Baker v. Fales, also known as The Dedham Case, was a seminal case of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. It involved the First Church and Parish in Dedham rejecting the minister the Town of Dedham selected for it and its split into the Allin Congregational Church. It was a major case on the road to the separation of church and state and led to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts formally disestablishing the Congregational Church in 1833.
Background The preaching of Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield helped to revive the churches of Dedham during the Great Awakening. The theological debates that arose as a result, however, helped bring about a split in the churches into different denominations.
A distinction was made between the church and the parish. The parish was composed all of the residents of a geographic territory who had not joined another religious group such as the Episcopal Church. The church included only those members of the parish who had been admitted to the church.
In the early 19th century, all Massachusetts towns were constitutionally required to tax their citizens "for the institution of the public worship of God, and for the support and maintenance of public Protestant teachers of piety." All residents of a town were assessed, as members of the parish, whether or not they were also members of the church. The "previous and long standing practice [was to have] the church vote for the minister and the parish sanction this vote," although the method varied over the history of Dedham since the church was first gathered in 1638.
Churches in those days were not corporate bodies or authorized to hold property. A Massachusetts law passed in 1754 made a church's deacons the trustees of all its property.
Dispute at First Church Selection of Alvan Lamson In 1817, Joshua Bates asked to be dismissed from the church so that he could become president of Middlebury College. Due to his differing political beliefs—Bates was a Federalist but the congregation was Democratic Republican by a ratio of 3 to 1—and his politically tinged sermons, many in the congregation were glad to let him go. As would be seen, the church itself was divided by strong religious and other opinions.
A pulpit committee of five, including Jeremy Stimson and Jabez Chickering, were charged with finding a new pastor. It was hoped that the new minister's politics would be more in line with the congregation than Bate's were. On March 1, 1818, just days after Bates left town, the committee produced Alvan Lamson. Lamson was an 1817 graduate of Harvard Divinity School, a Unitarian stronghold.
Many of the younger liberals of the parish were likely to have a liberal minister, but the church members were more conservative Calvinists and were less impressed. A large number of other ministers visited the church and preached in the coming months. Besides Lamson, only two others were paid for their services. A Mr. Shaw from Bridgewater was "tried and found below criticism" while Mr. Gilman was "very well liked."
The pulpit committee called for a meeting on July 13, 1818, to discuss the search. The chairman of the committee opened with a speech praising Lamson and it was followed by a motion to contract with him for eight more Sundays. Several of the "most respectable and substantial inhabitants" objected, however, and asked for additional candidates. The pulpit committee refused, and the entire meeting voted to ask the pulpit committee to make a decision. The committee did, and chose Lamson.
Two meetings were held on August 31, 1818. The first, of the parish, voted to call Lamson by a vote of 81–44. The second, of the church, rejected Lamson by a vote of 17–15. The legality of both meetings would later be called into question. At one point it was claimed that 44 of those who voted against Lamson, and four of those who did, at the parish meeting were not legal voters. As a result, the vote tally should have been 77–29. At the church meeting, at least one elderly man was said to have misunderstood what was being voted on due his deafness. The actual vote, it was claimed, should have been 18–14.
Those who opposed Lamson did not raise any objections to his moral or professional qualifications. 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." 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.
Petitions then began circulating around town. One, supporting Lamson's call, had 29 signatures. Another, opposed to him, garnered 57 with an addendum stating it would be more but several who refused to sign the pro-Lanson petition were made to promise not to sign any. Given the controversy, Lamson decided not to accept the call. Chickering, however, rode to Cambridge and convinced Lamson to change his mind. On September 27, Rev. Ganet of Cambridgeport preached at the Sunday service and read a letter of acceptance from Lamson. Several members of the congregation angrily stormed out of the meetinghouse, a few fainted, and one woman threw a violent fit. A motion at a parish meeting the next day to request Lamson reconsider was rejected, 43–65.
The ecclesiastical council 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. They were signed by "six members of the church and three who are not" and were sent in the name of "The Religious Congregational Society in the First Parish in Dedham." The letters were dated October 14, 1818.
A council of 13 other churches, all of which were already Unitarian or soon would be, the convened with the minister and one lay delegate from each participating. The council included Judge John Davis, Rev. John Kirkland, Rev. James Walker, Rev. Henry Ware, Rev. Charles Lowell, and Rev. William Ellery Channing.
The committee selected Channing to serve as moderator and Rev. Ralph Sanger as scribe. Rev. John Reed of Bridgewater, Kirkland, Channing, Lowell, and Davis were selected to report the findings of the council. At 9:00 a.m. on October 28, 1818, the council met at the Norfolk County Courthouse. They first heard a report from the parish and then heard the long and carefully prepared argument of Judge Samuel Haven, who opposed Lamson's appointment.
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. 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. Ordinations, he said, are ecclesiastical events, not civil ones. Additionally, councils are called by churches, Haven said, not by secular authorities. To have the Dedham parish convene this council was to confuse secular and religious authority.
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." After hearing Haven's argument, Chickering backtracked and said they did not ask for Lamson be ordained over the church. 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. The council was not inclined to consider the views and membership status of the absent members and instead considered Lamson's qualifications.
Ordination of Lamson The next day, the council announced to an overflowing church that it would proceed to ordain Lamson. At the ordination ceremony, Deacon Joseph Swan got up and walked out. He was followed by his father-in-law, Deacon Samuel Fales, and a number of others, slamming the hinged pew seats behind them. Haven declared the ordination council was illegitimate and attacked the Result. He declared that the church should call a minister and the parish should not vote until then. If the parish did not agree, the church should present other candidates until a mutually acceptable candidate was found. Lamson's ordination, Haven said, was irregular and should not be recognized by other churches.
The council's final report, prepared by Channing and known as its "Result," was read at the ordination ceremony. The Result accepted the argument of the conservative members that a church may not have a minister imposed upon it without its consent. It added that having a parish ratify the selection of the church is "in the main wise and beneficial,"but is not always possible.
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." It added that the parish was obliged by law to support a public teacher of morality and may be fined if it did not. The Result lamented the lack of unanimity in the congregation but said that any decision they arrived at would likely upset some members.
In his ordination sermon, Ware said:
Second council Members of the church then called upon other churches to assemble for another council on November 18, 1808. Letters were sent to every other congregational church with the exception of those who participated in the ordination.
Before the second council could assemble, a second vote was taken by the church. In the interest of conciliation, some members initially opposed to Lamson were ready to accept him as their minister. On November 15, 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. Many of those still opposed to Lamson boycotted the second vote, calling it irregular and invalid.
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. 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. Eight members voted their disapproval of the Result for varying reasons.
Separation The second council advocated for a reconciliation, but one was not to be had. Two of the three deacons, Fales and Swan, were opposed to Lamson. The third, Jonathan Richards, voted for Lamson but resigned his position after the new minister was settled. According to Massachusetts law at the time, the deacons of the church were the lawful custodians of church property. Swan died within a fortnight of Lamson's ordination.
After Lamson's ordination, the conservative members who opposed Lamson removed all of the church's portable assets, including parish records, funds, and the valuable silver used for communion with them. They also removed cash, bonds, promissory notes, leases, and accounts. The communion silver was kept in a closet within the church, but disappeared after someone entered through a window. The leased land and other transactions brought in about $800 a year and without that income the church would be unable to pay Lamson. The dissenting members claimed that they were the true remnant of the congregation and thus were entitled to hold them.