US Government's Relationship with the Mormons during Migration to the West

The US government initially welcomed the Latter-day Saints' mass migration to the West without knowledge of their theocratic practices, including polygamy and forming alliances with native people. The practice of polygamy was kept under the rug, and it was not publicly announced that the Latter-day Saints were practicing it. The Republican Party in 1856 ran on the platform of ending the twin relics of barbarism: polygamy and slavery, and the Mormons were not the only ones practicing polygamy.