The second antebellum congressional battle over moral legislation, that over Mormon polygamy, had greater significance but revealed similar sectional divisions. . . . Other southerners feared that legislating morality in the territories, even if it involved something they believed to be so clearly immoral as polygamy, would establish a dangerous precedent that could be turned against the South’s own peculiar institution [i.e., race-based slavery]. They rested their case against the proviso on broader principles, however. Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia argued that Congress had no power “to establish any religion” or “to touch the question of morals, which lie at the foundation of all systems of religion.” “If we discriminate to-day against Mormons,” he added, “to-morrow, perhaps, we shall be asked to discriminate against Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Catholics.” An Alabama Democrat also condemned the proviso as one more step toward “centralization” and government regulation of “morality.” The bill died in the House. . . .

Congress’s failure to pass antipolygamy legislation was not surprising; in the antebellum period, it rarely legislated on the issue of personal morality.

Gaines M. Foster, Moral Reconstruction: Christian Lobbyists and the Federal Legislation of Morality, 1865-1920, 15 & 17.