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"Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed."
Edmund Burke
Slavery and Mormon polygamy were inflammatory national and statewide political issues when Abraham Lincoln was a practicing attorney and legislator in Springfield. While his views on slavery have been written about extensively, his opinion on polygamy is less well known, but both subjects are related to Lincoln's political philosophy of freedom as it related to state sovereignty and religious freedom. Mormon polygamy hit close to home as the Church of the Latter Day Saints took root in nearby Nauvoo. In 1856, the Republican Party's first national platform linked slavery and polygamy and promised to abolish these "twin relics of barbarism."1 Before he had penned the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln signed into law the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act that specifically targeted Mormons in Utah territory. By examining his early experience and contact with Mormons, the references he made to them in letters and speeches, and what he and fellow Republicans did and said about them before, during and after he was president, a clearer picture of Lincoln's political legacy on slavery and polygamy emerges. Both slavery and polygamy challenged state sovereignty and religious freedom.
Lincoln and the Mormons - Both in Illinois
By the time Lincoln arrived in Springfield in 1837, the Mormons had already been passing through the city on their way to Missouri from their first great settlement in Kirtland, Ohio. Their Prophet, Joseph Smith, Jr., had told them to establish a Zion at the edge of Indian Territory in what was known as Far West in Missouri. Smith had taught his followers that Native Americans were descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel who must be converted before a City of God could be established for the Second Coming of Christ. The massive influx of slaves and slave-owners into Missouri, however, led to clashes with the educated and zealous Latter Day Saints, many of whom were from England and New England. Many Mormons, including Smith, were imprisoned, and Missouri Governor Lilburn Boggs issued an executive order commanding that the Mormons leave the state or be "exterminated." In 1838, they found refuge across the Mississippi River in and around Quincy, Illinois where some stayed while others followed Smith north to Nauvoo. Mormons could be found...