If any claim was ever set up to any species or piece of property, or any suit in any civil court was ever instituted to gain possession of any property during this period of seventeen years, the author is to this day ignorant of the fact. A residence in the State of nearly twenty years has failed to bring the fact to his knowledge. It is, therefore, of no minor significance that these facts stand in the records of history, and must enter largely into the consideration of subsequent facts now to be put on record. Let them be duly considered and they will color with deepest significance the acts and doings of that Church during the war.
It may be that the decision of the Church in Missouri was too nearly unanimous, and the force of public opinion was too strong in its endorsement of the Plan of Separation and the vote of the Conference; and, then, it may be that the few scattered preachers and members whose sympathies were with the Church, North, were in themselves too feeble at any given point, or had the sense of justice and right too strong at every point, to encourage any attempt to gain possession of property that rightfully belonged to others. If their complete acquiescence can not be accounted for upon either of the above hypotheses, then it rests with the fact that in other States the rights of property would be settled by the civil courts; and in Missouri they preferred to await the decision of courts in those States where the Northern claimants would not be put at such great disadvantage.
While the property question was in an unsettled state several churches along the border of Kentucky and Virginia were put through the sharpest litigation.
Prior to the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the great “Church Property Case,” appeals were made to the civil courts in several places to decide the rights of property, of which that for the Church in Maysville, Ky., was among the earlier and most noted.
In this Church, out of a membership of two hundred and fifty-six, ninety-seven voted to adhere North. This minority had a preacher sent to them from Ohio and sued for possession of the Church property. The case was carried to the State Court of Appeals, and that distinguished jurist, Chief Justice Marshall, in decreeing that the property rightfully belonged to the M. E. Church, South, among other things, said:
“There are now two distinct Churches in the place of the M. E. Church of the United States—the one the M. E. Church, North, the other the M. E. Church, South—these two differing from the original and from each other only in locality and extent; each possessing in its locality the entire jurisdiction of the original Church.”
Wherever the right of property was referred in any given locality to the civil courts the decision was the same as that above, and the Northern Methodists of Missouri acquiesced in the extinguishment of their right to all the property formerly owned by the original Church, and its legal confirmation to the M. E. Church, South.
Now, it may well and significantly be inquired how the civil war of 1861 could revive the title to property that had been extinguished, in fact and in law, by the will of its legal owners in 1845? Laws may be repealed, altered and amended, but not so as to affect the previous rights of property. Nothing is more sacredly guarded by civil legislation than the rights of property. Laws may change, but justice and equity remain the same; and courts of equity not unfrequently pronounce upon the equity of legislation in respect to the rights of property. Hence the strongest rights are those founded both in law and equity.
If the rights of property were revived by the civil war it must have been done in one of two ways: either by legislation or attainder. It was never claimed to have been revived by legislation, which, to say the least, was a doubtful expedient, and conferred a doubtful right, if any at all. It could not have been done by attainting the blood of the lawful property holders, except by due process of law and for cause. This was never even attempted.
Then we fall back upon the original inquiry, how the civil war revived property rights that had been extinguished nearly twenty years? What virtue in armies, in battles, in fire or blood to resuscitate extinguished titles? What virtue in martial law, in military occupation and orders, or in drum-head courts-martial, to set aside the legal and moral rights of one Church and set up the legal claims of another Church? Was it the right of might, and the might of arms? Could bullets and bayonets set aside or substitute warranty deeds? How could the battle of Springfield, fought August 10, 1861, affect the title of Church property in Springfield secured by deed of conveyance, dated October 11, 1856, to certain gentlemen as trustees of the M. E. Church, South, to hold in trust for the uses of said Church? Or how could the battles of Boonville or Lexington destroy the rights of property in those cities which inhered in the members of the M. E. Church, South?