STATEMENT 
 
 ttlaration of iutos, 1 
 
A 
 
 STATEMENT 
 
 AND 
 
 DECLARATION OF VIEWS. 
 
 H. ANSTICE & CO., STATIONERS, 
 No. 2 5 Nassau-Street. 
 
 1 8 57. 
 
N 
 
 Ski 
 
Statement and Declaration. 
 
 The undersigned, a committee appointed at a meeting of 
 Episcopalians in the City of New-York, with a view to make 
 more fully known the precise nature and extent of the object 
 of their application to the Legislature of the State, for the 
 repeal or amendment of the Act of 1814, entitled "An Act 
 to alter the name of the Corporation of Trinity Church in New- 
 York, and for other purposes," passed January 25th, 1814, 
 and to prevent any uncertainty, misapprehension, or mis- 
 statement of that object in any quarter, hereby make the fol- 
 lowing statement and declaration : 
 
 By a royal grant in 1697, an Act of the Colonial Legisla- 
 ture in 1704, and a royal grant in 1705, having for their ob- 
 ject the establishment and support of the Protestant Episcopal 
 Church throughout the city of New- York, a Corporation was 
 created and endowed by the name of " The Rector and Inhab- 
 itants of our said City of New- York, in communion of our 
 Protestant Church of England, as now established by our 
 laws." This Corporation expressly embraced " all the inhabit- 
 ants from time to time inhabiting, and to inhabit, in our said 
 city of New- York, and in communion of our aforesaid Prot- 
 estant Church of England." 
 
 To this Corporation, by its corporate name, were granted 
 certain important powers, rights, privileges, and estates. Among 
 these was the right of voting at the elections for the two 
 Church "Wardens and twenty Vestrymen of the said Corpora- 
 tion. 
 
 The Acts of the Legislature of this State, of 1784 and 
 1788, while they rendered the provisions of the aforesaid 
 original royal grants, and Act of the Colonial Legislature, con- 
 
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 formable to the new state of things produced by the Revolu- 
 tion, the independence of the States, and the adoption of the 
 State Constitution of 1777, they preserved and perpetuated 
 to the said Corporation, by the new corporate name of " The 
 Rector and Inhabitants of the City of New- York, in commu- 
 nion of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the State of New- 
 York," all the essential powers, privileges, rights, and estates 
 conferred upon it in and by the said original royal grants. 
 
 These two Acts of the Legislature of the State, of 1784 
 and 1788, have ever been deemed a legal and just declaration 
 and settlement of the rights of Episcopalians generally, of the 
 city of New- York, in the whole subject matter to which these 
 two statutes relate. 
 
 But in 1814 an Act was placed upon the Statute Book of 
 the State, as remarkable certainly in the manner of its pas- 
 sage as it is deemed to be unconstitutional in its provisions 
 and unjust in its object. This Act, while, by a proviso added 
 in the Senate to the original bill, it expressly saves the rights 
 of all persons and bodies corporate to the estate, real and per- 
 sonal, of the Corporation in question, it attempts to take away 
 from the great body of the corporators the right of being cor- 
 porators, and of voting for those who are to manage and apply 
 the estate, and to limit those rights exclusively to a small 
 number of the corporators, being members of the congregation 
 of Trinity Church and her chapels. 
 
 This we view as an attempt to divest important and le- 
 gally vested rights. 
 
 We consider the right of voting for the agents who are to 
 manage and apply the corporate or common property, to be an 
 essential incident of the right of property itself, and indispen- 
 sably necessary to the protection of such right of property, and 
 to give it full effect. The mere bald, naked right of property, 
 without the right of electing the agents who are to manage 
 and apply such property, is practically of little value. 
 
 We, therefore, ask the Legislature either to repeal or so to 
 amend the Act of 1814, as to restore to the great body of 
 Episcopalians of New- York their chartered rights — rights 
 
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 originally granted to them by legal and valid acts, confirmed by 
 the Constitution and laws of the State, but of which they have 
 been wrongfully and unjustly deprived by the said Act of 1814. 
 
 In this application, we believe we present a case clearly of 
 legislative jurisdiction and cognizance. We seek neither a 
 legislative enactment creating new rights, nor a legislative ad- 
 judication upon those already existing. We ask merely the 
 repeal or amendment of an Act as manifestly unconstitutional 
 as it is unjust ; that the acts of the Legislature may thus be 
 rendered consistent with each other, and the great body of the 
 Episcopalians of New- York may be permitted, without the 
 embarrassment of the Act of 1814, to stand upon their rights 
 as originally conferred, and as they were defined and settled 
 by the Acts of 1784 and 1788, and especially the right of 
 of voting at elections for Church Wardens and Vestrymen of 
 the Corporation in question, who are the Trustees of the 
 common property. 
 
 The Vestry of this Corporation acts in the double capacity 
 of vestry of a church, and trustees of important estates com- 
 mon to all the Episcopalians of the city of New- York. With 
 this vestry, in the exercise of its functions in the former 
 capacity, there is no disposition or desire to interfere ; but so 
 far as they act as trustees of the common property, the great 
 body of Episcopalians of the city, as beneficiaries of this 
 Trust property, have a right to participate in the election of 
 those who are to manage and apply it. They were constitu- 
 ted corporators under the original Acts of Incorporation, and 
 beneficiaries under the grants of the estates. As such they 
 have common and important rights^ of which they cannot 
 justly be deprived. 
 
 It will thus be perceived that the present application to the 
 Legislature does not, except incidentally, regard the property 
 of the Corporation in question. In regard to that property, 
 the great error in the minds of many seems to be in consid- 
 ering it as the property of Trinity Church. Even Trinity 
 Church herself seems to participate in this error, and to prac- 
 tice upon it. Whereas, not one foot of those large estates 
 
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 was ever granted to Trinity Church. Those estates, consist- 
 ing originally of the Duke's or King's Farm, and the Queen's 
 Garden, were expressly granted to the Corporation by the name 
 of " The Rector and Inhabitants of the City of New- York, in 
 communion of the Church of England, as by law established, 
 and their successors." This Corporation embraced all the in- 
 habitants of New- York, from time to time inhabiting and to 
 inhabit, in communion of the Protestant Episcopal Church. 
 
 They were, therefore, all equally beneficiaries under these 
 grants. It is true, Trinity Church, under color of the Act of 
 1814, has usurped this valuable trust property common to all, 
 and has come to view and treat it as exclusively her own. 
 This is the great wrong of which the Episcopalians of New- 
 York complain, and which they ask to have redressed. 
 
 The title to this property, as originally granted in trust, we 
 believe to be unimpeachable, and the trust valid. 
 
 The former should not be disturbed, nor the latter violated. 
 Our earnest and only desire is, that this great Trust estate 
 may continue to be, in all future time, as we believe it to 
 have been originally intended, an abundant fountain of 
 blessing to the whole Church. 
 
 "We desire, therefore, only its most judicious management, 
 and faithful application to the great object for which it was 
 originally granted, and to which it was solemnly dedicated. 
 That object we believe to have been the establishment and 
 maintenance of the Protestant Episcopal Church throughout 
 the whole city of New- York. While, then, there yet remain 
 thousands of her inhabitants not only destitute of the ser- 
 vices of the Church, but without any seat in any place of 
 public religious worship whatever, we feel that this great Trust 
 estate has failed fully to accomplish the enlightened purposes 
 and beneficent intentions of its donors. 
 
 "What we desire, therefore, is, not that the ample reve- 
 nues of this great fund of Christian benevolence shall be 
 either hoarded, or consumed exclusively by a few only of those 
 for whose common and equal benefit they were originally de- 
 signed ; nor doled out in stinted and reluctant contributions to 
 
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 others who are abundantly able to take care of themselves ; 
 but that they may be impartially extended, to sustain the 
 feeble and supply the destitute. 
 
 Let efficient aid, not in the form of mortgages or pensions, 
 but of liberal and absolute grants, be immediately afforded to 
 those feeble churches which have been recently organized ; 
 and let independent and free houses of public worship be es- 
 tablished in all those parts of the city which are now desti- 
 tute of the Church, until all who will receive them shall have 
 the benefit of her regular ministrations and her services. 
 
 New-York, March 3, 1857. 
 
 L. Bradish, 
 S. Cambreleng, 
 F. S. Winston, 
 Stewart Brown, 
 Robert B. Minturn, 
 John L. Wendell, 
 J. E. Cooley, 
 William Jay, 
 John David Wolfe. 
 
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