ALLEGED POLYGAMY OF THE MORMONS. 407 



one wife. But, supposing it to be declared legal among 

 the people of the territory of Utah, and they apply next 

 year, after having adopted a State Constitution, for 

 admission to the Union, the curious question arises 

 Will Congress admit into the Union a state which prac 

 tises and legalises polygamy? I subsequently talked 

 this matter over with other friends in Boston and else 

 where, and there appears little doubt that Congress must 

 admit the State, without any reference to the character of 

 the State laws. The State must profess republican 

 principles, and that is nearly all the Congress can demand. 

 Every State makes its own laws of divorce, and the 

 whole article of marriage is a matter of State regulation. 

 If the Legislature of Kentucky declared polygamy 

 lawful, it would become a domestic institution, as slavery 

 now is. Their senators and representatives would bring 

 their harems to Washington with impunity ; and if one 

 of the wives eloped to Boston, the husband could reclaim 

 her without doubt, as he now does his slave all the laws 

 of New England against bigamy notwithstanding ! An 

 accident of this sort would create as much excitement 

 among the females of the wow-polygamous States as the 

 arrest of fugitive coloured men is now doing among the 

 non-slaveholding States. 



Before quitting this subject of religious opinions, I 

 may mention, as a thing which struck rne much, the very 

 great latitude of expression of freedom of discussion, 

 perhaps it may be called which is taken and permitted 

 here in ordinary society upon religious subjects. What 

 would make every one stare at an English dinner-table, 

 and some shudder, as in their opinion approaching to 

 blasphemy, I have heard expressed, taken up, and 

 remarked upon generally, without its appearing to be 

 considered beyond or out of the ordinary topics of con 

 versation, and nobody seemed to think it strange that 

 persons of evidently small knowledge or capacity should 



