ART II.-CONSTITUTIONAL LAW IN THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH.

[FIRST PAPER.]

CHURCHES are spiritual empires, and in these realms, as in the state, prosperity and liberty are safe only in the guardianship of law. It is true that the aim of the Christian Church is holy, and its principles are professedly drawn from the word of God, but its subjects and rulers are erring men, and its prizes have a fascination for human ambition hardly surpassed by those of secular empires. Nowhere else has man been so degraded and his natural rights trodden upon as in religious organizations.

Our aim in these articles is to throw light on the somewhat obscure and confused question of the constitutional law of the Methodist Episcopal Church, to define that law, trace the history of its development, and bring together some of the principles that have been established during the first century of our history. There are many difficulties in such an inquiry. The field is a comparatively new one; the literature of the subject is fragmentary and scattered, and the data are uncertain and frequently contradictory. We have no Supreme Court to whose records we may appeal for final judgments. It is one of the defects of our system that the General Conference, which is our legislative body, is also our ultimate Court of Appeals. "The General Conference," says Dr. L. L. Hamline in his famous speech in 1844 (General Conference Journal, Debates, p. 130), "is a Court of Appeals beyond which no parties can travel for the cure of errors. It is the dernier ressort, not only of appellants, but of original complainants. If it err, which is not a legal presumption, its unwholesome error is incurable except by the vis medicatrix-the medicinal virtue-of its own judicial energies."

The Methodist Episcopal Church is a Church of constitutional and statute law. From the earliest days of its history the functions and responsibilities of its officers were clearly defined in the yearly Minutes and Discipline, as were also the duties and privileges of its members.

Our judicial system dates from the organization of the Church. There have, however, been conflicting opinions in

the Church and in the General Conference on constitutional questions, especially as to the prerogatives of the episcopacy and the powers of the General Conference. Upon these vexed questions we hope to throw some light, and to put the entire subject in such form as to lead to settled results. It is a subject that needs careful and painstaking inquiry. It would not be difficult to prove that the gravity of constitutional obligations has not always been sufficiently felt in our past history.

Let the reader recall, as examples, the action of the General Conference of 1844, in connection with the separation of the Church South, the action of the Conference of 1868 in admitting representatives from Mission Conferences, and the action of 1872 in relegating Conference boundaries to a committee with power.

Another fact which commends this question to the careful study of the ministers and people of the Church is, that there is probably no Church in Christendom where there is so much discretionary power committed to its officers as in the Methodist Episcopal Church. It has been our boast that we have an efficient executive and a strong government. Our economy demands this, inasmuch as it is indispensable to the continuance of that fundamental institution of Methodism, the itinerancythe institution which, next to the grace of God, is the fount and origin of our prosperity. But a powerful executive is also a dangerous one; and in exact proportion to the power of the center should be the explicitness of the laws that define and protect the rights and privileges of the individual members of the Church and of the ministry.

The constitution of the Methodist Episcopal Church is both written and unwritten. As written, it includes the organic statutes that were enacted for the government of the Church by the General Conference of 1808, or that have since been legally adopted. The Conference of 1808 may be called the Constitutional Convention of the Church, for the reason that it was the last General Conference composed of all the traveling preachers, and that it provided for the future government of the Church by a delegated Conference acting under constitutional restraints. It is usual to say that the written constitution is the six Restrictive Rules with the famous grant of power which precedes them, to wit:

The General Conference shall have full powers to make rules and regulations for our Church, under the following limitations and restrictions, namely.

"The written constitution, according to my conception,* is found in what are called, in our Discipline, the Restrictive Rules." But this is a mistake. On several occasions in the history of the Church, especially in the great constitutional debates of 1868, it was found that this was not only a partial view of the matter, but also a thoroughly false view. The opinion presented by Dr. S. M. Merrill (now Bishop Merrill), and ably argued by him and others in the debates on Lay Delegation in 1868, and supported at that time by the final action of that General Conference, is the best law on this subject. Dr. Merrill held, that the written constitution of the Church included those sections of the Discipline (Part II, Chapter I) which relate to the several styles of Conferences and define their functions. The constitution of the General Conference is that portion of that chapter which refers to the General Conference, and under which the first delegated General Conference was organized; the constitution of the Annual Conference is that portion of the same chapter which relates to the Annual Conference, and so on. Dr. Merrill said:

The Quarterly Conference cannot change its own constitution; the Annual Conference cannot change its own constitution; and no more can the General Conference change its own constitution. The General Conference may change the constitution of the Annual Conference because it is subordinate, and likewise of the Quarterly Conference because it is subordinate; and likewise the same power that made the General Conference may change the constitution of that body.

As this is a matter of great importance we make some quotations from Dr. Merrill's speech:

It is wonderful that, in this second century of American Methodism, there should be disagreement among us as to what part of our Discipline contains the constitution of the Church. But it is so. I have been no little surprised, here and elsewhere, to hear men of learning and ability advance the opinion, as though it were settled and established beyond question, that the only constitutional provisions in the Discipline are found in the six articles known as the Restrictive Rules. This I regard as

*Speech of John M'Clintock in General Conference of 1868.

a grand mistake, and one that is so fundamentally wrong that it ought at once to be corrected.

His argument to show that the entire section relating to the General Conference had constitutional authority was as follows:

If we have authority by a majority vote to alter this first answer, relating to membership in the General Conference, we have equal right to change the second answer-and we have been asked to do that thing-the one which tells us when the General Conference shall meet; and having this right we may stereotype the action of this Conference by refusing to have another session for fifty or a hundred years. We may, by a simple majority vote, ordain that the next session of the General Conference shall be held in 1972 instead of 1872. Does any one pretend that we have a right to do this in the face of the express provision of the constitution, which says: "The General Conference shall meet in the city of New York on the first day of May, in the year of our Lord 1812, and thenceforward on the first day of May once in four years perpetually?" But according to the assumption under consideration we may do this, and by a mere majority vote.

Again, if we can change the first and second answers to this question, we can also change the third, which provides that it shall at all times require two thirds of all the members elected to form a quorum. Is it possible that any legislative body working under a written constitution given to it by a superior authority can claim any such right as this-right to change its quorum, which has been established for it by a power above itself? Was ever such a thing heard of before?

But this is not all. If this body has the power to make the changes mentioned, it may also change the fourth answer, which tells us that a Bishop shall preside over the General Conference. If this assumption is true, we may at any time by a mere majority vote displace you, sir, Mr. President, and displace any and all these Bishops, so far as the presidency of the General Conference is concerned, and put a man from our own body into the chair to preside. Now, are we prepared to claim any such power as this? I trust not, sir; but it is clearly our right to do so if the assumption is correct that we may change any part of this section except the restrictions.

But still further, I call your attention to another fact of no little importance in this connection. It is that this provision for altering the Restrictive Rules is itself outside of the Restrictive Rules. It is not of the nature of a restriction. It is connected with the restrictions, I grant, and its provisions relate to them, and only to them, but it is outside of them; and if we have the power to change by a majority vote all outside of the Restrictive Rules, then we have the power to change this provision for change. And if we have the right to do this, these restrictions are not worth the paper on which they are written. The moment

we claim the right to change the provision for change we put the whole list of restrictions under the power of the majority, and they may do what they please.*

In harmony with the principles of Bishop Merrill's speech, lay delegation was incorporated in our Church system by the constitutional two thirds and three fourths votes. It may be claimed, therefore, that this question of what constitutes the written constitution of the Church was settled in the General Conference of 1868.

The unwritten constitution, lex non scripta, embraces those facts, obligations, and customs which are implied in the written law, and have been recognized in the history of the Church as involved in the original compact, and essential to the integrity of the system. That our episcopacy, for example, is not a third order in the ministry, jure divino, is a part of this unwritten law, for this is implied in its history and in its dependence upon the Church; but, on the other hand, it is equally a part of the unwritten constitution that the General Conference shall, by sufficiently frequent elections, maintain an efficient episcopacy in the Church, though this duty is not specifically enjoined upon them in the organic law.

We quote, on this point, from the speech of Dr. D. Curry on the occasion referred to above, when Bishop Merrill addressed the General Conference:

I agree with Brother Merrill's interpretation of the constitution of the Methodist Episcopal Church. But there is more in this matter that has yet been brought before us. Behind the words and between the lines of a constitution there is always a deeper meaning and a broader reach of sense than is found in the letter itself. The written constitution is broader, deeper, and more solid than that which is expressed, and that is precisely the point which I wish to press in this case. There is nowhere found in the Book of Discipline the declaration that you shall not change the name of our Church, and I do not believe that you will hold that this body has power to do so. There is nothing in that constitution which forbids our striking out our name and taking any other name we please, but I do not suppose, therefore, we have power to do it. There are certain things that lie back of our corporate life, and those things are the very power which gave us our existence. The constituency of the General Conference existed before the General Conference had any being, which constituency exists yet, and that is the presbytery or body of

Daily Christian Advocate, 1868, p. 98.