13 Gratt. 301 | Va. | 1856
delivered his opinion in the case of Brooke v. Shacklett, but it applies equally to both cases :
In the case of Gallego's ex'ors v. Attorney General, 3 Leigh 450, decided by this court in 1832, it was held that the courts of chancery in this state had ho jurisdiction to enforce devises and bequests to religious societies or congregations. The court said, that as the statute of charitable uses, 43 Eliz. under which alone such vague bequests could be established, if ever in force in Virginia, had been repealed in 1792, in the general repeal of English statutes, charitable bequests were to be treated as standing on the same footing with other bequests. If definite, they were to be treated as trusts which courts of equity would execute by virtue of their ordinary jurisdiction; but if indefinite, they were no longer recognized by law, and could not be enforced: And a devise or bequest of property to or for the uses of a religious congregation was, it was said, of the character last mentioned. It was too uncertain as to the beneficiaries.
The reasoning of the court, it is obvious, applies
I do not deem it at all necessary to enquire how far the decision in the case just cited may conform to the views of courts elsewhere in respect to this branch of the law, inasmuch as I am -not aware that the authority of the case as a true exposition of the law in this state, has been ever seriously questioned. If, therefore, the law now stood as it did prior to the passage of certain acts whose provisions will be presently noticed, I should find no difficulty in holding that the bill of the appellee ought to have been dismissed as stating no case for the jurisdiction of a court of equity. For though there can be no reverter of the property in question to the grantor or his heirs, inasmuch as the deed purports to be founded on a valuable consideration, and contains a warranty warranting to the trus'tees and their successors, the property, against the claim of the grantors, their heirs, and all persons claiming by or under them; Yet the same indefiniteness as to the beneficiaries which defeated the bequest to the Roman Catholic congregation in Gallego's ex’ors v. Attorney General, is to be found in the deed here, and would present an insuperable difficulty in the way of the court’s undertaking to control the trustees in the performance of their duties, at the instance of a beneficiary in the deed, whether he claimed a use in the property as a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, or as a member of the congregation of that church, worshiping at Salem church-house. It becomes necessary, therefore, to examine the acts of assembly just mentioned, and to enquire whether the trusts of the deed can be brought within the scope of their provisions.
The first of the acts to which I refer, is the act entitled an act concerning conveyances or devises of places of public worship, passed February 3d, 1842.
There is, I think, nothing in the language of these laws to show that the legislature designed to confer peculiar benefits on any particular religious sect or sects. And the manifestation of any such design would not only have been utterly at war with the whole spirit of our institutions, but in direct conflict with the letter of the constitution declaring that the legislature “shall not confer any peculiar privileges or advantages on any one sect or denomination.” The terms of the acts are broad enough to embrace not only such congregations as may be independent of others, choosing their own pastors, and making the laws for their own government, but also such as may be united with other congregations under a common government, from which they may respectively receive the pastors that are to instruct them or the laws that
I am free to admit, that the first impression which this clause of the deed is calculated to make is that of a declaration of trust, not for the benefit of a local society, or congregation of Methodists worshiping or expected to worship at a particular place, but for the benefit of the “Methodist Episcopal church in the United States as an aggregate body or sect,” to the exclusion of any peculiar" rights of property in the land conveyed, in such local society or congregation. And if such is the true interpretation to be given the deed, it would plainly stand, for reasons already mentioned, out of the influence and operation of the statutes. Upon a fuller and more rigid examination of the deed, however, in which I have been much aided by the clear and forcible views presented by Chief Justice Marshall of Kentucky, in announcing the interpretation placed by the Supreme court of that state-, on a deed identical in its features with the deed under
It is to be observed, as already stated, that the house or place of worship to be erected is to be for the ..use of the members of the Methodist Episcopal church, &c.; and as the members of the local society are necessarily members of the Methodist Episcopal church, in the sense in which the term is used in the deed, it follows that the land is conveyed for the benefit, to some extent at least, of the local society or congregation. It is to be noted further also, that except upon the happening of a certain contingency, the deed contemplates the perpetual use of the property as a place of worship. And it is obvious, from the nature of things, that the usual occupancy of the property, in attending upon the preaching and exhortations of their minister and in meeting for the observance of the various religious duties and exercises enjoined upon its members by the rules of the church, is one that can be enjoyed only by the local society; and that any use or occupancy of the house by other members of the .church must be necessarily casual and infrequent; so much so as not to interfere with the full use and enjoyment of it as a place of worship by the local members. Hence it is fairly inferrible that the former use and not the latter was mainly if not exclusively within the contemplation of the parties to the deed. This view is made still more apparent in the subsequent declaration of the trusts. The deed proceeds to provide further, that in case one or more of the trustees die or cease to be a member or members of the said church, the stationed minister or preacher who shall have the pastoral charge of the
Does not this provision strongly persuade to the conclusion of a design that, in the event no sale of the property-is ever required, or until it is required, the immediate control and peculiar use of the property is to be and remain with the local society, by the contribution of whose members, in the main, (as is stated in the bill and not denied in the answer,) the church-house was erected, and to whose use the surplus proceeds of the property, in the event of a sale, are to be appropriated ?
“ The primary object of the whole transaction, (in the language of Chief Justice Marshall in the case befoi'e cited,) must necessarily have been to provide and secure a place of worship according to the Methodist Episcopal discipline for the local society of that denomination, by and for which contributions
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_ The provision that the trustees are at all times to permit the ministers and preachers belonging to the Methodist Episcopal church, who shall be duly authorized by the conferences of the church, to preach in the house to be erected, it is obvious, cannot in any degree detract from the character and effect of the deed as a dedication of property to the use and benefit of a religious congregation, in conformity with the statute. For the religious congregations, whose worship is not conducted under the lead and instruction of a minister, are comparatively few in number, and it is expressly provided in the statutes, as we have seen, that one of the uses to which the property dedicated may be applied, is, as “ a residence for a minister.” The only ground, therefore, on which it can be argued that this feature of the deed places it without the pale of the statute, is, that it sanctions the appointment of the ministers, and authorizes them to use the house for preaching, without any reference to the vote or wish of the congregation. It is true, that under the deed, and according to the rules and discipline therein referred to, the local societies have no voice in the selection of their ministers. But it does not follow that the deed therefore fails to fulfill any requirement of the statute, or is in any regard in conflict with its spirit. It could not have been unknown to the legislature that a large number of the religious congregations in the state are in such predicament; receiving their ministers from bodies who are bound by no rule
The dangers to be apprehended from church establishments, and the evils likely to flow from allowing them to acquire property under such broad powers as were at one time claimed and exercised by the chancellor in England as representing the superintendency of the crown, as parens patrice, over charities, might be; very properly looked to and considered by a court engaged, as this court was, in the case of Gallego's ex'ors v. Attorney General, in enquiring whether it had been left free to exercise a jurisdiction, which when once admitted it had no power to limit by any well defined boundaries. The subject is however presented to our consideration under circumstances wholly different.. The transfer and acquisition of property for religious purposes has been made the subject of a legislation in which the extent and the uses to which dedications of this character may be made, are precisely fixed and ascertained. The legislature has de
In passing now, therefore, on such a deed as the one under consideration, no jealousy of the extension of ecclesiastical power can be properly allowed to exert an influence in the selection of the rules of interpretation to be applied. On the contrary, we should rather favor that interpretation of the instrument which, consistently with the rules of construction, will place it within the operation of the changed policy of our legislation.
The deed being valid, as we must, I think, hold it to be, all doubt as to the jurisdiction of the court is ended; and we have to decide which of the two parties litigant are entitled to the use of the property which the deed conveys. There is no dispute between
The local society of which both of the parties litigant claim to be members, is not a separate and independent society or congregation making its own laws, but is one of a large number of local societies belonging (prior to a division of the church which will be presently noticed) to the Methodist Episcopal church in the United States. According to the plan of church government, annual conferences were composed of the traveling preachers within certain boundaries fixed by the general conference. The preachers were received into the church by the annual conferences, and distributed ;or assigned to their several charges by the bishops. The general conference was composed of one for every member of each annual conference appointed either by seniority or choice at the discretion of each annual conference; Yet so that such representatives should have traveled at least a certain number of years. The general conference elected the bishops, and had “ full powers to make rules and regulations for the church under certain specified limitations and restrictions.” The members of the local societies had no right to be represented by delegates either in the annual conferences or in the general conference. They had no voice in making the rules for the government of the church; none in the appointment or selection
These views conduct us necessarily to the enquiry as to what effect the division of the church is to have on the control of the uses of the houses of worship by the local societies.
I do not deem it necessary to go into any statement of the causes which led to this division, which was effected under certain resolutions adopted by the general conference in 1844. The resolutions are preceded by a preamble setting forth that a declaration had been presented with the signatures of fifty-one delegates of the body from thirteen annual conferences the slaveholding states, representing that for various reasons enumerated, the objects and purposes of the Christian ministry and church organization could not be successfully accomplished by them under the jurisdiction of the general conference as then constituted; and that in the event of a separation, a contingency to which the declaration asked attention as not improbable, the conference esteemed it a duty to meet the emergency with Christian kindness and the strictest equity.
The first resolution declares, that should the dele
By the second resolution it is declared that ministers, local and traveling, of every grade and office in the Methodist Episcopal church may, as they prefer, remain in that church, or, without blame, attach themselves to the church south.
And by the ninth it is declared that all the property of the Methodist-Episcopal church, in meeting-houses, •parsonages, colleges, schools, conference funds, cemeteries, and of every kind, within the limits of the southern organization, shall be forever free from any claim set up on the part of the Methodist Episcopal church, so far as this resolution can be of force in the premises.
In May of the following year (1845) delegates, regularly appointed by the several annual conferences of
If this division of the church was lawful, it is obvious, I think, that the members of the local societies in the southern organization of the church stand in the same relation to the general conference, the annual conferences, the bishops, pastors, rules and discipline of the Methodist Episcopal church south, that they occupied before the division, in respect to those of the Methodist Episcopal church. There has been no change of faith, no change of doctrine, no change of discipline, no change in the mode of administering it: All remain as before. By the express terms of the plan of separation, no blame is to be attached to the pastors in the south for adhering to the church south; and the members of the local societies are to remain under the unmolested care of the southern church, as they were before under that of the Methodist Episcopal church. And the southern church is to occupy the same relation to the church property in the south that the Methodist Episcopal church before occupied in respect to it. If the division has been lawfully effected, why may not a controversy among the local
We have still to enquire, Whether the general conference of 1844 had the power to adopt the resolutions authorizing the division ? If I had the largest freedom of time and space, I should not desire to pursue any very extended course of statement or of argument in considering this question. And I do not think that there is any necessity for my doing so. The question is one which has been deemed for some years past of such public concernment, of such vast importance in its bearing on the rights, interests and feelings of a large portion of the community, as to have been made the subject of the fullest examination. The zeal, ability and research of the most eminent men of the bar and of the church have been enlisted in its discussion. No fact or argument that could elucidate the subject remains to be stated or urged. Not only so, but the question has been decided by the Supreme court of Kentucky and by the Supreme court of the United States, upon such mature deliberation and with such unanimity, in each case, as to leave but little room for hesitating as to the propriety of regarding the question as settled. In each case the validity of the plan of separation was sustained. Smith v. Swormstedt, 16 How. U. S. R. 288 ; Gibson v. Armstrong, 7 B. Monr. R. 481.
The Baltimore conference sent no delegates to the Louisville convention, and in 1846 adopted resolutions
A still further question, however, remains to be settled, viz : Whether this is a border society ? The boundaries of the annual conferences have been from time to time fixed by the general conference, but no boundaries have been fixed for the societies, stations and circuits. In this state of things, it is obvious that in some cases it may be extremely difficult, if not impracticable, to carry out the plan of separation. It is next to impossible to lay down any general rule by which to define a border society. In some cases, however, as in the case of the Maysville Church, in 7 B. Monr. R. 481, and in the case of Clift Church, (which was argued with this,) the proximity of the houses of worship to a common .boundary of two conferences was so close that no question seems to have arisen as to the claim of the societies to be regarded as border societies, in the meaning of the resolutions.
One of the witnesses expresses the belief that Salem society is not a border society, and that a portion of
By the vote of a majority, the society has been placed, in the manner contemplated and allowed by the plan of separation, in jurisdictional connection with the ecclesiastical government of the Methodist Episcopal church south; which, by virtue of its organization under said plan, is now the lawful successor of the Methodist Episcopal church in respect to the disciplinary control and protection of the members of the church adhering to the southern division. And such members have now the same right to enjoy the church property which was held by their societies before the division, in exclusion of those who repudiate the authority of the Methodist Episcopal church south, and refuse to receive the pastors appointed by it, that they had, before the division and whilst in connection with the Methodist Episcopal church, to enjoy said property in exclusion of any who might have refused
Such being the views which I have taken of the case, it seems to me that the decree of the Circuit court is erroneous, and ought to be reversed, and that the bill should be dismissed.
Lee and Samuels, Js. concurred in the results of the opinion of Daniel, J. but not in the views or reasoning.
Allen, P. and Moncure, J. concurred in the opinion.
Decree reversed.