It advised church members against entering into any marriage prohibited by the law of the land,[1] and made it easier for Utah to become a U.S. state.

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the provisions of the Edmunds–Tucker Act in Late Corporation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. United States in May 1890.

[8] In April 1889, Woodruff, the president of the church, began privately refusing the permission that was required to contract new plural marriages.

"[10] Because it had been Mormon practice for over 25 years to either evade or ignore anti-polygamy laws, Woodruff's statement was a signal that a change in church policy was developing.

[11] In February 1890, the Supreme Court ruled in Davis v. Beason[12] that a law in Idaho Territory which disenfranchised individuals who practiced or believed in plural marriage was constitutional.

[13] That decision left the Mormons no further legal recourse to their current marriage practices[14] and made it unlikely that without change Utah Territory would be granted statehood.

[citation needed] Woodruff later said that on the night of September 23, 1890, he received a revelation from Jesus Christ that the church should cease the practice of plural marriage.

George Reynolds would later recount that he, Charles W. Penrose, and John R. Winder modified Woodruff's draft into the current language accepted by the general authorities and presented to the church as a whole.

[16] Woodruff announced the Manifesto on September 25 by publishing it in the church-owned Deseret Weekly in Salt Lake City.

[21][22] The Manifesto states: To Whom It May Concern: Press dispatches having been sent for political purposes, from Salt Lake City, which have been widely published, to the effect that the Utah Commission, in their recent report to the Secretary of the Interior, allege that plural marriages have been contracted in Utah since last June or during the past year, also that in public discourses the leaders of the Church have taught, encouraged and urged the continuance of the practice of polygamy— I, therefore, as President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, do hereby, in the most solemn manner, declare that these charges are false.

At a general conference of the church in Salt Lake City on October 6, 1890, the Manifesto was read, after which Lorenzo Snow, the president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, made the following motion: I move that, recognizing Wilford Woodruff as the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the only man on the earth at the present time who holds the keys of the sealing ordinances, we consider him fully authorized by virtue of his position to issue the Manifesto which has been read in our hearing, and which is dated September 1890, and that as a Church in General Conference assembled, we accept his declaration concerning plural marriages as authoritative and binding.

"[19] Some members, including apostle Moses Thatcher, only reluctantly supported the Manifesto and interpreted it as a sign that the Second Coming of Jesus was imminent, after which plural marriage would be reinstated.

[27] D. Michael Quinn and other Mormon historians have documented that some church apostles covertly sanctioned plural marriages after the Manifesto.

The estimates of the number of post-Manifesto plural marriages performed range from scores to thousands, with the actual figure probably close to 250.