The Mormon Question: Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict in Nineteenth-Century America

The Mormon Question: Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict in Nineteenth-Century America
by Sarah Barringer Gordon

The Mormon Question: Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict in Nineteenth-Century America
List Price: $25.00
Our Price: $19.75
You Save: $5.25 (21%)
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Buy Used: from $14.95 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions


(Click here)
Buy this book at online book store in your country
Canada | UK | Germany | France

Book Summary Information

Author: Sarah Barringer Gordon
Edition: Paperback
Published: 2002-01-21
ISBN: 0807849871
Number of pages: 352
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press

Book Reviews of The Mormon Question: Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict in Nineteenth-Century America

Book Review: great, scholarly
Summary: 5 Stars

i got this book for a legal history research paper on the free exercise clause. it was easy to read, interesting, and well cited. i highly reccomend it.

Summary of The Mormon Question: Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict in Nineteenth-Century America

From the Mormon Church's public announcement of its sanction of polygamy in 1852 until its formal decision to abandon the practice in 1890, people on both sides of the "Mormon question" debated central questions of constitutional law. Did principles of religious freedom and local self-government protect Mormons' claim to a distinct, religiously based legal order? Or was polygamy, as its opponents claimed, a new form of slavery--this time for white women in Utah? And did constitutional principles dictate that democracy and true liberty were founded on separation of church and state?

As Sarah Barringer Gordon shows, the answers to these questions finally yielded an apparent victory for antipolygamists in the late nineteenth century, but only after decades of argument, litigation, and open conflict. Victory came at a price; as attention and national resources poured into Utah in the late 1870s and 1880s, antipolygamists turned more and more to coercion and punishment in the name of freedom. They also left a legacy in constitutional law and political theory that still governs our treatment of religious life: Americans are free to believe, but they may well not be free to act on their beliefs.

General Books

Book Subjects
Most talked about in Mormon Polygamy
Latter-day Saint Courtship Patterns ImageLatter-day Saint Courtship Patterns
by Mary Jane Woodger
University Press of America; Published: 2007-09-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $27.80
Price in other shops: $33.95
Multiply and Replenish: Mormon Essays on Sex and Family (Essays on Mormonism Series) ImageMultiply and Replenish: Mormon Essays on Sex and Family (Essays on Mormonism Series)
Signature Books; Published: 1994-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.48
Price in other shops: $9.00
God's Brothel: The Extortion of Sex for Salvation in Contemporary Mormon and Christian Fundamentalist Polygamy and the Stories of 18 Women Who Escaped ImageGod's Brothel: The Extortion of Sex for Salvation in Contemporary Mormon and Christian Fundamentalist Polygamy and the Stories of 18 Women Who Escaped
by Andrea Moore-Emmett
Pince-Nez Press; Published: 2004-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.15
Price in other shops: $16.95
Polygamy Under Attack: From Tom Green to Brian David Mitchell ImagePolygamy Under Attack: From Tom Green to Brian David Mitchell
by John R. Llewellyn
Agreka Books; Published: 2004-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.50
Price in other shops: $15.95
Shattered Dreams: My Life as a Polygamist's Wife ImageShattered Dreams: My Life as a Polygamist's Wife
by Irene Spencer
Center Street; Published: 2007-08-22; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $4.15
Price in other shops: $24.99
Daughter of the Saints: Growing Up In Polygamy ImageDaughter of the Saints: Growing Up In Polygamy
by Dorothy Allred Solomon
W. W. Norton & Company; Published: 2004-10-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.91
Price in other shops: $14.95
Escape ImageEscape
by Carolyn Jessop, Laura Palmer
Broadway; Published: 2007-10-16; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $9.25
Price in other shops: $24.95
Voices in Harmony: Contemporary Women Celebrate Plural Marriage ImageVoices in Harmony: Contemporary Women Celebrate Plural Marriage
by Mary Batchelor, Marianne Watson, Anne Wilde
Cedar Fort; Published: 2000-12-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.85
Price in other shops: $20.00
Mormon Polygamous Families: Life in the Principle (Publications in Mormon Studies, Vol 1) ImageMormon Polygamous Families: Life in the Principle (Publications in Mormon Studies, Vol 1)
by Jessie L. Embry
Univ of Utah Pr (T); Published: 1987-10; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $67.25
Polygamous Families in Contemporary Society ImagePolygamous Families in Contemporary Society
by Irwin Altman, Joseph Ginat
Cambridge University Press; Published: 1996-07-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $40.49
Price in other shops: $47.00
Similar Books and other products
Gospel of Disunion: Religion and Separatism in the Antebellum South ImageGospel of Disunion: Religion and Separatism in the Antebellum South
by Mitchell Snay
The University of North Carolina Press; Published: 1997-09-29; Paperback; Book
Best price: $19.49
Price in other shops: $27.50
Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgment: Popular Religious Belief in Early New England ImageWorlds of Wonder, Days of Judgment: Popular Religious Belief in Early New England
by David D. Hall
Harvard University Press; Published: 1990-10-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $22.50
Price in other shops: $26.50
Rebecca's Revival: Creating Black Christianity in the Atlantic World ImageRebecca's Revival: Creating Black Christianity in the Atlantic World
by Jon F. Sensbach
Harvard University Press; Published: 2006-10-31; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.59
Price in other shops: $18.00
Massacre at Mountain Meadows ImageMassacre at Mountain Meadows
by Ronald W. Walker, Richard E. Turley, Glen M. Leonard
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2008-08-19; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $19.77
Price in other shops: $29.95
The Civil War as a Theological Crisis ImageThe Civil War as a Theological Crisis
by Mark A. Noll
The University of North Carolina Press; Published: 2006-04-24; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $19.76
Price in other shops: $29.95
What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 (Oxford History of the United States) ImageWhat Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 (Oxford History of the United States)
by Daniel Walker Howe
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2007-10-29; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $19.75
Price in other shops: $35.00
Hearing Things: Religion, Illusion, and the American Enlightenment ImageHearing Things: Religion, Illusion, and the American Enlightenment
by Leigh Eric Schmidt
Harvard University Press; Published: 2002-11-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $19.80
Price in other shops: $22.00
The Democratization of American Christianity ImageThe Democratization of American Christianity
by Nathan O. Hatch
Yale University Press; Published: 1991-01-23; Paperback; Book
Best price: $15.99
Price in other shops: $22.00
The Politics of American Religious Identity: The Seating of Senator Reed Smoot, Mormon Apostle ImageThe Politics of American Religious Identity: The Seating of Senator Reed Smoot, Mormon Apostle
by Kathleen Flake
The University of North Carolina Press; Published: 2004-03-22; Paperback; Book
Best price: $21.69
Price in other shops: $22.95
The Kingdom of Matthias: A Story of Sex and Salvation in 19th-Century America ImageThe Kingdom of Matthias: A Story of Sex and Salvation in 19th-Century America
by Paul E. Johnson, Sean Wilentz
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1995-08-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.09
Price in other shops: $16.95
Book store. Illustrated catalog of books on different categories