In nineteenth century Idaho, efforts were made to prevent members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS, or Mormons) from voting, holding office, or serving on juries. Congress passed the Edmunds Act in 1882 to prevent men who had more than one wife (polygamists) from voting. Three years later, Idaho’s Territorial Legislature enacted a law that went far beyond the Edmunds Act. It deprived the rights of (disfranchised) not only polygamists, but all Mormons, since they were members of an organization that taught or practiced bigamy or polygamy or plural or celestial marriage.22

Robert Lee and Harriett /Photo Citation 31

Robert Lee Bybee, relatives, and neighbor /Photo Citation 30

The Struggle for Enfranchisement

Robert Bybee, a Mormon, wrote in a family history that he was elected to serve in the House of Representatives of the Territorial Legislature in 1884. Around this time, there were about 25,000 Mormons, or 17 percent of the population of Idaho, and only about 150 of them were polygamists.23 Upon arriving to take his seat in the Legislature, he was told that his election was a fraud and that another election had been held. During this session of the Territorial Legislature, a “Test Oath” forbidding Mormons from voting and holding office was enacted. Bybee wrote that his lawyer was drunk and the only help he and the other two LDS representatives received was a half-price fare home.24

During this period, Idaho’s largest religious denomination was unable to vote, hold office, or even serve on a jury. Mormon men at times took extreme measures to gain these rights. In Rexburg, large numbers of LDS men arranged with their church authorities to withdraw their membership in order to qualify to vote. A resulting court action dismissed the election results as illegal.

Fred T. Dubois, Idaho’s delegate to Congress in the 1880s, boasted that he could get Mormons convicted of anything, regardless of details like evidence, since they were excluded from serving on juries.25 Samuel Davis, a Mormon in Oneida County, took the Idaho oath in 1889 in order to vote and was jailed for conspiracy to violate the election laws. Davis filed court actions that ultimately ended with a United States Supreme Court case upholding his imprisonment with a bitter attack on polygamy that overlooked the fact that Davis had never been a polygamist.26

 Fred T. Dubois, Idaho’s delegate to Congress in the 1880s /Photo Citation 32

Repealing Mormon Disfranchisement

The legal steps taken to prevent Mormons from having rights that other Idahoans had (disfranchisement) was a critical issue at the 1889 state constitutional convention, as well as when the Idaho Statehood bill was being debated in Congress.27 Prominent non-Mormons who believed that polygamists should not vote testified before Congress that it was unfair to disfranchise Mormons who did not practice polygamy, as they had broken no law.28 Some observers saw this effort to disfranchise Mormons as more of a reaction to what was seen as a tendency of Mormons to vote in blocs for church-supported candidates.

Grandchildren of Robert Lee Bybee at a birthday party, 1918 /Photo Citation 33

Months after Idaho achieved statehood on September 24, 1890, the president of the LDS church issued a directive ending polygamy within the United States. Political leaders then had to admit that their anti-Mormon voting oath was not just aimed at polygamists but was also targeting the LDS tendency to vote as a bloc. These anti-Mormon political leaders enacted a law in 1889 that kept the vote from persons who had belonged to an organization that had ever taught polygamy. As amazing as it may seem today, the courts upheld the statute. It was only in 1892, after Mormons dissolved the People’s Party and agreed that the church would stay out of politics, that the Test Oath was repealed.29

Discriminatory language against Mormons stayed in the Idaho Constitution for nearly a hundred years until 1982, when it was removed by initiative. Fear that the initiative would fail because of continuing bias against Mormons may have been the reason for the long delay in submitting the question of Mormon enfranchisement to voters. The Idaho Human Rights Commission and the Northwest Coalition Against Malicious Harassment conducted a survey of racial and religious intolerance in 1988 that showed that Idaho non-Mormon respondents had lukewarm feelings towards Mormons.

FOOTNOTES: 22- Groberg, Joseph H., The Mormon Disfranchisements of 1882-1892, BYU Studies, No. 3, 1976, p. 401. 23- Ibid., p. 405. 24- Hillman, Donna, Hancy and Bybee Family Autobiography of Robert Lee Bybee, 1838-1924 Pioneer, private publication 1989 made available by Mary Jane Fritzen, Idaho Falls, Idaho. 25- Wells, Merle, Law in the Service of Politics, Anti-Mormonism in Idaho Territories, Idaho Yesterdays, Spring 1981, p. 5. 26- Davis v. Beason, Sheriff, 133 U.S. 33, 105. Ct. 299. 27- Colson, Dennis C., Idaho’s Constitution—The Tie That Binds, University of Idaho Press, 1991, p. 149. 28- Arrington, p. 420. 29- Groberg, p. 407.