This may be coupled with the so-called manifesto of President Wilford Woodruff, adopted by the Church in conference assembled, Oct. 6, 1890, in which he announced his intention to live according to the laws of the United States, and declared : "My advice to the Latter-day Saints is that they contract no marriage contrary to the laws of the land." Since that time the Church has not performed any plural marriages or authorized any violation of the law thus forbidden. But there were some persons who construed the language of that manifesto to signify plural marriages within the boundaries of the United States, that being "the land" wherein the laws spoken of extended. They therefore went or removed to Mexico and thus acted on that which they believed to be right without violating the manifesto. They looked on plural marriage within the United States as malum prohibitum and not malum in se.

When this condition was discovered a further declaration was made by President Lorenzo Snow, who succeeded President Woodruff, in which he announced that the manifesto extended to every place, and that "the Church has positively abandoned the practice of polygamy or the solemnization of plural marriages in this and every other state, and that no member or officer thereof has any authority whatever to perform a plural marriage or enter into such a relation." This was published in the Deseret News at Salt Lake City, Jan. 8, 1900.

Rumors of surreptitious unions contrary to these official announcements being circulated, the present president of the Church, on April 6, 1904, reiterated the universality of the inhibition, and proclaimed that any person entering into or performing a plural marriage would be liable to be dealt with according to the rules of the Church and excommunicated therefrom.

Such violation of these positive declarations as have been reported, wherever proven by sufficient evidence, have been dealt with by Church tribunals, and the offenders have been disciplined or excommunicated. This course will be maintained, with due regard to the rights of individuals and the laws of the Church, common rumor or gossip without evidence being insufficient in a trial either civil or ecclesiastical. We protest against the charge that the Churcn or its leading officers encourage the resumption of plural marriages, and hereby declare the same to be absolutely false.