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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 April 2015
In October 1846, the men and women of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in St. Louis (African Church) met to consider whether they would remain with the Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC) or align with the recently-formed Methodist Episcopal Church, South (MECS). Two years earlier, in 1844, amid growing conflict over the question of slavery within the national Methodist Church, its General Conference had adopted a Plan of Separation that provided for the withdrawal of the southern Methodists and the creation of their own ecclesiastical government. The Plan provided that each Border State congregation would have the right to determine for itself by a vote of the majority with which of the two churches it would affiliate.
After the southern conferences had organized the new MECS in May 1845, the trustees of the all-white Fourth Street Methodist Church (Fourth Street Church), whose quarterly conference exercised nominal authority over the African Church, informed the black congregants that they could retain their house of worship only if they voted to join the southern Methodists. Throwing caution to the wind, and putting at risk a decade-and-a-half of patient efforts to achieve formal congregational independence within the Methodist Church, the black congregants voted decisively, by a 110 to 7 margin, to remain affiliated with the Northern Conference.
1. Amendment to the Bill, Transcript of the Record, Supreme Court of Missouri case file at 51-55, Farrar v Finney, 21 Mo. 569 (1855), Missouri State Archives, Jefferson City, Missouri [hereinafter the documents in the Trial Record will be cited by the name of the document, followed by Farrar Trial Record, supra note 1 and the page number.]. The Supreme Court case file, pages 1-150 is composed of a copy of the trial record, with an index ofthat record following page 150. The Appellate Record follows the index that follows page 150. See digital copy of the Supreme Court of Missouri case file in Missouri Supreme Court Database, Missouri State Archives, at http://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/judiciary/supremecourt/detail.asp?rID=5373.
2. Exhibit J. T., No. 2, Farrar Trial Record, supra note 1, at 30-32; Testimony of Joseph Tabor, Trial Record at 131 Id.; Smith v. Swormstedt, 16 U.S. 288 (1853).
3. Amendment to the Bill, Farrar Trial Record, supra note 1, at 51-52.
4. Id.
5. Answer of Defendants to Amended Bill, Farrar Record, supra note 1, at 45, 5, 61; Exhibit, Joseph Tabor, No. 1, id. at 29; Original Bill, id. at 1-2.
6. Amendment to the Bill, Farrar id. at 51-52; Exhibit, Joseph Tabor, No. 1, id. at 30-32.
7. Amendment to the Bill, Farrar id. at 51-52.
8. The Fourth Street Church trustees were John Finney, William Finney, John Dritcher, Hugh Lee, Hugh Miller, John Baker, John Smith, and James Essex. Bill, id. at 1, 5.
9. The African Church made this argument, paradoxically, by positing the validity of the separatist initiative of the MECS. As will be shown, the first argument depended vitally on the validity of high-profile state and federal court decisions outside of Missouri upholding the national division of the church. See notes 188-298, and accompanying text.
10. The second argument made by the African Church relied on Methodist Church law, the determinations of the MEC General Conference in 1848, and the 1844 Chancery Court of New York decision Kniskern v. St. Johns and St. Peters Lutheran Churches, 1 Sandford's Chancery 439.
11. Motion for New Trial, Farrar Trial Record, supra note 1, at 147.
12. Decision of the Court by John F. Ryland, id. at 5.
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23. Featuring a distinctive mix of slavery, aggressive white settlement, and rapid town growth, Missouri constituted a microcosm of national development, a laboratory of conflict and consensus, stasis and change, progress and reaction. The spread of evangelicalism, religious strife over slavery, and disruptive church re-alignments were intertwined with the processes of trans-Mississippi Southwest expansion. Howe, Daniel Walker, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848, at 1–7 (Oxford Univ. Press 2007)Google Scholar. More than any other state, Missouri experienced the tensions between commitments to white man's democracy, free political expression, the constraints imposed on that expression by the institution of slavery, and the imperatives of a popular will theory of government that placed a premium on informal communal justice and vigilantism. Carroll, Mark M., ‘All for Keeping His Own Negro Wench’: Birch v. Benton (1858) and the Politics of Slander and Free Speech in Antebellum Missouri, 29 Law & Hist. Rev. 835 (08 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Emblematic of this deadly mix was its bloody “Border War” with Kansas beginning in 1854. Etcheson, Nicole, Bleeding Kansas: Contested Liberty in the Civil War Era 3–4 (Univ. of Kan. Press 2004)Google Scholar; Gilmore, Donald, Civil War on The Missouri-Kansas Border 30–42 (Pelican 2006)Google Scholar.
24. In the plantation districts of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, for example, planters and overseers exercised close supervision over the vast majority of blacks, who labored as field workers and moved within circumscribed slave neighborhoods only with permission and typically far from large towns or cities. Kaye, Anthony E., Joining Places: Slave Neighborhoods of the Old South 1–50 (Univ. N.C. Press 2007)Google Scholar. After the War of 1812, however, St. Louis featured a thriving African American population, free and enslaved, whose work largely centered on the river trade. In this context, free blacks and bonded African Americans, who plied various crafts, mixed freely in public spaces with the Anglo-Americans and French Creoles of the town. In 1835, roughly 10% of the population was enslaved, and free blacks comprised about 3% of it. As the population of the city began to boom in the 1830s, authorities stiffened regulations targeting the liberty of African Americans. Reichard, Maximilian, Black and White on the Urban Frontier: The St. Louis Community in Transition, 1800-1830, 33 Bull. Mo. Hist. Soc'y 3 (1976)Google Scholar; Seematter, Mary E., Trials and Confessions: Race and Justice in Antebellum St. Louis, 12 Gateway Heritage: Mag. Mo. Hist. Soc'y 36 (Fall 1991)Google Scholar; Lo Piccolo, Margaret, St. Louis Ethnic Neighborhoods, 1850-1930: An Introduction, 33 Bull. Mo. Hist. Soc'y 64 (1977)Google Scholar; Buchanan, Thomas C., Rascals on the Antebellum Mississippi: African American Steamboat Workers and the St. Louis Hanging of 1841, 34 J. Soc. Hist. 797 (Summer 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. But slavery was a dying institution in the city by the late 1840s, notwithstanding the fact that St. Louis remained the site of a busy regional slave market. The African American community comprised only 5% of the St. Louis population by 1850, and this percentage fell three more points in the following decade, with a slight majority holding free status at that time. The liberal-minded German immigrants who constituted almost half of St. Louis by 1850 resented African bondage and provided a fertile field for both abolitionism and African American freedom of movement and initiative. Julie Winch, Introduction to Colored Aristocracy of St. Louis by Cyprian Clamorgan 4-5 (Univ. Mo. Press 1999); Gerteis, Louis S., Civil War St. Louis 6–37 (Univ. Press Kan. 2001)Google Scholar.
25. In plantation regions further South, beginning in the 1820s, Methodist and Baptist ministers established slave missions only in step with the often grudging permission of planters, who kept a careful watch against Sabbath-day preaching that even hinted at black liberation. Cornelius, supra note 19, at 64. The suppression of African-American challenges to the institution of slavery was also the primary purpose of legal restrictions increasingly placed on black worship in the 1820s and 1830s across the South. Paquette, Robert L., From Rebellion to Revisionism: The Continuing Debate about the Denmark Vesey Affair, 4 J. Hist. Soc'y 291 (09 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pearson, Edward A., Designs Against Charleston: The Trial Record of the Denmark Vesey Slavery Conspiracy of 1822 (Univ. N.C. Press 1999)Google Scholar; Robertson, David, Denmark Vesey: The Buried History of America's Largest Slave Rebellion and the Man Who Led It 41–56 (Knopf 1999)Google Scholar; Egerton, Douglas R., ‘Why Did They Not Preach Up This Thing?’ Denmark Vesey and Revolutionary Theology, 100.4S.C. Hist. Mag. 298 (10 1999)Google Scholar.
26. The 1825 Missouri slave code and subsequent revisions through 1860 explicitly allowed slaves to travel and attend “divine services,” at least with a pass. 2 “Slaves,” Laws of the State of Missouri 742 (E. Charless 1825); § 29, “Slaves,” The Revised Statutes of Missouri [1835] 585 (St. Louis, 1835); 2 “Slaves,” The Revised Statutes of Missouri [1855] 1475, §. 24, ch. 150, art. 1 (City of Jefferson: James Lusk 1856). As sectional tensions over slavery deepened after the abolitionist postal campaign in 1835-36, white leaders attempted to restrict the personal liberty of blacks within the City of St. Louis. Winch, Introduction, supra note 24, at 4-5; Gerteis, supranote 24, at 6-37. In 1836, St. Louis proscribed African American religious worship after 9:00 p.m. in the winter and 10:00 p.m. in the summer, while requiring slaves to obtain a pass from their owners to attend evening services. Revised Ordinances of St. Louis 1836, § 1, 3, pp. 124-25. In August of 1843, the St. Louis Board of Aldermen revised their ordinances to require African Americans to obtain permission from the mayor to hold a religious gathering. The mayor was then to notify the captain of the city guard to ensure neighboring residents were not disturbed. Revised Ordinances of the City of St. Louis 1843, § 4-5, pp. 311-12 (1843). Shortly after the October 1846 initiative of the African Church to establish its independence, a group of St. Louis citizens successfully petitioned the Missouri General Assembly to enact a statute restricting the right of both slaves and free blacks to worship independently. The February 1847 act forbade meetings of Negroes or mulattoes “for the purpose of religious worship, or preaching,” conducted by black preachers or ministers, unless a constable, marshal, police officer, or justice of the peace was present. Journal of the Senate of the State of Missouri, at the First Session of the Fourteenth General Assembly, begun and Held at the City of Jefferson, On Monday, the Sixteenth day of November, in the Year of Our Lord One Thousand Eight Hundred and Forty-Six 1846, at 69 (Jefferson City 1847)Google Scholar; Laws of the State of Missouri, Fourteenth General Assembly, 1846-1847, “Negroes and Mulattoes: An act respecting slaves, free,” § 2, p. 104; §§ 2 & 3, ch. 114, Revised Statutes of Missouri 1855, at 1100 et seq. See also Oberholzer, Emile, The Legal Aspects of Slavery in Missouri, Part 3, 6 Bull. Mo. Hist. Soc'y 333 (04 1950)Google Scholar.
27. As in other Upper South Border States where independent black congregations were not prohibited by law, the First African Baptist Church exercised the prerogative of separating from its white branch in 1822. Meachum, a successful cooper and carpenter, personally held title to the property of his congregation, notwithstanding the civil disabilities that both free blacks and slaves faced. Allen, I.M., The Triennial Baptist Register. No. 2-1836, at 279–80 (Phila. 1836)Google Scholar; 98 Mo. 412 (1889). See Moore, N. Webster, John Berry Meachum (1789-1854): St. Louis Pioneer, Black Abolitionist, Educator, and Preacher, 29 Bull. Mo. Hist. Soc'y 96 (1973)Google Scholar; Durst, Dennis L., The Reverend John Berry Meachum (1789-1854) of St. Louis: Prophet and Entrepreneurial Black Educator in Historiographical Perspective, 7 N. Star: J. African Am. Religious Hist. 1 (01 2004)Google Scholar.
28. The St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) was founded in 1840. It was the second independent black church in St. Louis. Cornelius, supra note 19; 2 J. Thomas Scharf, History of Saint Louis City and County 1697 (Phila. 1883)Google Scholar.
29. Winch, Introduction, supra note 24, at 6-8; Scharf, supra note 28. As was commonly the case in large southern cities, the others remained formally situated under the auspices of a nearby white society of the same denomination-but they typically worshipped apart and governed their own affairs, generally with the cooperation of ministers, white or black, appointed by denominational authorities. Commonly in the antebellum South, white churchgoers set up semi-independent congregations of black co-religionists who worshipped separately from whites (sometimes in the same building at a different time, sometimes in a separate building) but remained technically part of the same congregation. The precise arrangement differed from community to community and from denomination to denomination. Cornelius, supra note 19, at 107-15.
30. Amended Bill, filed Jan. 15, 1852, Farrar Trial Record, supra note 1, at 45.
31. Deed of Emancipation, Nov. 1, 1822, id. at 144; Testimony of John H. Gay, id. at 90.
32. St. Louis Christian Advocate, Jan. 18, 1871, at 2.
33. Testimony of Daniel Lloyd, Farrar Trial Record, supra note 1, at 80.
34. Id.
35. Deed of Emancipation of James Farrar, Apr. 8, 1839, id.; Testimony of Joseph Tabor, id. at 117-18.
36. Testimony of Daniel Lloyd, id. at 76.
37. Id.
38. 3 Encyclopedia of the History of St. Louis 1463 (Hyde, William & Conard, Howard L. eds., S. Hist. Co. 1899) [hereinafter 3 Encyclopedia of St. Louis]Google Scholar.
39. Id.
40. Cornelius, supra note 19, at 109-10.
41. Testimony of Daniel Lloyd, Farrar Trial Record, supra note 1, at 77. (Conference records thereafter consistently listed different ministers for both the African Church and the Fourth Street congregations. The ministers whom the annual conference assigned to the African Church were always white.). McAnally, David R., Life and Times of Rev. William Patton and Annals of the Missouri Conference 295–309 (St. Louis 1858)Google Scholar. (The last segment of the work lists the official appointments of the Methodist ministers in Missouri.).
42. Testimony of Daniel Lloyd, Farrar Trial Record, supra note 1, at 77.
43. Testimony of George Bushey, id. at 99-100; M.J. Sullivan, comp., The Revised Ordinance of the City of St Louis 971-72 (St. Louis 1881). The local white Methodist ministers continued to preside over the congregational meetings. Testimony of G. Bushey, Farrar Trial Record, supra note 1, at 97-100.
44. The Doctrines and Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church 38-39, 62–63 (N.Y. 1844), available at http://books.google.com/books?id=pdMQAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=discipline+of+the+methodist+episcopal+church+1844&hl=en&ei=ZBa3TsScMIbL0QGinci_BA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=l&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepag&q&f=falseGoogle Scholar.
45. Defendants Answer to Amended Bill, Farrar Trial Record, supra note 1, at 56, 61; Doctrines and Discipline, supra note 44, at 51. In his testimony Lloyd, referred to these men as “local preachers.” Farrar Trial Record, supra note 1, at 83. 86, 100; Doctrines and Discipline, supra note 44, at 180-81 (1844). Testimony of Daniel Lloyd, Farrar Trial Record, supra note 1, at 78.
46. Id. at 83, 86, 100; Doctrines and Discipline, supra note 44, at 180-81. According to Bushey, Jonathan Duncan and James Farrar served in this capacity from 1835 through at least 1841. Testimony of George Bushey, Farrar Trial Record, supra note 1, at 100. According to the Reverend John Anderson, who had the “disciplinary charge” of the African Church for about three months in 1840, one black man in the congregation acted as steward, and one would act as secretary. Testimony of John Anderson, id. at 86, 89.
47. Id. at 1, 7; Doctrines and Discipline, supra note 44, at 172, 179.
48. Testimony of Joseph Tabor, Farrar Trial Record, supra note 1, at 129-30.
49. Id.; Deed of Emancipation of Louis Jones by Ramsey C Jones, Sept. 7, 1845, id. at 144.
50. Deed of Emancipation of Ralph Harrison by Thomas Hart Benton and Elizabeth Benton, June 27, 1843, recorded July 6, 1853, id. at 144.
51. Id.
52. Testimony of Daniel Lloyd, supra note 45, at 78.
53. Id.
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55. Answer of Defendants, Farrar Trial Record, supra note 1, at 40.
56. Testimony of George Bushey, id. at 99.
57. Id. at 99-100. The Reverend George Smith was the second white preacher appointed to the African Church. Testimony of Daniel Lloyd, supra note 45, at 78.
58. Testimony of George Bushey, id. at 99-100.
59. Exhibit J. T. No. 2, id. at 38.
60. Id.
61. Testimony of George Bushey, id. at 100.
62. Id. In 1840, the Missouri Annual Conference, the governing body of the denomination in the state, appointed the Reverend James L. Forsyth “to labor at the African Church.” McAnally, supra note 41, at 298.
63. Exhibit J. T. No. 2, Farrar Trial Record, supra note 1, at 38.
64. On March 2, 1838, the Fourth Street Church established committees to establish two new MEC churches in the city: Centenary Methodist Church and the Mound Chapel (later known as St. Paul's Methodist Church). In 1839, the quarterly conference set off the Centenary mission as an independent congregation. After 1844, it became the Centenary Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Like the Centenary Church, the Mound Chapel affiliated with the MECS in about 1845. Williams, Francis Emmett, et al., Centenary Methodist Church of St. Louis: The First Hundred Years, 1839-1939, at 16 (Mound City Press 1939)Google Scholar; SCHARF supra note 28, vol. 2 at 1692-93.
65. Exhibit J. T. No. 2, Farrar Trial Record, supra note 1, at 40-41.
66. Id.
67. Id.
68. ST. Louis Christian Advocate, Jan. 18,1871, at 2.
69. Amended Bill, filed Jan. 15, 1852, Farrar Trial Record, supra note 1, at 46-48.
70. 3 Encyclopedia of St. Louis, supra note 38, at 1463.
71. Amended Bill, Farrar Trial Record, supra note 1, at 46-48.
72. Deed of A. Resque to Joseph Duncan, Record at 135-36, Farrar v. Finney; Historical Census Browser, University of Virginia, Geospatial and Statistical Center (2004, accessed June 10, 2010), available at http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/index.html.
73. 3 Encyclopedia of St. Louis, supra note 38, at 2503.
74. Deed of M.E.C. to S. Wiggins, Farrar Trial Record, supra note 1, at 138.
75. Id.
76. Id.
77. Id.
78. Answer of Defendants, id. at 16-38.
79. Exhibit C, id. at 12-14; 2 Encyclopedia of St. Louis, supra note 38,at 754-56.
80. Id.
81. Bill and Amendment to the Bill, Farrar Trial Record, supra note 1, at 10-11.
82. Exhibit J. T., No. 1, id. at 29.
83. Id.
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85. Id.
86. Exhibit J. T., No. 2, Farrar Trial Record, supra note 1, at 30-32; Testimony of Joseph Tabor, id. at 131.
87. Answer of Defendants, id. at 16-29; Answer of Defendants to Amended Bill, id. at 55-58; Answer of Defendants to Amended Supplemental Bill, id. at. 61-62.
88. Amendment to the Bill, id. at 51-52.
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91. Id.
92. Melton, supra note 20, at 74-75, 80-83, 100-01.
93. Statement of the Case by Appellees, Supreme Court of Missouri case file, at 4. Farrar, et al. v. Finney, 21 Mo. 569 (1855), Missouri State Archives, Jefferson City, Missouri [hereinafter Appellate Record]. The Supreme Court case file, pages 1-150 is composed of a copy of the trial record, with an index of that record following page 150. The Appellate Record follows the index that follows page 150. See digital copy of the Supreme Court of Missouri case file in Missouri Supreme Court Database, Missouri State Archives, at http://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/judiciary/supremecourt/detail.asp?rID=5373 [hereinafter the documents in the Appellate Record will be cited by the name of the document followed by Farrar appellate].
94. McAnally, supra note 41, at 332-37.
95. Answer, Farrar Trial Record, supra note 1, at 16-28; Answer to Amended Bill, id. at 5455; Statement of the Case by Appellees, Farrar Appellate record, supra note 93.
96. McAnally, supra note 41, at 337-39; Harrison, W.P., Gospel Among the Slaves: A Short Account of Missionary Operations Among the African Slaves of the Southern States (Nashville 1893)Google Scholar; Minutes of the annual Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South for the Year 1858, at 15 (T. Mason & G. Lane 1858)Google Scholar.
97. In 1848, the MECS paid $300.00 to support a mission affiliated with the St. Louis Conference of 50 colored Methodists. By 1861, the MECS supported 329 such mission churches in the slaveholding states, but they maintained no slave missions in Missouri that year. Harrison, supra note 96, at 19,323. By late 1852, there were only a handful of black pro-MECS congregants worshipped in the building or used it otherwise. Testimony of Joseph Tabor, Farrar Trial Record, supra note 1, at 127. Minutes of the Annual Conferences 1858, supra note 96, at 15; Harrison, supra note 96, at 337-39.
98. Statement by Appellants, Farrar Appellate Record, supra note 93, at 7.
99. Testimony of Tabor, Farrar Trial Record, supra note 1, at 119, 125.
100. Id.
101. Statement by Appellants, Appellate Record, supra note 93, at 7.
102. 2 Encyclopedia of St. Louis, supra note 38, at 976.
103. Id. at 976-77.
104. Id.
105. Id. at 976.
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114. Id. at 32-3.
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124. Amended Bill, filed Jan. 15, 1852, id. at 45; Amended and Supplemental Bill, id. at 61.
125. Statement of Appellants by Delafield and Barretts, Appellate Record, at 12, supra note 93, at 12.
126. Invoking the rules of government set out in the Methodist Doctrines and Discipline, they maintained that the black congregation had been “separate and distinct in respect to internal Government and their Church Property.” They argued that the property was “vested in and administered by different and Separate Boards of trustees for each Church or Society.” Bill, Farrar Trial Record, supra note 1, at 3.
127. Statement [for Appellants], Delafield and Barretts, filed Mar. 16, 1854, Appellate Record, supra note 93, at 2-6.
128. On appeal, Delafield and Barretts cited as authority for these propositions Truesdell v. Calaway, 6 Mo. 605 1840 WL 2882, at *0 (1840) and quoted from an appellee's brief in that case as follows:
If a man purchase land in the name of another and pays the money, it will be trust for him that paid the money, though there be no deed declaring the trust, for the statute of frauds does not extend to trusts raised by operation of law. A resulting trust, or trust by operation of law, remains as at common law… To further substantiate these points, counsel cited 2 Story, Joseph, Commentaries on Equity Jurisprudence 232, 240–41 (2d ed., Charles C. Little & James Brown 1839)Google Scholar. Statement [for Appellants] by Delafield and Barretts, Appellate Record, supra note 93, at 12.
129. By the same token, they de-emphasized that William Slater had deeded the property jointly to Tabor and the Finney Brothers, who had not, like Tabor, conveyed their one-half interest to the black trustees. Bill, Farrar Trial Record, supra note 1, at 1-6.
130. Bill and Amended Bill, id. at 1-6, 45-54.
131. Id.
132. The African Church maintained that it did not, in October 1846, seek to take advantage of the Plan of Separation. They had been left no choice but to vote. Either they voted to join the MECS or they lost their church building and lot. But available evidence strongly suggests, and without exception, that neither MEC nor MECS officials intended or interpreted the Plan of Separation to grant dependent black societies such a prerogative. Id.
133. Id. at 51-52.
134. “No person shall be eligible as a trustee to any of our houses, churches, or schools who is not a regular member of the church.” Doctrines and Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church, supra note 44, at 172.
135. The Methodist Discipline required that trustees holding property for a congregation be members of that congregation. Equally important, well-founded equity principles required that civil courts rely on church rules when making decisions relevant to church property. Deed of Settlement, Part Second. The Temporal Economy of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Doctrines and Discipline 176 (1844)Google Scholar. Amended Bill, Farrar Trial Record, supra note 1, at 51-52; Answer of Defendants to the Amended Bill, id. at 58.
136. By the same token, they de-emphasized that William Slater had deeded the property jointly to Tabor and the Finney Brothers, who had not, like Tabor, conveyed their one-half interest to the black trustees. Id.
137. Bill and Amended Bill, id. at 1-6, 45-54.
138. Answer of Defendants to Amended Bill, id. at 55.
139. Id.
140. Id. at 56.
141. Id.
142. Id.
143. Id.
144. Id. at 57; McAnally, supra note 41, at 329-37; Minutes of the Annual Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church, for the Year 1850 (G. Lane & L. Scott 1850)Google Scholar.
145. Minutes of the Annual Conferences 1850, supra note 144, at 508-09.
146. Affidavit of Lewis Jones, Farrar Trial Record, supra note 1, at 41-43.
147. W. at 42.
148. Minutes of the Annual Conferences 1850, supra note 144, at 508-09; Minutes of the Annual Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church, for the Year 1857, at 342-43 (N.Y. 1857); Union Memorial United Methodist Church (1996). In 1848 the MEC reorganized in Missouri, though the records for 1848-49 only contained sporadic figures for the subsidiary congregations.
149. Testimony of Joseph Tabor, Farrar Trial Record, supra note 1, at 125, 129-30.
150. Testimony of John Anderson, id. at 90.
151. Practice in Chancery, Mo. Rev. Stat. § 1, art. 1, 459 (1845).
152. Witnesses Mo. Rev. Stat. § 22, 573.
153. Exhibit B, Farrar Trial Record, supra note 1, at 11.
154. Exhibit J. T., No. 1, id. at 29; Exhibit C, id. at 12.
155. Defendants Answer to Amended Bill, id. at 61-63.
156. Testimony of John Anderson, id. 88-89; Testimony of Joseph Tabor, id. at 121-22.
157. Id.
158. Decree, id. at 64-66.
159. Motion for a New Trial, id. at 147.
160. Bill of Exceptions, id. at 66-70; Assignment of Errors, Farrar Appellate Record, supra note 93, at 1-13.
161. Testimony of George Bushey, Farrar Trial Record, supra note 1, at 103-04.
162. Id. at 112-13.
163. Testimony of Joseph Tabor, id. at 127.
164. Id. at 117-24; Testimony of Bushey, id. at 103-04. Under customary Methodist practice, individuals could, on their own initiative, form a class of ten people, and a Methodist minister could unilaterally establish an independent society, at least if the members were predominantly white. According to the Reverend John Anderson, “As to the mode of forming Societies there is no law. The usages are different.” Testimony of Anderson, id. at 88. See Doctrines and Discipline, supra note 44, at 7-96.
165. Testimony of Bushey, Farrar Trial Record, supra note 1, at 112-13, 132-35; Testimony of Tabor, id. at 117-24. See Doctrines and Discipline, supra note 44, at 32-34, 170-71.
166. Testimony of Tabor, Farrar Trial Record, supra note 1, at 117-24. In addition to Tabor and Bushey, John Anderson, Daniel Lloyd, and J.H. Gay sought to demonstrate the separate or independent ecclesiastical existence of the African Church, its separate finances, the fact that Farrar, Jones, Harrison, and others had acted as trustees and stewards, the various oral agreements entered into by the African Church trustees and the Fourth Street trustees and its quarterly conference leadership regarding the various payments made by the African Church for the Green Street property. Assignment of Errors at 4, Farrar v. Finney. Id. at 10; Testimony of J.H. Gay, Farrar Trial Record, supra note 1, at 94.
167. Id. at 147.
168. Statement [for Appellants], Delafield and Barretts, filed March 16, 1854, Appellate Record, supra note 93, at 6. See also Statement of Appellants by Delafield and Barretts, id. at 12.
169. Id.
170. Id.
171. Id.
172. Brief of Appellants, filed March 16, 1854, Appellate Record, supra note 93, at 5.
173. Statement of the Case, Polk and Dayton for Appellees, Appellate Record, supra note 93, at 3.
174. Id. at 4.
175. Mark M. Carroll, All for Keeping His Own Negro Wench (forthcoming).
176. Farrar Trial Record, supra note 1, at 147.
177. Bill of Exceptions, id. at 148.
178. Decision of the Court, id. at 3; Consaul & Barber v. Lidell, 7 Mo. 250 (1841); Pomeroy v. Selmes, 8 Mo. 727 (1844); Scott v. Bird, 9 Mo. 148 (1843); Hassinger v. Pye, 10 Mo. 156 (1846);
Brief “A,” Polk & Dayton for appellants, Supreme Court of Missouri case file, Farrar v. Finney; Brief “B,” Polk & Dayton for appellants, id.
179. Decision of the Court, Farrar Trial Record, supra note 1, at 5.
180. Id. at 148-49.
181. Id.
182. Id.
183. Practice in Chancery Mo. Rev. Stat. § 15, art. 3, at 464.
184. By the late 1830s, growing democratic pressures had intensified against a legal system widely perceived to be hamstrung with arcane rules and technicalities that too often delayed or sabotaged the processes of justice. A revised code of practice set out in the 1845 Revised Statutes of Missouri responded substantially to this popular demand. Code of Practice, ch. 45, Mo. Rev. Stat. (1845). Regarding the purposes of the new “Code of Practice” adopted statutorily in 1848, See Wells, Robert W., Observations on the Pleadings and Practice of the Courts of Justice in Missouri: And, A Radical Change Therein Recommended, in a Letter Addressed to the “Metropolitan” 1–13 (Metropolitan Office 1847)Google Scholar; Laws of the State of Missouri Regulating Pleadings and Practice in Courts of Justice vi, 5-6, 21-26, 55, Appendix A, 89-92 (Mo. Republican Steam Power Press 1849). The 1845 revision of the rule regarding the filing of a bill of exceptions appears to have met with Wells' approval. Id. at 56.
185. Consaul & Barber v. Lidell 7 Mo. 250 (1841); Pomeroy v. Selmes 8 Mo. 732 (1844).
186. Brief for Appellants by Miron Leslie, Appellate Record. Harlow v. Humiston, 6 Cow. 189 (N.Y. 1826) (referenced by Leslie). According to that decision, though the bill of exceptions was signed “subsequent to verdict,” the New York Supreme Court held that “it should be intended that the exception was taken at the proper time; otherwise, the judges, it is to be presumed, would not have signed it.”
187. Code of Civil Procedure Mo. Rev. Stat. § 2168, art. 7, ch. 33 (1889); Laws of the State of Missouri, 1885, at 214-15.
188. The legal and ecclesiastical underpinnings ot church property disputes in early national and antebellum America implicate a corpus of scholarship emphasizing that the newly-established United States distinguished itself notably from Great Britain by embracing disestablishment with the First Amendment. Levy, Leonard W., The Establishment Clause: Religion and the First Amendment 146–47 (Collier Macmillan 1986)Google Scholar. What disestablishment actually meant continues to fuel scholarly debate. Much of the American leadership believed that individual states should promote Protestant morality and republican virtue among their citizens. Hamburger, Philip, Separation of Church and State (Harv. Univ. Press 2004)Google Scholar; Dreisbach, Daniel L., Thomas Jefferson and the Wall of Separation Between Church and State (N.Y. Univ. Press 2002)Google Scholar; Dreisbach, Daniel L., Mr. Jefferson, A Mammoth Cheese, and the ‘Wall of Separation between Church and State ’: A Bicentennial Commemoration, 43 J. Church & St. 725–45 (2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Balik, Shelby M., Equal Rights and Equal Privileges: Separating Church and State in Vermont, 50 J. Church & St. 23–48 (2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Dawson, Joseph M., The Meaning of Separation of Church and State in the First Amendment, 50 J. Church & St. 677–82 (Fall 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Arguing that Jeffersonian Republicans effectively challenged state support of religious institutions, historians Frank Lambert and Johan N. Neem emphasize that they produced an independent civil society in which groups unaffiliated with churches could viably debate the public good. Lambert, Frank, The Founding Fathers and the Place of Religion in America (Princeton Univ. Press 2003)Google Scholar; Neem, Johan N., Beyond the Wall: Reinterpreting Jefferson's Danbury Address, 27 J. Early Republic 139–54 (2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Perry, Barbara A., Jefferson's Legacy to the Supreme Court: Freedom of Religion, 31 J. Sup. Ct. Hist. 181–98 (2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also McGarvie, Mark D., America's Early National Struggles to Separate Church and State (N. Ill. Univ. Press 2004)Google Scholar; Smith, Steven D., Separation as a Tradition, 18 J.L. & Pol. 215–75 (2002)Google Scholar; Buckley, Thomas E., After Disestablishment: Thomas Jefferson's Wall of Separation in Antebellum Virginia, 61 J. S. Hist. 445–80 (1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Historians Richard J. Carwardine and James R. Rohrer argue that the Democratic party of Andrew Jackson energetically countered Whig party efforts to employ the power of the state to promote Protestant morality. Carwardine, supra note 15, at 100-28; Rohrer, James R., Sunday Mails and the Church-State Theme in Jacksonian America, 7 J. Early Rep. 53–74 (1987)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Howe, supra note 23, at 164-202. See also Hatch, Nathan O., The Democratization of American Christianity (Yale Univ. Press 1991)Google Scholar. Constitutional thinkers remain divided over the utility of the “wall of separation” metaphor and the benefits and detriments of government policies that accommodate religious institutions. Elsgruber, Christopher L. & Sager, Lawrence G., Religious Freedom and the Constitution (Harv. Univ. Press 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Greenawalt, Kent, Religion and the Constitution: Vol. 1: Free Exercise and Fairness (Princeton Univ. Press 2006)Google Scholar; Hamilton, Marci A., God vs. The Gavel: Religion and the Rule of Law (Cambridge Univ. Press 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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191. Harris, supra note 190, at 515-31.
192. Id.
193. Id.
194. Id.
195. Shannon v. Frost, 3 Monroe 253 (Ky. 1842); Smith v. Nelson, 18 Vt. 511 (1846); Hadden, v. Chorn, 47 Ky. (8 B. Mon.) 70 (1847). Kniskern v. The Lutheran Churches of St. Johns & St. Peters, 1 Sand. Ch. 439 (N.Y. Ch. 1844). Parmele, G.H., Annotation, Determination by the civil courts of property rights between contending factions of an independent congregational church, 8 A.L.R. 105(1920)Google Scholar.
196. Gibson v. Armstrong, 96 Ky. (7 B. Mon.) 481 (1847); Harmon v. Dreher, 2 Speer's Equity 87 (S.C. 1843); Den & Day v. Bolton, 7 Halstead 206 (N.J. 1831); Ferraria v. Vasconcelles, 23 111. 456 (1860); and German Reformed Church v. The Commonwealth Ex rel. Seibert, 3 Barr 291 (Pa. 1846). The foregoing decisions rejected several important English precedents, including Craigdallie v. Aikman, 3 English Reports 601 (House of Lords 1813); Craigdallie II, 4 English Reports 435 (House of Lords 1820); Attorney-General v. Pearson, 36 English Reports 135 (Chancery 1817); Foley v. Wontner, 37 English Reports 621 (Chancery 1820); Attny-Gen. v. Pearson II, 58 English Reports 848 (Vice-Chancellor's Court 1835); Galbraith v. Smith, 15 Shaw 808 (Scottish Court of Sessions 1837). See also Parmele, supra note 195, at 123-30.
197. Watson v. Jones, 80 U.S. 679 (1871).
198. Id. at 722-30.
199. They necessarily relied on denominational books of discipline and governance, such as the Methodist Doctrines and Discipline. Typically in a segment entitled “temporal economy” or “temporalities,” such books also described the duties of congregants and lay officials for the acquisition, management, and conveyance of church property. The Doctrines and Discipline (1844), supra note 44; The Doctrines and Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church (N.Y. 1852); The Doctrines and Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (Nashville 1856)Google Scholar; The Form of Government and Discipline of the Presbyterian Church of North America (Phila. 1840)Google Scholar; A Treatise of [Baptist] Church Discipline, and a Directory (Phila. 1798)Google Scholar; The Baptist Church Directory: A Guide to the Doctrines and Discipline, Officers and Ordinances, Principles and Practices of Baptist Churches (7th ed., N.Y. 1860)Google Scholar. As did authorities in other economically-diverse regions of the United States, circuit courts in Missouri enlisted an Americanized common law designed to advance market capitalism. When disputes arose over non-performance or mal-performance, judges increasingly based their rulings on whether the parties to a contract had entered into it freely. Contract law and its underlying “will theory,” ideally at least, looked only to the strict terms of the agreement between the parties. Hall, Kermit L. & Karsten, Peter, The Magic Mirror: Law in American History 119, 140–41 (2d ed., Oxford Univ. Press 2009)Google Scholar; Hurst, James Willard, Law and the Conditions of Freedom in the Nineteenth-Century United States 5–18 (Univ. Wis. Press 1956)Google Scholar; Horwitz, Morton J., The Transformation of American Law, 1780-1860, at 160–210 (Harv. Univ. Press 1977)Google Scholar; Horwitz, Morton J., The Rise of Legal Formalism, 19 Am. J. Legal Hist. 251, 251–53 (1975)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Because the property of churches was typically held in trust for its members, however, American courts employed Anglo-American rules of equity to adjudicate disputes arising among church members over such holdings. Trustees typically held legal title to property only for the benefit of congregations and denominations. Thus they had legal duties to beneficiaries that the adopted English law of equity, originally exercised by courts of chancery, was bound to protect. The legislature for the Territory of Louisiana, in which Missouri was included, established chancery jurisdiction in 1810. The Missouri Constitution of 1820 created a Court of Chancery separate from the Missouri Supreme Court. While the General Assembly abolished it several years later, as in many other American jurisdictions, Missouri judges thereafter blended rules of equity and law. Hamilton, W.J., The Relief Movement in Missouri, 1820-1822, 22 Mo. Hist. Rev. 81–82 (10 1927)Google Scholar; Dart, Henry P., The Colonial Legal Systems of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas, 12 A.B.A. J. 481 (1926)Google Scholar; Blume, William Wirt, Chancery Practice on the American Frontier: A Study of the Records of the Supreme Court of Michigan Territory, 1805-1836, 59 Mich. L. Rev. 49 (11 1960)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
200. Whitney v. First Ecclesiastical Soc'y Brooklyn, 5 Conn. 405 (1825); Shermer v. Rusling, 12 Haz. Reg. 1 (Pa. 1833); Commonwealth v. Green, et al., 4 Wharton 531 (Pa. 1839); Shannon, et al, v. Frost, et al, 3 B. Monroe 253 (Ky. 1842); Harmon v. Dreher, 175 C. Eq. 87 (1843); Smith v. Nelson, 18 Vt. 511 (1846); German Reformed Church v. Commonwealth, 3 Pa. 282 (1846); Gibson v. Armstrong (1847); Robertson, et al., v. Bullions, et al., 9 Barbour 64 (N.Y. 1850), affirmed 11 N.Y. 243 (1854); Skilton v. Webster, Brightly, 203 (Pa. 1851).
201. Harmon v. Dreher, 17 S.C. Eq. 87 (1843).
202. Shannon v. Frost, 3 Monroe 253 (Ky. 1842).
203. Wilson v. Presbyterian Church of John's Island, 2 Richardson's Equity 215 (S.C. 1846).
204. The Old School trustees laid claim to their corporate offices against the competing claims of the previously-elected trustees from the four New School synods of Utica, Genesee, Geneva, and the Western Reserve, which the Old School adherents had contentiously ejected from the Presbyterian General Assembly the year before. The Old School trustees charged their New School counterparts with usurping the trustee offices. The New School trustees took their appeal to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in 1839. With Chief Justice John Bannister Gibson writing the opinion, the Court emphasized that its corrective jurisdiction extended only to the legal corporation and the temporalities owned by it and not to the theological coherence, fairness, or justice of the previous decisions of the General Assembly, a separate unincorporated society. According to Justice Gibson, the acts “excinding” the New School synods had been simply ordinances of dissolution, passed in keeping with the established processes and legislative rules of the General Assembly. With this finding, the Court affirmed the election of the new corporate trustees and their property rights. Commonwealth v. Green, 4 Wharton 531 (Pa. 1839).
205. A law of equity that authorized secular courts to decide whether the decisions of the highest judicatory of a church adhered to its own constitution permitted Judge Gibson to embroil himself in the most volatile religious upheaval of the antebellum era. The underlying bone of contention among Old School adherents had been New School advocacy of its doctrine of individual perfection and related social reform activism, advanced most prominently by influential divines such as Samuel Hopkins, Nathaniel W. Taylor and Charles Grandison Finney. Most problematic in this regard was the divisive New School initiative to abolish African American bondage. Id.; Roberts, Thomas P., Memoirs of John Bannister Gibson, Late Chief Justice of Pennsylvania 142 (J. Eichbaum & Co. 1890)Google Scholar; Stephenson, David Grier Jr., John Bannister Gibson, 1780-1853, in 1 Great American Judges: An Encyclopedia 292–93 (Vile, John R. ed., ABC-CLIO 2003)Google Scholar. 2 Ezra H. Glllett, History of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America 536–37 (Presbyterian Bd. of Publication 1864)Google Scholar.
206. Transcript at 92-118, 121, Smith v. Swormstedt, 57 U.S. 288 (1853).
207. Id.
208. Id.
209. Lee, Luther, Comp., The Debates of the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, May 1844: To Which is Added a Review of the Proceedings of said Conference 297–99 (O. Scott for the Wesleyan Methodist Connection of Am. 1845)Google Scholar.
210. Id.
211. Id.
212. Bill of Complaint and Answer of Defendants, Transcript at 1-32, Smith v. Swormstedt (1853).
213. Id.
214. Id.
215. Id.
216. Id. at 126-28; Gen, J.. Conf. Methodist Episcopal Church, 1848, at 154–64 (N.Y. 1848)Google Scholar; Emory, Robert, History of the Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church 13 (Lane & Sandford 1844)Google Scholar.
217. Transcript at 20, Smith v. Swormstedt, 57 U.S. 288(1853).
218. Id. at 292.
219. Id.; J. Gen. Conf., 1848, at 10, 18, 20.
220. Transcript at 149, Smith v. Swormstedt (1853).
221. Id.
222. Id. at 295.
223. Id.
224. Id. at 10, 15-18, 23, 138.
225. Id. at 295.
226. Id. at 293-95, 298.
227. Carwardine, Richard J., Trauma in Methodism: Property, Church Schism, and Sectional Polarization in Antebellum America, in Mark A. Noll, God and Mammon: Protestants, Money and the Market, 1790-1860, at 196 (Oxford Univ. Press 2002)Google Scholar.
228. Id. at 201; Nord, David Paul, Faith in Reading: Religious Publishing and the Birth of Mass Media in America 156 (Oxford Univ. Press 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
229. Carwardine, supra note 227, at 203-04.
230. Id. at 200.
231. Bascom v. Lane, 2 Fed. Cas. 994 (CCD. N.Y. 1851) (No. 1,089).
232. Id.
233. Id.
234. Id.
235. Id. at 994-1003; Doctrines and Discipline (1844), supra note 44, at 24; Doctrines and Discipline (1840), supra note 199, at 34 (1852).
236. Transcript at 288-96, Smith v. Swormstedt, 57 U.S. 288 (1853).
237. Id. at 288-96, 303-08.
238. Id. at 303.
239. Id. at 288-96, 303-08; Carwardine, supra note 227, at 204-05.
240. Samuel Nelson, in Timothy L. Hall, Supreme Court Justices: A Biographical Dictionary 111-14 (Facts on File Libr. Am. Hist. 2001).
241. Id.
242. Id.
243. Dred Scott v. Sanford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857).
244. Graber, Mark A., Dred Scott and the Problem of Constitutional Evil 106, et seq. (Cambridge Univ. Press 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
245. Strasser, supra note 190, at 432-39.
246. Id.
247. Id. at 429-39. The southern delegates expressed this very view at their 1845 convention in Louisville-or at least they took the position that the General Conference was not bound by the Six Restrictive rules and that these rules did not amount to a constitution. Extracts from the Journal of the Louisville Convention, Transcript at 205, Smith v. Swormstedt, 57 U.S. 288 (1853).
248. Strasser, supra note 190, at 729.
249. Journal of the General Conference, Transcript at 435-36, Smith v. Swormstedt, 57 U.S. 288 (1853).
250. Id. at 306-08.
251. Id.
252. Strasser, supra note 190, at 439-40.
253. Harris, supra note 190, at 519-21. See Watson v. Jones, 13 U.S. 679 (1871).
254. Den v. Bolton, 7 Halstead 206 (N.J. 1831); Shannon v. Frost, (3 B. Mon.) 253 (Ky. 1842); Harmon v. Dreher, 17 S.C. Eq. 87 (1843); German Reformed Church v. Seibert, 3 Barr 219 (Pa. 1846); Gibson v. Armstrong, 46 Ky. (7 B. Mon.) 481 (1847).
255. Harris, supra note 190, at 515-18. But see Keyser v. Stansifer, 6 Ohio 364 (1834). See also Atty. Gen. ex rel. Abbot v. Dublin, 38 N.H. 459 (1859).
256. Baker v. Fales, 16 Mass. 487 (1820); King's Chapel v. Pelham, 9 Mass. 501 (1813); Inhabitants of Princeton v. Adams, 64 Mass. 129 (1852); Att'y Gen. v. Fed. St. Meeting House, 69 Mass. 1 (1854); Parmele, supra note 195, at 113-14.
257. Id.
258. Wilson v. John's Island Presbyterian Church, 2 Richardson's Equity 215 (S.C. 1846); Gable v. Miller, 10 Paige Ch. 627 (N.Y. 1844), reversed Miller v. Gable, 2 Denio 492 (1845); Robertson v. Bullions, 9 Barb. 64 (N.Y. 1850), affirmed Robertson v. Bullions, 11 N.Y. 243 (1854).
259. Gibson v. Armstrong, 46 Ky. (7 B. Mon.) 481 (1847).
260. Carwardine, supra note 227, at 199-200.
261. Gibson v. Armstrong, 46 Ky. (7 B. Mon.) 481, 481 (1847).
262. Id.
263. Id.
264. Id.
265. Id.
266. Note, Hon. Thomas A. Marshall, 5 U.S. Monthly L. Mag. 6 (1852)Google Scholar.
267. Gibson v. Armstrong, 46 Ky. (7 B. Mon.) 481, 481 (1847).
268. Id.
269. Id.
270. Id.; Carwardine, supra note 15, at 164-65.
271. Brooke v. Shacklett, 54 Va. (136ratt.) 301 (1856).
272. Comment, Judge William Daniel, Jr., 7 Va. L. Reg. 4 (05 1901)Google Scholar.
273. Brooke v. Shacklett, 54 Va. (136 ratt.) 301 (1856).
274. Id.
275. Id.; Methodist Church Cases Decided, Hannibal Messenger, July 8, 1856, at 2.
276. Statement of Appellants by Delafield and Barretts, Appellate Record, supra note 93, at 12.
277. Kniskern v. St. Johns & St. Peters Lutheran Churches, 1 Sandford's Chancery 439, (N.Y. Ch. 1844).
278. Id.
279. Id.
280. Id.
281. Id.
282. Id.
283. Id.
284. Id.
285. Id.
286. Id.
287. Id.
288. Opinion, Digges v. Trustees, Circuit Court of Fauquier County, Fauquier County Circuit Court Chancery Order Book, No. 3, 1850-56, at 346 (Oct. 8, 1850).
289. Id.
290. Id.
291. Id.
292. Id.
293. Id.
294. Id.; Mo. Republican, Mar. 25, 1851, at 2.
295. Opinion, Digges v. Trustees, Circuit Court of Fauquier County at 346.
296. Id.
297. Id.; Law Order Book E, at 459, 1848-54, Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia. Citing 1 Sandford 440 and Miller v. Gable 492 (1844).
298. Methodist Church v. Wood, 5 Ohio 283 (1831); Trustees of Associate Reformed Church v. Trustees of Theological Seminary at Princeton, 4 N.J. Equity 77 (1837); Hadden v. Chorn, 47 Ky. (8 B. Mon.) 77 (1847); Skilton v. Webster, Bright. Rep. 203 (Pa. 1851); Harper v. Straws, 53 Ky. (B. Mon.) 48 (1853).
299. St. Louis Christian Advocate, Nov. 13, 1851, at 50.
300. Id.
301. Id., Nov. 20, 1851 at 54; Nov. 27, 1851, at 59.
302. Carwardine, supra note 227, at 197.
303. Books! Books!, St. Louis Christian Advocate, Nov. 29, 1852, at 58.
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305. Tabor Scrapbook, Appellate Record, supra note 93, at 5-10.
306. Id. at 1-3.
307. Id at 4, 11-14.
308. Methodist Church Cases Decided, Hannibal Messenger, July 8, 1856, at 2.
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310. Fehrenbacher, supra note 110, at 121-39.
311. The City of Hannibal v. Draper, 15 Mo. 639-40 (1852); The State v. Ambs, 20 Mo. 216, 217-18(1854).
312. Boman, Abiel Leonard, supra note 309, at 180-82.
313. McAnally, supra note 41, at 233.
314. Id.
315. Id. at 337-39; Harrison, supra note 96, at 319, 323; Minutes of the Annual Conferences 1858, supra note 96, at 15.
316. Minutes of the Annual Conferences 1850, supra note 144, at 508-09; Minutes of the Annual Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church for the Year 1857, at 342-43 (T. Mason & G. Lane 1857). In 1848 the MEC reorganized in Missouri, though the records for 1848-49 only contained sporadic figures for the subsidiary congregations.
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318. Deed of Settlement, Part Second. The Temporal Economy of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Doctrines and Discipline (1840), supra note 199, at 176.
319. Novak, William, The People's Welfare: Law and Regulation in Nineteenth-Century America 1–50 (Univ. N.C. Press 1996)Google Scholar.
320. Certainly frontier Missourians permitted vigilantes and, sometimes mobs, to take the law into their own hands to deal with those whose actions seemed to pose a dire threat to “the people.” But ordinary folk and jurists in the state, as in other regions of the United States, deemed the purposeful omission by government officials to restrain the depredations of one or more private persons against others a fundamental violation of liberty. Id. at 27-32, 44; Lieber, Francis, On Civil Liberty and Self-Government 1-20, 214–31 (Phila. 1853)Google Scholar; Chipman, Nathaniel, Book 4, Of Rights and Liberty, in Sketches of the Principles of Government 55–59 (Rutland, Vt. 1793)Google Scholar; de Vattel, Emmerich, The Law of Nations 54 (Ingraham, Edward D. ed., Phila. 1852)Google Scholar. Mo. Const, of 1820, art. 16, §§ 4 & 16.
