The rise of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints posed a significant challenge to the nineteenth-century Protestant establishment by rejecting traditional religious authority and claiming new revelation. While the “godless” Constitution aimed to prevent religious conflict, it inadvertently fueled a competitive marketplace where Protestant groups leveraged cultural power to define acceptable faith. Early Saints exposed the limits of the First Amendment as their communal ambitions and alternative family structures met intense federal coercion and societal violence, such as the Utah War or the anti-polygamy raid. In this interview, historian Matthew Avery Sutton explores how this struggle shaped American law.
