with the potential for population explosion on the part of the Mormons to reduce their potential for power. Somebody with better recall of history or googelfu might be able to find out why the deal was made to make poligamy illegal when Utah was brought into the Union.
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I already explained it in the other thread, which I'm not sure how to locate now. It wasn't about out-breeding everybody else. That part of the country was filling up fast since the various gold rushes, and the Mormons had been literally at war with any other groups trying to mine or homestead in their claimed territories. The basis of their claim was theological. Before the time the whole thing fell apart, in the late 1890's, the Mormons were poised to take over the United States according to "God's Divine Plan", when Joseph Smith was supposed to return and bring Jesus with him and the rest of the world would disolve into civil war and be so busy at the time that Brigham Young and his boys would be able to slip right in. Their "infallible-talks-directly-with-God" leader had set the date but died before it arrived. The rest of them sat there in Utah waiting, and when it became obvious even to them that there was a mistake, the new leader told them it would be necessary to get themselves accepted for statehood immediately while they were at least still in control in Zion. They had previously been rejected because in Utah Territory there were no individual rights, the Mormon Church owned all the land and improvements in a theoracy, dictated the results of all trials and elections, and had a nasty habit of disappearing those who disagreed. The final sticking point was the plural marriages, which had been instigated by founder Joseph Smith because he wanted to get into the pants of a young girl living with his family. Since Smith had dictated that plural marriage was a divine state because God also had plural wives, many believers did not intend to give it up. The head of the church had the expected "revelation", polygamy was officially banned, and Utah received statehood. At this point they had the various polygamous sects spinning off, calling themselves the TRUE church of Latter Day Saints, but it was not until the late 1940's that the main Church finally quit looking the other way at the many families which still kept multiple wives and said they would excommunicate anybody found with extras. That's when a lot of these people moved way out of town, because the main Church was giving more than lip service to rooting them out. The Mormon leader always has a "revelation" whenever it appears they will be in trouble with the Federal government, because that means audits and money being cut off.