| 432 against polygamy have been secured, nearly, or quite fifteen thousand have been disfranchised on account of polygamous practices through the operations of the law as administered by the Commission.
Ten suits for damages have been instituted against the Commission by certain Mormons whose names were rendered at the first registration and who were not permitted to vote at the election in November, 1882, because they refused to comply with the rules and regulations prescribed under the law by the Commission for proof of the eligibility of all voters. It is understood that these have been brought for the purpose, primarily, of testing the constitutionality of this law, and secondly, to determine the legality of our acts thereunder. The first hearing of these cases will be had early in October. It is deemed advisable to withhold our regular report until the court shall have heard and passed upon the cases. Moreover, certain phases of the general situation here have presented themselves through the recent election and in other ways in the present year, which will require to be carefully considered before the Commission will be bothered to make a full and comprehensive report, which the President and Congress will undoubtedly desire, and the Commission will wish to make such a report; and it will be prepared and forwarded in ample time for the use of the President in communicating with Congress at the commencement of its session in December next.
(Signed) ALEX. RAMSEY,
By Order of the Commission.
The following December the President in his message to Congress, recommended as follows:
The Utah Commission has submitted to the Secretary of the Interior its second annual report as a result of its labors in supervising the recent election in that Territory, pursuant to the act of March 22, 1882. It appears that the persons by that act disqualified, to the number of about twelve thousand were excluded from the polls. This fact, however, affords little cause for congratulation, and I fear that it is far from indicating any real and substantial progress toward the extirpation of polygamy. All of the members of the Legislature are Mormons. There is grave reason to believe that they are in sympathy with the practices that this Government is seeking to suppress and that its efforts in that regard will be more likely to encounter their opposition than receive their encouragement and support. Even if this view should happily be erroneous, the law under which the Commission have been acting, should be made more effective by the incorporation of some such stringent measures as they recommend, as were included in bill No. 2238 on the calendar of the Senate, at its last session. I am convinced, however, that polygamy has become so strongly intrenched in the territory of Utah, that it is profitless to attack it with any but the strongest weapons which constitutional legislation can fashion. I favor, therefore, the repeal of the act upon which the existing government depends, the
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