Buchanan's Mormon Judge: Delana R. Eckels and the Democratic Party in the Utah War

Republicans famously regarded polygamy as one of the "twin relics of barbarism," the other being slavery. In the post–Civil War period, the party pursued an anti-polygamist policy that eventuated in the Mormon Church's abandonment of that institution. Since Republicans more often linked morality to politics in issues such as temperance, antislavery, and anti-polygamy than did the Democrats, they have been seen as uniquely hostile to the Mormons.¹ But the career of Delana R. Eckels, territorial chief justice of Utah from 1857 to 1860, indicated an internal division among Democrats over polygamy. Antitemperance, hostile to the clergy's interference in public life, tolerant of slavery, and a passionate party man, Eckels nonetheless abominated Mormonism and polygamy. Even when the administration of James Buchanan, which had appointed him, backed away from its confrontation with Brigham Young and the Mormons, Eckels fiercely believed in bringing them to heel. Eckels's career as "Buchanan's Mormon judge" complicates our understanding of Democratic anti-polygamy.² Instead the Democrats struggled to reconcile their political principles, especially that of territorial self-government, with Mormonism's widely reviled practice of plural marriage.

Fig 1.

Delana R. Eckels, chief justice of Utah Territory. (Used by permission, Utah State Historical Society)

In her discussion of anti-Mormonism, Christine Talbot notes that Americans found Mormonism troubling because of its "improper domestic and political relations." Mormonism conflated the public and private spheres: "Mormons made little distinction between the private family and the broad Mormon community." Also, they did not adhere to separation of church and state, prompting observers to use the word "theocracy" to describe Utah government. Some Americans, according to J. Spencer Fluhman, rejected Mormonism's claim to be a religion. Mormon calls for freedom of religion were illegitimate because anti-Mormons saw Joseph Smith as a charlatan and Mormonism as un-Christian. John Wolcott Phelps, an army captain serving in the Utah expedition, read about Mormonism en route and concluded it was both Papist and "remarkably lecherous."³

To defend plural marriage, Mormons invoked not just freedom of religion but also American ideals of "local sovereignty." State governments had jurisdiction over "domestic relations" such as marriage and slavery. In the case of Utah, which was then part of Mexico, physical isolation aided the Mormons, who had taken refuge there after persecution in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois. But shortly thereafter, the US-Mexican War resulted in the cession to the United States of the territory where the Mormons had settled. Still, the US government was sufficiently busy as to leave the Mormons to their own devices. When Congress created Utah Territory in 1850, President Millard Fillmore appointed the Mormon leader Brigham Young as governor. In 1854, the Democratic Party's Kansas-Nebraska Act removed the congressional prohibition of slavery in those territories and replaced it with popular sovereignty, the right of the settlers to determine whether to have slavery.⁴ Mormons followed the debate over Kansas-Nebraska and concluded from it that they could make a claim to local control. John M. Bernhisel, Utah's territorial delegate, recorded the author of popular sovereignty, Illinois senator Stephen A. Douglas, as opposing "any interference with any local or domestic institution, for the reason that if the principle were once recognized it would apply everywhere, to all religious sects, slavery, etc."⁵

Plural marriage challenged Democratic Party ideology. Some southern politicians simply refused to act against polygamy for fear that tampering with one type of domestic relation in the territories would legitimate action against slavery. According to Fluhman, Democratic tolerance of plural marriage revealed how far members of the party were willing to go to protect the doctrine of popular sovereignty. Northern Democrats had already reconciled their belief in personal liberty with slavery for African Americans. Northern racism legitimated slavery and made the institution a matter for local control. Yet, some Democrats did distinguish between the two domestic relations, slavery and marriage. From 1856 on, Congressman Justin Morrill of Vermont introduced legislation to attack...