Case Name: Keyser and another, for themselves and others, v. Stansifer and others
Court: Supreme Court of Ohio
Jurisdiction: Ohio
Decision Date: 1834-12
Citations: 6 Ohio 363
Docket Number: 
Parties: Keyser and another, for themselves and others, v. Stansifer and others.
Judges: 
Reporter: Cases decided in the supreme court of ohio : upon the circuit at the special sessions in Columbus
Volume: 6
Pages: 368–371

Head Matter:
Keyser and another, for themselves and others, v. Stansifer and others.
Where a religious society purchase.land, and the title vests in them in fee, as a corporation, the majority of the society have a right to control its use and occupation, of which they can not he deprived by any supposed error of doctrine.
This was a bill in chancery brought here by adjournment from the county of Montgomery. The object of the bill was to obtain possession of certain property purchased, improved, and occupied as a place of worship, by a congregation of the Baptist denomination. The pleadings and proofs make the following state of facts:
*On May 29, 1824, the First Baptist Church, of Dayton, was founded, a declaration of faith and rules of business in meetings of the church were agreed on and adopted. The form of faith established under this organization was that professed by those who call themselves Particular Baptists.
On July 27, 1827, at a regular meeting of this society, these articles were unanimously abrogated, Keyser, one.of the complainants, being present, and new rules of faith and doctrine adopted.
In September, L827, Keyser, Gosney, and Stansifer were elected trustees. On November 7,1827, they purchased a lot in the town of Dayton, and took a conveyance to themselves as trustees of the First Baptist Church, in Dayton, and to their successors in office. By the operation of the statute of 1825, vol. xxix, page 464, these trustees became a corporation, and the title in fee became invested in them by the conveyance. A house of public worship was erected upon it, partly from the contributions of the society, and partly by the aid of donations from others.
On March 23, 1829, certain charges were preferred against Keyser, in a course of discipline, and he was excluded from the society by vote, and another trustee appointed in his place. On the 31st of the same month, all former creeds and symbols were abolished by the society, and a new covenant introduced, by which the New Testament was declared the only rule of faith" and practice.
The bill brought by Keyser, the excluded trustee, and by Cox, charges that the defendants by abandoning their original declaration of faith, and'certain usages common to the Baptists, by embracing certain doctrinal errors, and by thus separating themselves from the general Baptist association, have ceased to be the First Baptist Church, of Dayton. That the First Baptist Church consists of themselves and their associates, who from their numbers, in part consisting of married women, and of such as have connected themselves with the schism, can not all unite in their bill. They ask to be permitted to prosecute the bill for the benefit of themselves and all concerned, and pray the court to decree an appropriation of the property in question to its legitimate use.
F. Dunlavy, for complainants,
cited 29 Ohio L. 81; sec. 1 and 2 Ohio Stat. passed January 3, 1825; reprinted vol. xxix, p. 464; *also 5 Ohio, old ed. 286; Methodist Church v. Wood, 4 [365 Ohio, 415, 542; Price and Others v. Methodist E. Church; Shotwell v. Henderson and Others (New Jersey case in chancery), Judge Ewing’s appendix, 40, 41; Id. 51. 52; Id. 76, 77; Id. 84, 85.
Crane and Schenck, for respondents,
cited 3 Mer. 418; 1 Term of Communion, 17.

Opinion:
Judge Lane
delivered the opinion of the court
Upon what principles are the complainants entitled to reliefl If this were a donation made to accomplish a particular object expressed in the deed, the terms of the limitation would secure the use, and equity would take care it was not diverted from the end for which it was designed. But this land was purchased, it belonged to the society in fee, and it was held by them as their absolute property.
If this land became the absolute property of this association, subject to no use except its general purposes, it is incident to the very nature of a corporation to hold such property at the will of the majority, if the charter of incorporation does not otherwise provide. It is theirs to dispose of, to retain, or to occupy after their own pleasure. 5 Ohio, 205. They would not be permitted to exclude their fellow-corporators. But they may occupy and manage as they please, admitting the minority to the same benefits as themselves.
But this claim is not set up because the minority are excluded, but because it is assorted the majority have deserted the principles under which the association was organized, by which they have ceased to be the "First Baptist Church of Dayton." It does not follow that they lose their property by ceasing to entertain certain opinions. The declaration of faith under which they were organized, contains no attempt to bind them to abide in the same belief. It is shown in proof that each Baptist church is in itself a whole, separate, and independent — at liberty to form its owm creed, and looking to others for counsel and social intercourse only. The opinions of such a body can not but change. To fix their fleeting wherries; to anchor them immovably in the stream of time is beyond human power; for the mind, at least, is free; ranging by its inherent strength through the boundless fields of knowledge, molding its belief according to its apprehension of the 366] truth, and incapable of *fixedness until the day when all truth shall be made known. And if it were possible, it were wrong; to limit activity of mind is to set boundaries to human knowledge.
No such effect appears to have been contemplated by these parties at the time of their original association. Their articles were not regarded by them as binding forever. They were changed by themselves, at the meeting of 1827, by an unanimous vote, to which one of the complainants was a party — the other not being a member of the church.. The land was not purchased until alter this change, and the society became no legal corporation before it; so that the original declaration of faith could raise no use nor prescribe the manner of holding the property. It was organized under the predominance of opinions which the complainant would now repudiate as heretical. They, the minority, at best, can have no right to divert it frota the uses to which it is devoted, by the expressed will of the corporation, upon account of any supposed errors of doctrine or of faith.
Bill dismissed.