Reynolds V. United States

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See this page in the original 1992 publication.

Author: Riggs, Robert E.

Reynolds V. United States (98 U.S. 145 [1879]) was the first U.S. Supreme Court decision to interpret the "free exercise" language of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In giving an extremely narrow interpretation to that guarantee of religious freedom, the Reynolds decision opened the way for legal suppression of the Mormon practice of plural marriage.

The Morrill Act (Act of July 1, 1862, 12 Stat. 501), which defined the crime of bigamy in U.S. territories, had been adopted for the express purpose of outlawing Mormon polygamous marriages. The First Amendment, however, expressly states that Congress shall "make no law…prohibiting the free exercise" of religion. The issue posed by the Reynolds case was whether a federal bigamy statute could constitutionally be applied to a person who practiced polygamy as a matter of religious duty. The Court held that it could.

George Reynolds, an English immigrant to Utah, private secretary to Brigham Young, and husband of two wives, was found guilty in March 1875 of violating the antibigamy provision of the Morrill Act. The conviction was overturned by the Utah Supreme Court on procedural grounds (United States V. Reynolds, 1 Utah 226 [1875]), but on retrial he was again convicted and was sentenced to two years in prison with a $500 fine. This conviction was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

In applying the First Amendment's free exercise clause, Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite concluded that "Congress was deprived of all legislative power over mere opinion, but was left free to reach actions which were in violation of social duties or subversive of good order" (98 U.S. 164). This distinction between protected religious belief and unprotected religious actions was followed for several decades, and this specific holding regarding plural marriage is still the law. Since 1940, however, the Court has said that religious conduct also may fall within the free exercise guarantee (Cantwell V. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296).

The Morrill Act was not an effective weapon against polygamy because of the difficulty of obtaining testimony to prove the plural marriages. Nevertheless, the Reynolds decision paved the way for other, more enforceable federal laws that penalized "unlawful cohabitation," disincorporated the Church, and forfeited its property. Ultimately at the direction of its Prophet, President Wilford Woodruff, the Church submitted to those laws and discontinued the practice of plural marriage. [See also Antipolygamy Legislation; Manifesto of 1890.]


Bibliography

Davis, Ray J. "Plural Marriage and Religious Freedom: The Impact of Reynolds V. United States." Arizona Law Review 15 (1974):287-306.

Firmage, Edwin Brown. Zion in the Courts, pp. 151-59. Urbana, Ill., 1988.

ROBERT E. RIGGS


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