George Q. Cannon

Cannon was born in Liverpool, England, to George Cannon and Ann Quayle, the eldest of six children. His mother and father were from Peel on the Isle of Man. His father's sister, Leonora Cannon, had married future Latter Day Saint apostle John Taylor and was baptized in 1836. News reached the elder George Cannon and four years later, when Taylor came to Liverpool, the entire Cannon family was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints; George Q. Cannon was 13 years old at the time. Cannon's siblings were Mary Alice Cannon (Lambert), Ann Cannon (Woodbury), Angus M. Cannon, David H. Cannon, and Leonora Cannon (Gardner). In 1842, the Cannon family set sail for the United States to join with the church in Nauvoo, Illinois. On the voyage over the Atlantic Ocean, Cannon's mother died. The motherless family arrived safely in Nauvoo in the spring of 1843. George Sr. married Mary Edwards in 1844 and had another daughter, Elizabeth Cannon (Piggott).

In Nauvoo, Cannon's father sent him to live with his uncle and aunt, John and Leonora Taylor. Cannon worked in the printing office of the Times and Seasons and the Nauvoo Neighbor for Taylor, who was an editor of both periodicals. In June 1844, Taylor accompanied Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith, and Willard Richards and others to Carthage Jail. There, Joseph and Hyrum were killed, and Taylor sustained serious bullet wounds. Cannon tended the printing affairs while Taylor recovered. This training would serve him well in later life. Cannon's father died in 1845.

In 1846, Taylor traveled to England to organize the affairs of the church after Smith's death. Meanwhile, Cannon accompanied Taylor's wife and family as they moved to Winter Quarters, Nebraska. When Taylor returned, Cannon traveled with the entire Taylor family to the Salt Lake Valley, arriving in October 1847.

Plural marriage

Cannon practiced plural marriage and was married to six women. Cannon frequently spoke in justification of the practice.

When the Supreme Court upheld the ban on plural marriage in the 1879 Reynolds v. United States decision, Cannon stated: Our crime has been: We married women instead of seducing them; we reared children instead of destroying them; we desired to exclude from the land prostitution, bastardy and infanticide. If George Reynolds [the man who was convicted of committing bigamy] is to be punished, let the world know the facts.... Let it be published to the four corners of the earth that in this land of liberty, the most blessed and glorious upon which the sun shines, the law is swiftly invoked to punish religion, but justice goes limping and blindfolded in pursuit of crime.

Eventually, Cannon went "underground" with others in the church leadership as a fugitive from the federal authorities. In September 1888, Cannon surrendered himself and pleaded guilty at trial to charges of unlawful cohabitation under the Edmunds Act. As a result, Cannon served nearly six months in Utah's federal penitentiary.

In the string of events preceding the announcement of Wilford Woodruff in September, 1890 that the church would not sanction additional polygamist marriages, Cannon's son Frank shuttled communications relating to polygamy between the US Congress and his father.

Cannon was pardoned in 1894 by U.S. President Grover Cleveland.

Cannon was elected to be the non-voting delegate for Utah Territory in the United States Congress in 1872. He remained a congressional delegate until 1882, when his seat was declared vacant by the enactment of the Edmunds Act, which terminated many political and civil rights for Utah's Mormon polygamists.

Dispute in the 47th Congress

By 1880, Cannon had served four terms in Congress as Utah territorial delegate.

The newly appointed anti-Mormon territorial governor, Eli Houston Murray, openly supported the Liberal Party, which generally opposed church candidates. The 1880 territory-wide election for a congressional delegate brought the Liberal Party unexpectedly close to sending a representative to Washington, DC. The Liberal candidate, Allen G. Campbell, with 1357 votes, lost resoundingly to Cannon, who had 18,567 votes. However, before Governor Murray certified the election, a protest on behalf of Campbell was filed. The protest listed a dozen claims, chiefly that Cannon, born in England, was not a naturalized citizen but an alien. The protest also claimed that Cannon's participation in polygamy was incompatible with federal law and a delegate's oath of office. Murray agreed and issued certification to Campbell, in spite of his poor showing.

Cannon, in Washington at the time, argued that only Congress could decide on a member's qualifications. He furthermore received a certificate from sympathetic territorial election officials that stated he had received the most votes. That document convinced the House of Representatives clerk to enter Cannon's name on the roll and so Cannon began drawing the delegate's salary.

Both Murray and Campbell traveled to Washington to dispute the seat. Each side battled over the position for over a year, even after the assassination of President James Garfield. On February 25, 1882, the House of Representatives finally rejected both candidates. The House refused Cannon his seat on the basis of his involvement in polygamy. In the end, the House seated John T. Caine as the Delegate during the 47th Congress. Caine went on to serve for several years.

The issue brought unfavorable national attention to Utah, which contributed to the Edmunds Act being signed into law on March 23, 1882. The act reinforced the 1862 Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act by declaring polygamy a felony and also revoked polygamists' right to vote, made them ineligible for jury service, and prohibited them from holding political office.