Garden-Street Church Case, 7th Page, 78. In the case before the Court, you have all the elements of a charitable use; you have the founders-those who contributed their means, either in labor or money; you have the trustees, who hold the legal estate, subject to the trust. Sometimes trustees are managers of the charity, sometimes distinct. In this case the functions are distinct. The managers of this charity are the Methodist Episcopal Church of the United States of America; the Methodist Episcopal Church as an organized, ecclesiastical institution, acting as an organized form. The managers of the charity exist under the law of charitable uses. The Methodist Episcopal Church, as an ecclesiastical body, entitled to hold property, entitled to temporalities, entitled to legal privileges, holds them all under the law of charitable, or pious uses; and the institution itself exists under the law. The property in controversy in this case is held by a corporation, known by the name of "the Methodist Book Concern," incorporated by the General Assembly of the state of Ohio, by an "Act to incorporate the Methodist Book Concern at Cincinnati," passed March 12, 1839, which is set out at length in the answer of respondents, Swormstedt and Power. (See vol. 37, Local Laws, Ohio, page 192.) The Church manages the charity through the General conference and annual conferences. The General conference takes the general direction and superintendency over the whole concern. It appoints the trustees and changes them. The annnal conferences seek out the beneficiaries and appropriates the amounts allotted to each. In the last place you have the beneficiaries; who are they? Not all the ministers of the Church. No! they are the " traveling, supernumerary, superannuated, and worn-out preachers of the Church, their wives, widows, and children." It is the traveling, superannuated, and supernumerary ministers of the Methodist Episcopal Church, of that body, thus organized that body under whose auspices the fund was originally created, and under whose management and direction this fund has subsequently accumulated. They are the beneficiaries. They must be of the Methodist Episcopal Church, which is a unity. It is a body not exactly incorporated under the law, but it is a body possessing, to a certain extent, so far as respects its charitable purposes, and in a court of equity, and in reference to property, a corporate capacity. It has precisely in equity that sort of capacity which an association of individuals, who are not a mere partnership or a tenancy in common at law have, when they are at liberty to act in a certain collective capacity, if not actually clothed with all the powers and attributes of a corporation. The character in a court of equity of the Methodist Episcopal Church is what is generally called a quasi corporation; and, in all charitable uses, the bodies and individuals, when they take under the charity, in succession, take in that quasi corporate capacity. Shelford on Mortmain, page 712. M'Guenn, vs. Aaron, 2d Penn. Rep. Levingston vs. Lynch, 4th John. Chy. Rep. 573. If I am correct, the beneficiaries take no vested title, nothing that they can dispose of, and nothing that they can claim, except under the management of the charity. The complainants, to entitle them to recover, must show that they answer to the character of the beneficiaries described. Among other things, they must show that they are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, continued with its organization, governed by its Discipline, and in unity with its teachings. Let me ask, who composed the members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, at the time this bill was filed? Were they the complainants or defendants? Has there been a division in reference to property, that both can claim? Is the Methodist Episcopal Church identified with the complainants? We say, "No." If not, the complainants are entitled to nothing. Let me ask, also, where are the proofs exhibited that the "Methodist Book Concern," at Cincinnati, the real defendant in this case, has not fully complied with all the provisions of its charter, "in conformity with the rules and regulations of the General conference?" There is no proof. Then the complainants have no claim whatever in this case. Their remedy, if any, is elsewhere. The property held by the Church before division, could not be divided on any other principle than by compromise, and that in pursuance to the sixth restrictive rule; and even then, it would have to be perfected under the sanction of a court of equity. Shelford on Mortmain, 608, 658, 698; 7 Vesey, 233-9th Vesey, 535; Black vs. Ligan, Harper's S. C. R., 215. An attempt has been made to prejudice the defendants, as agents of the "Methodist Book Concern," for making a defense against the claim of complainants, by means whereof there has been created in the public mind-not acquainted with the merits of the casea kind of "Popular equity," which sometimes in the absence of a better equity, has its influence with courts. There is no foundation for such a charge in this case. Justice to the respondents, and to the Methodist Episcopal Church, requires of me to ask the attention of the Court to the following preamble and resolutions, passed by the General conference of 1848. See Journal, pages 94, 95: Whereas, it is now ascertained that the recommendation of the General conference, at its session in 1844, to change the sixth restrictive article, so as to allow of a division of the property in the Book Concern, with a distinct ecclesiastical connection, which might be formed by the thirteen annual conferences in the slave states, has not been concurred in by a vote of three-fourths of all the members of the several annual conferences present and voting on said recommendation; 66 "And, whereas, the thirteen protesting annual conferences in the slaveholding states have formed themselves into a separate and distinct ecclesiastical connection, under the title and name of the "Methodist Episcopal Church South," and their General conference, in 1846, did authorize three commissioners (whose credentials have been received by this General cenference) to present and adjust their claim on the funds of the Book Concern of the Methodist Episcopal Church; "And, whereas, our common and holy Christianity prescribes and enjoins the most pacific measures for the settlement of all matters in dispute between individuals, as well as associations of professing Christians, and the whole Christian world will expect ministers of the Lord Jesus Christ to adopt the most peaceful and conciliatory measures for the settlement of any claim that may be urged against them; "And, whereas, this conference desires to advance, as far as its constitutional powers will authorize, toward an amicable adjustment of this difficulty. Therefore, "1. Resolved, By the Delegates of the several Annual Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church in General Conference assembled: That we hereby authorize the Book Agents at New York, and at Cincinnati, to offer to submit said claims to the decision of disinterested arbitrators; provided, that if said Agents, on the advice of eminent legal counsel, shall be satisfied that when clothed with all the authority which the General conference can confer, their corporate powers will not warrant them to submit said claims to arbitration, this resolution shall not be binding upon them. "2. Resolved, That should the Agents find, upon taking such legal counsel, that they have not the power to submit the case to voluntary arbitration, and should a suit at law be commenced by the commissioners of the Methodist Episcopal Church South-said Agents are hereby authorized, then and in that case, to tender to said commissioners an adjustment of their preferred claims by a legal arbitration under the authority of the Court. "3. Resolved, That should the Agents find that they are not authorized to tender a voluntary arbitration, and should no suit be commenced by the commissioners aforesaid, then and in that case, the General conference, being exceedingly desirous of effecting an amicable settlement of said claim, recommend to the annual conferences so far to suspend the "sixth restrictive article" of the Discipline, as to authorize our Book Agents at New York and Cincinnati, to submit said claim to arbitration. "4. Resolved, That in the occurrence of the above-specified contingencies, the bishops are requested to lay the foregoing resolutions before the several annual conferences for their concurrence." This controversy was not brought about by the Methodist Episcopal Church. For while the bishops were engaged in carrying out the provisions of the resolutions just read, by presenting them "before the several annual conferences for their concurrence," the commissioners of the Methodist Episcopal Church South instituted this suit-also the suits at New York and Philadelphia. We have every reason to believe, that had not the commissioners representing the complainants commenced these suits at the time they did, that the necessary authority would have been obtained from the annual conferences to submit the matters, now the subject of controversy, "to voluntary arbitration," under the authority of a court of equity, which would have been a much more peaceful and conciliatory mode of set tlement than the one resorted to. Time and expense would have been saved. And more than all these considerations, peace and goodwill might have again taken place, and the way opened to a reunion of those conferences now composing the Methodist Episcopal Church South with the "Methodist Episcopal Church." I thank the Court for the attention that has been given, while I have endeavored to present some reasons for the respondents against the claim set up by the complainants. If I have succeeded in any way to assist the Court to arrive at a correct decision upon the great questions in controversy in this case, I shall feel that I have discharged an important duty to those whom I in part represent. With these remarks, I submit the case. |