The Edmunds-Tucker Act: How the Federal Government Criminalized Polygamy

An 1887 law that gave Washington unprecedented power to dismantle polygamist communities through property seizure, disenfranchisement, and criminal prosecution.

By Garret Merkley · Explainer · Jun 3, 2026

Branched from Why Some Groups Continued Polygamy Illegally After 1896

Quick take

The Edmunds-Tucker Act (1887) made polygamy a felony and gave the federal government sweeping tools to prosecute it and seize church property.
It stripped polygamists of voting rights, disqualified them from holding office, and dissolved the LDS Church's corporate structure to cripple its ability to own land.
The law's severity drove the LDS Church to officially abandon polygamy in 1890, but some believers continued practicing it in secret for decades.

The Edmunds-Tucker Act, passed by Congress in 1887, was the federal government's most aggressive legal weapon against polygamy in the American West. It transformed polygamy from a civil offense into a felony, criminalized unlicensed cohabitation, and gave federal authorities the power to seize property from polygamist families and the church that sanctioned the practice. The law targeted not just individual practitioners but the institutional structures that enabled and defended polygamy—particularly the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), which had made plural marriage a core religious principle.

The Criminal and Civil Penalties

Edmunds-Tucker made polygamy itself a felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a $500 fine. But it went further. It also criminalized "unlawful cohabitation"—living with multiple wives—as a separate misdemeanor, which meant a man could be prosecuted repeatedly for each year he maintained a plural household. This was a deliberate prosecutorial strategy: even if a polygamist was acquitted of polygamy itself, he could still be convicted of cohabitation. Wives and children could be compelled to testify against the husband, overriding traditional spousal privilege. The law also disqualified polygamists from voting, holding public office, or serving on juries, effectively stripping them of political power in Utah Territory.

Attacking Church Property and Institutional Power

What made Edmunds-Tucker unprecedented was its assault on the LDS Church's property and legal standing. The law dissolved the church's corporate charter and authorized the federal government to seize all church property valued over $50,000. It placed that property in the hands of a federal receiver, who could sell it to pay fines and court costs. This wasn't abstract punishment—it meant the government could take temples, meeting houses, farms, and businesses that the church had accumulated over decades. The law also required the church to prove it had abandoned polygamy as a condition for regaining its property. This economic pressure proved far more effective than criminal prosecutions alone.

Why It Mattered and When It Applied

Edmunds-Tucker represented a fundamental shift in federal authority. Before it, polygamy prosecutions had been sporadic and often unsuccessful—juries in Utah Territory were sympathetic to polygamists, and the burden of proof was high. The new law changed the calculus by lowering evidentiary barriers (cohabitation was easier to prove than polygamy itself) and making the cost of resistance unbearable. It applied directly to Utah Territory and any U.S. territory or state where polygamy was practiced. The law's severity was also a direct response to the LDS Church's defiance: church leaders had publicly defended polygamy as a religious principle and resisted earlier, milder anti-polygamy legislation. Congress decided that only overwhelming legal and economic pressure would force capitulation.

The act's impact was immediate and severe. Hundreds of LDS men went underground or fled to Mexico and Canada to escape prosecution. Church leaders faced arrest. By 1890, facing the prospect of total institutional collapse, the LDS Church officially renounced polygamy through a statement called the Manifesto. This was not a voluntary moral awakening—it was a surrender to federal coercion. However, the law's very harshness created an unintended consequence: some believers, viewing the Manifesto as a capitulation to secular authority, continued practicing polygamy in secret, founding fundamentalist offshoots that persist today.

Key Provisions of Edmunds-Tucker (1887)

Made polygamy a felony (up to 5 years, $500 fine)
Criminalized unlawful cohabitation as a separate misdemeanor (could be charged yearly)
Stripped polygamists of voting rights and eligibility for public office
Dissolved the LDS Church's corporate charter
Authorized seizure of church property exceeding $50,000
Allowed wives and children to testify against husbands
Required the church to formally abandon polygamy to reclaim property

The Difference from Earlier Anti-Polygamy Laws

Congress had tried to suppress polygamy before. The Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act of 1862 criminalized polygamy in U.S. territories, but enforcement in Utah was weak—local juries refused to convict, and the church's legal position remained strong. The Edmunds Act of 1882 strengthened enforcement by making cohabitation a crime and disqualifying polygamists from voting and jury duty, but it didn't touch church property. Edmunds-Tucker combined criminal penalties with institutional destruction. By targeting the church's wealth and legal existence, it made polygamy economically unsustainable, not just legally risky. This combination proved decisive where criminal law alone had failed.

Why did Congress target the church's property instead of just prosecuting individuals?

Congress recognized that individual prosecutions had failed because local juries sympathized with polygamists and the LDS Church had the resources to support defendants and hide those fleeing arrest. By seizing church property, Congress eliminated the institutional infrastructure that enabled polygamy and imposed costs so severe that the church leadership had to choose between survival and the practice itself. It was a strategy of institutional destruction, not just individual punishment.

Could the LDS Church have kept its property without abandoning polygamy?

Technically, the law allowed the church to reclaim seized property only after demonstrating it had abandoned polygamy. So no—there was no legal path to keeping both the property and the practice. This was the law's intended effect: to force an impossible choice and eliminate one option.

Did Edmunds-Tucker actually stop polygamy, or did people just hide it?

It forced the LDS Church to officially abandon it and made the practice much riskier and less visible. But it didn't eliminate it entirely. Some fundamentalist believers continued practicing polygamy underground, arguing that the Manifesto was a political concession, not a true religious change. These groups still exist today, though they are small and legally prosecuted when discovered.

Was the law constitutional?

The Supreme Court upheld it in The Late Corporation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints v. United States (1890). The Court ruled that the government had the power to dissolve a corporation and seize its property if it was being used to promote illegal activity. This set a precedent for federal power over religious institutions, though it remains controversial among legal scholars.

Did the law apply only to Utah or to other polygamist groups too?

Edmunds-Tucker applied to all U.S. territories and states, so it could theoretically have been enforced against any polygamist group. In practice, it was directed almost entirely at the LDS Church because they were the largest and most organized polygamist community. Smaller groups and isolated practitioners were prosecuted under general bigamy laws rather than this specific statute.

Sources

The Late Corporation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints v. United States, 136 U.S. 1 (1890)—Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of Edmunds-Tucker and church property seizure.
Edmunds-Tucker Act, 24 Stat. 635 (1887)—Full text and legislative history.
Sarah Barringer Gordon, The Mormon Question: Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict in Nineteenth-Century America (2002)—Comprehensive legal and social history of anti-polygamy legislation.