__NOTOC__ ''Davis v. Beason'', 133 U.S. 333 (1890), was a

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

case affirming, by a 9–0 vote, that federal laws against

polygamy Crimes Polygamy (from Late Greek (') "state of marriage to many spouses") is the practice of marrying multiple spouses. When a man is married to more than one wife at the same time, sociologists call this polygyny. When a woman is married ...

did not conflict with the

free exercise clause The Free Exercise Clause accompanies the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The ''Establishment Clause'' and the ''Free Exercise Clause'' together read: Free exercise is the liberty of persons to re ...

of the

First Amendment to the United States Constitution The First Amendment (Amendment I) to the United States Constitution prevents the government from making laws that regulate an establishment of religion, or that prohibit the free exercise of religion, or abridge the freedom of speech, the ...

Background

Congress had passed the

Edmunds Act The Edmunds Act, also known as the Edmunds Anti-Polygamy Act of 1882,U.S.History.com is a United States federal statute, signed into law on March 23, 1882 by President Chester A. Arthur, declaring polygamy a felony in federal territories. The act ...

in 1882, which made polygamy a felony; over 1,300

Mormons Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, the principal branch of the Latter Day Saint movement started by Joseph Smith in upstate New York during the 1820s. After Smith's death in 1844, the movement split into several ...

were imprisoned. The Act also required test oaths requiring voters to swear they were not bigamists or polygamists. A statute of the

Idaho Territory The Territory of Idaho was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 3, 1863, until July 3, 1890, when the final extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as Idaho. History 1860s The territory w ...

required a similar oath in order to register to vote, in order to limit or eliminate Mormons' participation in government and their control of local schools.''American Cultural Pluralism and Law''; Jill Norgren, Serena Nanda; p. 91-92; Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006; fetched fro
the version on Google Book Search
on 18 March 2009. The loyalty also forbade being a member of any organization that advocated or spent resources defending bigamy or polygamy. Mormons initiated a challenge to Idaho's oath test by having members who did not have plural marriages registering to vote. Samuel D. Davis, a resident of Oneida County, Idaho, was convicted in the territorial district court of swearing falsely after taking the voter's oath."Davis v. Beason (1890)"
, fetched 18 March 2009.
Richard E. Morgan, 1986. Macmillan Reference USA. Fetched 18 March 2009. Davis appealed his conviction via a ''

habeas corpus ''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, t ...

'' writ, claiming that the Idaho law requiring the oath violated his right to the free exercise of his religion as a member of the

LDS Church The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a Nontrinitarianism, nontrinitarian Christianity, Christian church that considers itself to be the Restorationism, restoration of the ...

Supreme Court ruling

Justice Field, writing for the Court, condemned polygamy, writing that "Few crimes are more pernicious to the best interests of society, and receive more general or more deserved punishment." He went on to echo ''

Reynolds v. United States ''Reynolds v. United States'', 98 U.S. 145 (1878), was a Supreme Court of the United States case that held that religious duty was not a defense to a criminal indictment. ''Reynolds'' was the first Supreme Court opinion to address the First Amen ...

'' (1878): "However free the exercise of religion may be, it must be subordinate to the criminal laws of the country, passed with reference to actions regarded by general consent as properly the subjects of punitive legislation." He wrote by way of comparison that if a religious sect advocated fornication or

human sacrifice Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more humans as part of a ritual, which is usually intended to please or appease gods, a human ruler, an authoritative/priestly figure or spirits of dead ancestors or as a retainer sacrifice, wherein ...

, "swift punishment would follow the carrying into effect of its doctrines, and no heed would be given to the pretense that, as religious beliefs, their supporters could be protected in their exercise by the Constitution of the United States." Field listed the limits that federal law placed upon the rights of United States territories to qualify voters, noted Idaho's specific prohibition of polygamists and people encouraging polygamy from the right to vote, and wrote that this was "not open to any constitutional or legal objection," as the Idaho law "simply excludes from the privilege of voting ... those who have been convicted of certain offenses".

Subsequent events

Richard Morgan wrote, "The decision became one of the principal underpinnings of what later came to be called the 'secular regulation' approach to the

whereby no religious exemptions are required from otherwise valid secular regulations." 106 years later, in ''

Romer v. Evans ''Romer v. Evans'', 517 U.S. 620 (1996), is a landmark United States Supreme Court case dealing with sexual orientation and state laws.. It was the first Supreme Court case to address gay rights since ''Bowers v. Hardwick'' (1986),. when the C ...

'' (1996), the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional a Colorado constitutional initiative that prevented any jurisdiction from protecting homosexual citizens from discrimination. In the dissent,

Justice Scalia Antonin Gregory Scalia (; March 11, 1936 – February 13, 2016) was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1986 until his death in 2016. He was described as the intellectua ...

asked how ''Romer'' could be reconciled with ''Davis v. Beason'':

References

External links

* * {{US1stAmendment, exercise, state=expanded 1890 in United States case law Legal history of Idaho United States law and polygamy in Mormonism Political history of Idaho United States elections case law United States free exercise of religion case law United States Supreme Court cases United States Supreme Court cases of the Fuller Court The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Idaho 1890 in Christianity 1890 in Idaho Territory 19th-century Mormonism Christianity and law in the 19th century Oneida County, Idaho