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1 Admission of Utah: Mr. Kilgore, from the Committee on the Territories, Submitted the Following Report 1 (1893)

handle is hein.statecon/anuhmkr0001 and id is 1 raw text is: 
53D  CoNGRESs, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.                         REPORT
  1st Session.                                                   No. 162.






                       ADMISSION OF UTAH.



NOVEMBER  2, 1893.-Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the state
                   of the Union and ordered to be printed.


Mr. KILGonE, from the Committee on the Territories, submitted the
                                following

                              REPORT:
                         [To accompany H. R. 352.]

  Your  committee,  to whom  was  referred the bill (H.  R.  352) entitled
A  bill to enable the people of Utah  to form  a constitution  and State
government,  and  to be admitted into the Union  on an equal footing with
the original  States, have had  the  same  under  consideration  and  re-
spectfully report as follows:
  On  January  4, 1893, President  Harrison  issued the following:

            BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE  UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

                           A  PROCLAMATION.

  Whereas Congress, by a statute approved March 22, 1882, and by statutes In
furtherance and amendment thereof, defined the crimes of bigamy, polygamy, and
unlawful cohabitation in the Territories and other places within the exclusive juris-
diction of the United States, and prescribed a penalty for such crimes; and
  Whereas  on or about the 6th day of October, 1890, the Church of the Latter
Day Saints; commonly known as the Mormon Church, through its president, issued
a manifesto proclaiming the purpose of said church no longer to sanction the prac-
tice of polygamous marriages, and calling upon all members and adherents of said
church to obey the laws of the United States in reference to said subject-matter; and
  Whereas it is represented that since the date of said declaration the members
and adherents of said church have generally obeyed said laws and have abstained
from plural marriages and polygamous cohabitation; and
  Whereas  by a petition dated December 19, 1891, the officials of said church
pledging the membership thereof to a faithful obedience to the laws against plural
marriages and unlawful cohabitation, have applied to me to grant amnesty for past
offenses against said laws, which requests a very large number of influential non-
Mormons  residing in the Territories have also strongly urged; and
  Whereas the Utah Commission, in their report bearing date September 15, 1892,
recommend  that said petition be granted and said amnesty proclaimed, under proper
conditions as to the future observance of the law, with a view to the encouragement
of those now disposed to become law-abiding citizens; and
  Whereas during the past two years such amnesty has been granted to individual
applicants in a very large number of oases, conditioned upon the faithful observance
of the laws of the-United States against unlawful cohabitation, and there are now
pending many more such applications; now,
  Therefore, I, Benjamin Harrison, President of the United States, by virtue of the
powers in me vested, do hereby declare and grant a full amnesty and pardon to all
persons liable to the penalties of said act by reason of unlawful cohabitation under
the color of polygamous or plural marriage, who have since November 1, 1890, ab-
stained from such unlawful cohabitation; but on the express condition that th
shall in future faithfully obey the laws of the United States hereinbefore
and not otherwise.

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