RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Church and State
powers of Congress only. That body might pass no law in order to establish a state religion, neither could it provide any religious test as a 3. Condi- quahfication for holding office under tions after the Federal goveriunent. The framers the Revo- of the Constitution did not underlution. take to protect the rehgious liberty of the people against the action of their respective state governments. Rehgious affairs were declared to be within the sphere of domestic relations, and therefore reserved to the control of the states. The development of the local peculiarities in the ecclesiastical institutions of the several sections of the country continued without interruption. The colonial legislatures had granted a few charters of incorporation to local churches, and this practise was continued for a few years by the state legislatures. It was, however, soon abandoned because of the popular sympathy with the complaint that such particular charters of incorporation constituted special legislation secured through pohtical influence. After the Revolution there arose a demand in the middle states for a uniform procedure by which the local organizations of all rehgious denominations might receive a corporate form. To meet the needs of the time legislation was enacted which introduced the second stage in the development of American ecclesiastical poUcy, viz., the era of the general statute. The first general statute that could serve the churches of all denominations became law in New York on April 6, 1784. An act of similar intent and like provisions was passed in 1793 by the state of New Jersey, and' these two statutes with their subsequent revisions became the models for similar statutes in many of the northern states. These early statutes resulted from the necessity of providing legal trustees with a standing in court, in whom might rest the title to property devoted to religious purposes. They were enacted at a time of little rehgious interest and of bare toleration of religious bodies by legislators. The powers conferred upon religious corporations that might come into being imder these general statutes were very limited; and in no state were such corporations allowed to be self-perpetuating. Partiality to religious denominations on the part of the state legislatures was dreaded, and there was also a very real fear among the lawmakers themselves lest something might be done toward recreating an ecclesiastical establishment. The method of providing for the incorporation of religious societies by means of a general statute has developed unequally in different sections of the country, and it has not yet been adopted by all the states.' As late as 18r36, the states of Rhode Island, Virginia, and South Carolina had no such statute; and in 1896 a general statute of incorporation was still forbidden by constitution in the states of Virginia and West V irginia.
A third stage in the development of American civil church law has come as the result of specializing legislation with reference to religious organizations m two directions. In one direction increased discrimination has been made between ecclesiastical bodies proper, and other social, edu-
cational, and philanthropic organizations. The second form of specialization, however, is of far
more importance than the first. In the 4. Special states having the most highly developed Legislation, legislation the general provisions of
the statutes have, from time to time, been supplemented by special optional provisions affecting convocations of particular religious denominations. The demand for this class of legislation has in nearly every case come from the churches themselves. As the denominations have grown in strength and their members have developed a more intelligent interest in their own special features of polity, many of them have made efforts to find legal expression for the essential features of their respective polities. Through these supplemental provisions, there has been wrought into the statute law of many of the states the recognition of purely ecclesiastical functionaries. It can not now be said to be the intention of the legislatures to keep the control of the temporal affairs of the churches in the hands of corporations, " independent of priest, bishop, presbytery, or synod or other ecclesiastical judicatory." There has developed in recent years a marked legislative cordiality toward the churches. While at the beginning of the nineteenth century the avowed policy in American legislation was to treat all religious interests alike by doing as little as possible for any of them and forcing all to conform to one procedure, at the beginning of the twentieth centurj' the policy seems to be to treat all interests alike by giving to each all that is asked.
The early concept of religious organization in American law was very naturally that of a simple and completely autonomous local society. To denominations whose types of polity correspond to this concept the legislation of the general statute era has been satisfactory. The special optional provisions referred to, have, therefore, been enacted for the benefit of churches having polities by which the local bodies sustain a definite relation to some more general authority. It has been those denominations which have an administrative or episcopal type of organization that have shown the greatest energy in securing denominational legislation of the kind mentioned. At the present time twenty-five distinct religious denominations have thus been specially legislated for. The statutes of sixteen states now contain special provisions for the incorporation and regulation of Protestant Episcopal churches. Eight states make similar provision for Roman Catholic churches, and seven states for Methodist Episcopal churches. The privilege that is being accorded to religious bodies of having such legislation enacted as best developed their respective polities is resulting in what may be defined as a legal crystalhzation of ecclesiastical polity. Presbyteries, conferences, synods, classes, conventions, superintendents, overseers, presiding elders, vicars general, bishops, and archbishops, have come to have a legal status by virtue of their ecclesiastical status and legal powers incidental to their spiritual jurisdiction. Such features of ecclesiastical organization as secure recognition in the civil law are thereby less liable to alteration than the non-legal
Church and State Churchyard