Baker v. Fales

In 1818, "Dedham [claimed] rights distinct from the church and against the vote of the church."[6] Bates, the unpopular and recently departed minister, had been educated at Phillips Academy Andover, and the town wanted a more liberal minister from Harvard.[8] They considered three candidates,[4][8] though the liberal Unitarian minister, Rev. Alvan Lamson, seems to be the only one seriously considered.[8]

On July 13, 1818, a meeting of the parish engaged Lamson to preach for eight weeks.[8] The more conservative members were unhappy, and asked for additional candidates to be considered.[8] At the end of August, both the church, and then the parish, met to consider calling Lamson to the pulpit.[8] The church initially rejected Lamson by a vote of 17 to 15.[8][4][9][10][4][2] An elderly, hard of hearing man then stood up to say he was confused and actually meant to vote against Lamson, bringing the tally to 18 against Lamson, 14 in favor, and six absent.[8]

Despite the negative vote from the church, the parish then met and voted in favor of Lamson by a vote of 81 in favor to 44 opposed.[9][4][11][4][lower-alpha 1] Those who opposed Lamson did not raise any objections to his moral or professional qualifications.[4] They did, however, object to his theology and found him lacking in "spirituality and knowledge of the scriptures" and displayed little of "that which fixes the attention and reaches the heart."[8] Lamson's initial reaction seems to have been to decline the call, given the size of the opposition, but he was persuaded to accept by Jabaz Chickering, the chairman of the parish council.[12]

After Lamson accepted the parish's call without the concurrence of the church, the parish sent letters to 15 other churches calling for a council to consider the situation.[12] A council of 13 other churches then assembled with the minister and one lay delegate from each participating.[12][4] The council included Judge John Davis, Harvard College President Rev. John Kirkland, future Harvard president Rev. James Walker, Rev. Henry Ware,[lower-alpha 2] Rev. Charles Lowell, and Rev. William Ellery Channing.[13][12] The committee selected Channing to serve as moderator and Rev. Ralph Sanger as scribe.[14][12] Rev. John Reed of Bridgewater, Kirkland, Channing, Lowell, and Davis were selected to report the findings of the council.[14] At 9:00 a.m. on October 28, 1818, the council met at the Norfolk County Courthouse.[14][12] They first heard a report from the parish and then heard the long[lower-alpha 3] and carefully prepared argument of Judge Samuel Haven, who opposed Lamson's appointment.[14][12]

Haven argued that a church should be able to elect its own pastor and that an ecclesiastical council should not be able to force a Gospel minister upon a church without its consent.[12] Haven also noted that the tradition in New England had long been for a church to make a selection and then present its choice to the parish for ratification.[12] Ordinations, he said, are ecclesiastical events, not civil ones.[12] Additionally, councils are called by churches, Haven said, not by secular authorities.[16] To have the Dedham parish convene this council was to confuse secular and religious authority.[15]

The letters calling for the council asked for the other church's help "in the ordination of Mr. Lamson, as a Gospel Minister over the Church and Society constituting said Parish."[15] After hearing Haven's argument, Chickering backtracked and said they did not ask for Lamson be ordained over the church.[15] Chickering then presented letters showing that if all the members of the church had been present when the vote was taken that there would have been a majority in favor of Lamson.[15] The council was not inclined to consider the views and membership status of the absent members and instead considered Lamson's qualifications.[15]

At the end of the day, the council declared that it would proceed to ordain Lamson on the following day.[15]

As promised, the council assembled to ordain Lamson on the following day.[15] The council's final report, prepared by Channing and known as its "Result," was read at the ordination ceremony.[15][14] The Result accepted the argument of the conservative members that a church may not have a minister imposed upon it without its consent.[15] It added that having a parish ratify the selection of the church is "in the main wise and beneficial,"but is not always possible.[17]

The interests of the parish must also be considered, the Result said, and "that circumstances may exist, in which a minister may be ordained over a parish without the concurrence of the church connected with it."[15] It added that the parish was obliged by law to support a public teacher of morality and may be fined if it did not.[17] The Result lamented the lack of unanimity in the congregation but said that any decision they arrived at would likely upset some members.[17]

At the ordination ceremony, Deacon Joseph Swan got up and walked out.[18] He was followed by his father-in-law, Deacon Samuel Fales, and a number of others.[18] Haven declared the ordination council was illegitimate and attacked the Result.[18] He declared that the church should call a minister and the parish should not vote until then.[18] If the parish did not agree, the church should present other candidates until a mutually acceptable candidate was found.[18] Lamson's ordination, Haven said, was irregular and should not be recognized by other churches.[18] Members of the church then called upon other churches to assemble for another council on November 18, 1808.[19] Letters were sent to every other congregational church with the exception of those who participated in the ordination.[19]

Before the second council could assemble, a second vote was taken by the church.[19] In the interest of conciliation, some members initially opposed to Lamson were ready to accept him as their minister.[19] On November 15th, a majority of 21 votes were cast for Lamson as minister and a greater number voted to admit him as a member of the church.[19] Many of those still opposed to Lamson boycotted the second vote, calling it irregular and invalid.[19]

The second council, including Dr. Eliphalet Porter of Roxbury, Thaddeus Mason Harris of Dorchester, and John Pierce of Brookline, was unable to come to a unanimous decision.[19] It expressed a mild condemnation of the parish for appointing a minister against the wishes of the church, though some council members pushed for stronger language.[19] Eight members voted their disapproval of the Result for varying reasons.[19]

The second council advocated for a reconciliation, but one was not to be had.[19] Haven published a book of over 100 pages outlying the argument against Lamson and included the Result from each council.[19] In it, he used derogatory and insulting language to describe his opponents.[20] He also said that bringing Lamson to the church was "both disgusting and ridiculous."[21] He added that the more liberal members who favored Lamson had deliberately stirred up the community and that the meeting on July 13th, in which Lamson's stay in the pulpit was extended, was "a farce" marked by "management, intrigue, and deceit."[21] Haven also blamed the dispute on the death on Deacon Joseph Swan, who died on November 13, within two weeks of Lamson's ordination.[21][14] Haven characterized the church meeting in which Lamson was admitted as a member as a "shocking profanation" exhibiting "scenes of wickedness... indecency and barbarity."[21]

After Lamson's ordination, the more conservative members of the church left to form what is today known as the Allin Congregational Church.[9][22][23][24][lower-alpha 4] The deacons at the time included Samuel Fales, who left to join the new church, Jonathan Richards, who voted for Lamson but resigned his position after the new minister was settled, and the deceased Joseph Swan.[14][27] The remaining members elected Eliphalet Baker and Luther Richards as replacements.[14][27]

During the split, Fales and the departing members took parish records, funds, and the valuable silver used for communion with them.[28][29][9] The communion silver was kept in a closet within the church, but disappeared after someone entered through a window.[30] According to Massachusetts law at the time, the deacons of the church were the lawful custodians of church property, but there were now two competing groups of deacons.[21]

Deacon Baker, on behalf of the remaining members of the First Church, brought a suit of replevin against Deacon Fales and the breakaway church.[7][lower-alpha 5] During the April term of 1820,[27] they asked a court to order that the records, funds, silver, and other items be returned.[7]

At the trial, the members of First Church were represented by Judge John Davis and Jabez Chickering while the breakaway church members were represented by Messrs. Metcalf, Haven, and Prescott.[7] Judge Samuel Wilde, who presided over the trial, instructed the jury that as a matter of law that the plaintiffs, the remaining members of the First Church, were in the right.[7] The jury, however, deliberated all night about "Which is the First Church?"[7] When they came back in the morning without a verdict, they were severely reprimanded by the judge.[7] They returned to their deliberations and came back ten minutes later with a verdict for the plaintiffs.[7]

The case was appealed to the Supreme Judicial Court.[7][31] There, Massachusett's Solicitor General, Daniel Davis, represented the plaintiffs with Chickering.[7][27] The breakaway defendants had Daniel Webster and Theron Metcalf representing them.[7][27]

The case turned on who was to be considered First Church: those who supported Lamson and stayed, or those who opposed him and left.[27] [lower-alpha 6] In a decision written by Chief Justice Isaac Parker in February 1821,[27][32] the court unanimously ruled that "[w]hatever the usage in settling ministers, the Bill of Rights of 1780 secures to towns, not to churches, the right to elect the minister, in the last resort."[31][33] They also ruled that the connection between First Church and First Parish was indissoluble.[27]

Even if a majority of the members left to form a new church, those who remained would constitute First Church.[27] As such, those who remained with Lamson, and not those who left, were to be considered the First Church and thus the rightful owners of the property in question.[34] If all the members of the church left, the parish could form a new church which would be the legal successor of the old.[27] The church, according to the decision, was an appendage of the parish, not an entity unto itself.[27][35]

The court held that the funds, records, and other property had to be returned to First Church, setting a precedent for future congregational splits that would arise as Unitarianism grew.[28][36][34] The orthodox faction supposedly responded to the decision with the saying, "They kept the furniture, but we kept the faith."[28]

Parker has been criticized for using "legal slight of hand" in his decision and for ignoring the complex history, especially in Dedham, between the church and the society.[37] He was also accused of forming his legal opinion of the Dedham church through his experiences at his own Brattle Street Church.[38]