Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 January 1879 — Polygamy. [ARTICLE]

Polygamy.

Senator Christiancy, of Michigan, has introduced in Congress a bill providing that every person who has a husband or w’ife living, who, in a Territory or other place over which the United States has exclusive jurisdiction, marries another, whether married or single, and any man who hereafter simultaneously or on the same day marries more than one woman, in a Territory or other place over which the United States has exclusive jurisdiction, shall be deemed guilty of bigamy, and be punished by a fine of not more than SSOO and by imprisonment of not more than five years, but this section shall not extend to any person by reason of any former marriage whose husband or wife by such marriage is absent for five successive years, and is not known to such person to be living, nor to any person by reason of any former marriage which 1>»“ been dissolved by decree of a competent uovwt, 4<> any person by reason of any former marriage which has been pronounced void by the decree of a competent court on the ground of nullity of the marriage contract. The foregoing provisions are not to effect the prosecution or punishment of any offense already committed against the present law. The President is authorized to grant amnesty to such classes of offenders against the antipolygamy law, and on such conditions and under such limitations, as he shall think proper,’but no such amnesty shall have effect unless, the conditions thereof shall have been complied with. The issue of plural marriages, known as Mormon marriages, in cases in which such marriages have been solemnized according to the rites of the Mormon sect in any Territory of the United States, and if such issue shall have been bom before the Ist of November, 1879, are legitimate, and shall be entitled to all the rights of heirs and next of kin of their parents. Polygamists are disqualified from performing jury duty. Placed on the calendar.