Dyer Lum argues that the motivational force behind the Edmunds Anti-Polygamy Act is to crush the cooperative economy set up by Mormons in Utah.

"The spirit of Caesar, rendered powerless in religious systems, castrated of divine right in forms of political government, is entrenching itself in the economic system of the age. British and German empires, Spanish and Italian kingdoms, French and American republics, are but dead forms; the animating soul in each is the same. A common (economic) feeling has made them all akin. Statecraft exists for the furtherance of economic interests; forms of government are recognized as of secondary importance to "vested interests." Harrington's apothegm: 'Empire follows the balance of property,' is no longer disputable."