Edmunds-Tucker Act

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The Edmunds-Tucker Act of 1887 touched all the issues at dispute between Congress and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The act disincorporated both the Church and the Perpetual Emigration Fund on the ground that they fostered polygamy.

The act prohibited the practice of polygamy and punished it with a fine of from $500 to $800 and imprisonment of up to five years. It dissolved the corporation of the church and directed the confiscation by the federal government of all church properties valued over a limit of $50,000.

The act also dealt with the separation of church and state and with courts, militia, education, elections, immigration, and woman suffrage. Utah women had been granted the franchise in 1870, but now lost it. The act was enforced by the U. S. marshal and a host of deputies. Other matters dealt with by the act included:

Required civil marriage licenses
Required voters, jurors, and public officials to deny polygamy
Replaced local judges with federally appointed judges
Removed local control in school textbook choice

In 1890 the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the seizure of Church property under the Edmunds-Tucker Act in The Late Corporation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints v. United States.

This act was repealed in 1978.^[1]

This act is found in US Code Title 48 & 1461. The full text of the act can be found as 24 Stat. 635, with this annotation to be interpreted as Volume 24, page 635 of United States Statutes at Large.