Wilford Woodruff Journal 5: The 1890 Manifesto — God Commanded Him to Write It; He Called It Just as Authoritative as 'Thus Saith the Lord' (1890)

“I have arrived at a point in the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when I am under the necessity of acting for the temporal salvation of the church. The United States government has taken a stand against the church and has passed laws to confiscate our property and imprison our leaders. I have prayed to the Lord and have received his word. I have been told exactly what to do. The God of heaven commanded me to do what I did do. I wrote what the Lord told me to write. Almighty God commanded me to do what I did. The Son of God felt disposed to have it presented to the Church. I have issued the following Proclamation: To Whom It May Concern: Press dispatches having been sent for political purposes, from Salt Lake City, which have been widely published, to the effect that the Utah Commission, in their recent report to the Secretary of the Interior, allege that plural marriages are still being solemnized and that forty or more such marriages have been contracted in Utah since last June or during the past year, also that in public discourses the teachers of the Church have been teaching the practice of polygamy. I, Wilford Woodruff, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, do hereby, in the most solemn manner, declare that these charges are false. We are not teaching polygamy or plural marriage, nor permitting any person to enter into its practice, and I deny that either forty or any other number of plural marriages have during that period been solemnized in our Temples or in any other place in the Territory. One case has been reported, in which the parties alleged that the marriage was performed in the Endowment House, in Salt Lake City, in the spring of 1889, but I have not been able to learn who performed the ceremony; whatever was done in this matter was without my knowledge. In consequence of this alleged occurrence the Endowment House was, by my instructions, taken down without delay. Inasmuch as laws have been enacted by Congress forbidding plural marriages, which laws have been pronounced constitutional by the court of last resort, I hereby declare my intention to submit to those laws, and to use my influence with the members of the Church over which I preside to have them do likewise. There is nothing in my teachings to the Church or in those of my associates, during the time specified, which can be reasonably construed to inculcate or encourage polygamy; and when any Elder of the Church has used language which appeared to convey any such teaching, he has been promptly reproved. And I now publicly declare that my advice to the Latter-day Saints is to refrain from contracting any marriage forbidden by the law of the land.”

— Wilford Woodruff, Journal entry September 24-25, 1890 (incorporating the text of the Manifesto)