HOW TO HEAD OFF POLYGAMY—A BACHELOR IC VIEW OF THE FAMILY.—The Washington Union is very greatly exercised just at pres-ent with the plurality wife system, existing among the Saints at Salt Lake. After due and deliberate reflection, that judicious organ of the Administration is satisfied that no man should have, or desire, more than one wife ; that polygamy is against the laws of every State and Territory, Utah excepted ; and that it is a relic of anti-Christian barbarism, which has no business to show itself in this enlight-ened country of ours.
But at the same time, when the question comes to a practical form, the Union is dis-tressed what to advise. It is quite sure, upon consideration, that neither Congress nor the President can meddle with it. The affair, it says, belongs exclusively to the Mormons themselves, and must stand or fall by the local law of Utah Territory. Having thus thrown off all present responsibility, the Union breathes freer and deeper. But no sooner has it reached this mental calm than intelli-gence comes that ECHOLS, the Federal Judge, has enjoined upon a Utah Grand Jury the duty of finding indictments for polygamy. Here is the whole difficulty renewed, and in a very troublesome form. Why could not that pig-headed official refrain from such a wind-mill attack upon the peculiar institution of the Saints ?
Yet, as it would never do for the President's organ to be caught without provision for an emergency, the Union of Wednesday announ-ces the mode by which polygamy is to be eventually rooted out. The remedy for this social disease is worth patenting. Its sim-plicity is equal to its efficacy, and its efficacy as great as its simplicity. The Union will wait till Utah makes application for admission as a State, and the moment that happens, will take the ground, with crushing effect, that po-lygamy is anti-republican. For why ?
"The Family," says the Union, " is the foundation of the Republic. In our polity we have three corner, stone institutions : the Family, the State, and the Confederacy. Without the family, the State cannot be republican ; and unless the government of the State be republican, it cannot under the Constitution—it cannot in the nature of things, be a member of the confederacy. Should a new State present it-self, therefore for admission into the Union, authoriz-ing a principle so much at war, not merely with re publicanism, but with civilization itself, as polygamy, it would not only be competent for Congress, but ob-ligatory upon it, to inquire, whether admission should not be denied for the reason that the form of government was not republican ?
An exposition of constitutional and social law so luminous neither requires nor admits of comment. Henceforth there will be no ques-tion as to the coarse to be pursued. History will record that a bachelor President, after an experience of three score and ten years, de-cides that " the family is the foundation of the Republic," and " without the family the State cannot be Republican."
