In 1842 Mormon Church president and founder Joseph Smith revealed the doctrine of "Celestial Marriage" (polygamy) to followers as the only way to attain the "fullness of exaltation." The full revelation was recorded in their Doctrine and Covenants; section 132, making it "scripture" to Mormon faithful.

Members of the Mormon Church continued the practice of polygamy after establishing themselves in the Utah Territory, keeping Utah from statehood for more than 30 years. In 1882, Congress passed the Edmunds Tucker Act, resulting in a major crusade against polygamists in the form of raids and arrests.

In 1885, George Q. Cannon, counsellor of the Mormon First Presidency, proclaimed, "To comply with the request of our enemies, would be to give up all hope of ever entering into the glory of God, the Father, and Jesus Christ, the son. So intently interwoven is this precious doctrine with the exaltation of men and women in the great hereafter that it cannot be given up without giving up at the same time all hope of immortal glory."

In 1888, Mormon Church President Wilford Woodruff stated: "We won't quit practising plural marriage until Christ shall come." But in 1890, Woodruff issued a proclamation and signed "The Manifesto," pledging to Congress that Mormons had given up polygamy, thus paving the way for statehood.

In truth, Mormons, including Woodruff, continued to marry plural wives until the Smoot investigations forced then-church President Joseph F. Smith into issuing the second Manifesto in 1904. Since that time, church members have been excommunicated for practising polygamy.

In 1937, however, Heber J. Grant, seventh president of the Mormon Church said in an interview: "We never believed polygamy was wrong and never will."

Mormon fundamentalists trace their authority to President John Taylor through John Woolley. John Taylor's son, John W. Taylor, said that in 1886 while living on the underground (hiding from arrest due to living polygamy) at John Woolley's home, his father inquired of the Lord if it would not be right under the circumstances to discontinue polygamy. John claimed that in his fathers papers he found a document recording the response: "... the Lord told (my father) that the principle of plural marriage would never be overcome." At his excommunication trial before the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, young Taylor later said that several individuals, including Joseph Fielding Smith, took the document and made a copy of it.

In 1933, the Taylor family donated the original hand-written 1886 revelation to the Mormon Church. It has never been released for tests of authenticity.

Mormon fundamentalists maintain that LDS President John Taylor secretly ordained several priesthood holders (among them, John Woolley) to continue the practice of polygamy through a special dispensation of priesthood authority. They further believe that Taylor gave the priesthood holders the authority both to perform polygamous marriages and to ordain others with authority to perform polygamous marriages to insure that children would be born to polygamous parents each year thereafter to the millennium.

Some estimates put the number of polygamists in Utah as high as 60,000.

Regarding the authenticity of the 1886 revelation, according to a recorded talk by Reed C. Durham, Jr., LDS Coordinator of Seminaries and Institutes in Salt Lake City and President of the Mormon History Association, speaking by assignment on February 24, 1974, to the High Priest Meeting of the Salt Lake Foothill Stake: "There was a revelation that John Taylor received and we have it in his handwriting. We've analyzed the handwriting. It is John Taylor's handwriting and the revelation is reproduced by the fundamentalists. That's supposed to prove the whole story because there was indeed a revelation. The revelation is dated September 27; that fits this account of a meeting, 1886.

An account of the 1886 revelation and meeting can be found in Truth Seeker Magazine 3:4, which is titled, "The Visitation of Jesus Christ and Joseph Smith to John Taylor"