Charles Martin Scanlan

“ Crime, Religion.—The law prohibiting any person who is a polygamist or bigamist, or who teaches, advises, counsels, or encourages the same, from holding any office of honor, trust, or profit, is constitutional; and a crime is none the less so, nor less odious, because it is sanctioned by what any particular sect may designate as religion. ”

“ In some States there is no special law for incorporating religious societies; while in most States there are special provisions therefor. For this reason, I emphasize the fact that no parish or clergyman is justified in organizing a congregation or purchasing land without first knowing the law of that particular [pg 043] State. But generally it is best that each congregation be incorporated and that its property be held in the name of the corporation, so that the debts of one corporation will not embarrass the diocese, and that bequests and gifts made to a church may be enforced in the courts. ”

“ Among the tribes east of the Mississippi River it was an honor principle that their female captives should not be tortured nor their chastity violated; but if white men were taken captives they were reduced to slavery and obliged to wait upon the white women after they had been adopted by the Indians.25 Notwithstanding this unwritten law, these dances with the scalps on the spears harrassed the girls and caused them to sob and weep bitterly. ”

“ However, there must be no abuse of these parental rights, as the child also has rights that even a parent can not infringe. Therefore, the State may require a reasonable opportunity for the education of every child; and if the parent can not give it on account of his poverty, it is in the power of the State to take his child in charge and furnish him an education. The right of the State to make laws requiring a parent to send his child to school between certain ages, as from four to twenty-one years, is well settled. ”

“ The squaws had adopted the girls, and, as the children of chiefs, they were not required to work.
The Indians having finished their dance, struck their tents, and, after a good deal of bustle and confusion, the whole camp started in a northerly direction. When they reached a point beyond the grove, it seemed to the girls that the whole earth was alive with Indians. Probably not less than 4,000 warriors, squaws, and children constituted that army. ”

“ Schoolmaster, Authority.—Although a schoolmaster has in general no right to punish a pupil for misconduct after the dismissal of the school for the day and the return of the pupil to his home, yet he may on the pupil's return to school punish him for any misbehavior, though committed out of school, which has a direct and immediate tendency to injure the school and to subvert the master's authority. The fact that the master acted in good faith will not excuse him from damages for the punishment of a scholar where the punishment is clearly excessive and unnecessary. ”

“ Agriculture and marriage have always been the great necessities to found permanent civilization. To establish a settlement in the great west, at that time, a blacksmith shop and a mill were the next two great necessities, and around those the early settlers broke up the wild prairie and on the upturned sod sowed buckwheat, turnips and sod-corn, which within three months produced their first food from the soil for themselves and their stock. ”

“ Creed, Factions, Property, Management.—The supreme court exercises no ecclesiastical jurisdiction, but accepts what the highest ecclesiastical authority in each church promulgates as the faith and practice of that church, and will not determine for itself what that faith or creed is in order to establish the rights of respective factions in the church to the church property. ”

“ Definitions, Minor.—Excommunication, as construed in law, is the official announcement by the superior authority of the termination of membership in a religious body and the forfeiture of spiritual privileges of the church. It is one of the methods of discipline in the nature of expulsion from membership in a fraternity, and the fact of expulsion from a church is conclusive proof that the person expelled is not a member of such church. ”

“ The camp was astir at sunrise and for the last time White Crow went around performing his religious service by rattling his gourds and addressing the Indians. After breakfast the 78 girls were again mounted on their ponies and all moved forward over higher ground, and before ten o’clock they had reached the Military Road from Fort Winnebago, by way of Blue Mounds, to Prairie du Chien. The sight of the wagon tracks was the first sign of civilization that the girls had observed since their captivity and increased their confidence in the probability of their early release. ”

“ The term religious society may with propriety be applied in a certain sense to a church as that of religious association, religious union, or the like; yet in the sense church was and is used in our law, it is synonymous with parish or precinct and designates an incorporated society created and maintained for the support and maintenance of public worship. In this, its legal sense, a church is not a religious society. It is a separate body formed within such parish or religious society whose rights and usages are well known and to a great extent defined and established by law.”24
[pg 023] 21. ”

“ At this place the Indians prepared a bed upon a low scaffold, which was furnished with abundant blankets and furs, where the girls lay until daylight. The sun had not yet arisen when a party of Sac warriors, some of whom were dressed in the clothing of white men, came into camp. They wanted to talk to the girls, but Whirling Thunder told the girls not to listen to them and to keep away from them. Then a long conversation of loud angry words was kept up between the Indians for some time, when the Sacs mounted their horses and rode away. ”

“ To insure harmony and good order, every Church should obey the laws of the country; but if any law should impose upon the rights of the Church in any way, the ruling authorities, the cardinal and bishops, if the wrong is national, should unite in a petition to the United States Congress, clearly stating the grievance and asking for its redress.1 If the grievance should be within a State, the bishop or bishops of the State should present the matter to the Legislature of the State. ”

“ The Indians jabbered among themselves for awhile and then the squaws painted one side of the face of each of the girls red and the other side black. Then the girls were laid with their faces downward on blankets near the center, just leaving room for the Indians to pass between them and the pole. When these preliminaries were completed, the warriors, grasping in their hands their spears, which they occasionally struck into the ground, and yelling all the while as Indians only can, danced around the girls. ”

“ Infancy, Manumission, Marriage.—At common law a person is an infant until he is twenty-one years of age. Statutes have modified that rule so that girls in some States, and both girls and boys in others, may contract marriage at an earlier age without the parental consent. Generally, an infant can not contract marriage without the consent of the living parent or guardian unless the child has been manumitted. ”

“ By the action of the atmosphere, rains and dew, as centuries rolled on, vegetation sprang up all over that great plain, and springs to supply the greatest necessity of living things, broke forth and flowed in streams that united into rivers as they rolled on to the sea. ”

“ Will, Forfeiture.—The provision in a will or deed that land shall be used for purposes of a certain church, may create a trust for the benefit of the church only and not a condition the breach of which would work a forfeiture.510 When a condition is put in a deed that it shall be forever used as a burial ground for the interment of bodies, it is doubtful whether the grantor and grantee together may change the uses of the property. ”

“ Probably no other Indian in the West knew more white people, individually, than he knew; also, he was known at sight to more white people than was any other chief of his time. His name was so familiar among the whites, that its mere mention was a safe passport to any home of the settlers. 107 Shabona was well aware of that fact and he always introduced himself as “Mr. Shabona.”
Baldwin says that Shabona was born in Canada; but Matson asserts that he was born on the Kankakee in Will County, Illinois; and the “Handbook of American Indians” gives Maumee River, Illinois, as his birthplace. ”

“ Worship, Discipline, Innovations.—The denomination itself, according to its rules and regulations, determines what services shall form a part of its public worship. The inferior authority in the church has no right to violate the discipline by innovations. ”

“ About one hundred and fifty feet south of his cottage, Davis erected a blacksmith shop and a mill. To obtain water power for his mill it became necessary for Davis to put a dam across the stream. Six miles farther up Indian Creek there was an Indian village, and as the fish naturally went up the stream every spring, there was good fishing at the village for the Indians. The dam prevented the fish from going up, and the Indians protested against this invasion of their rights. Davis, however, insisted on his rights to build and maintain the dam, and bad feelings were engendered. ”

“ Ecclesiastical Corporations, Religious, Quasi-public Corporations.—Ecclesiastical corporations, in the sense in which the word is used in England, Germany, and France, are unknown to the United States, their places being supplied by religious societies or corporations considered as private bodies, in contradistinction to public or quasi-public corporations, such as towns, villages, cities, counties, and state. Therefore, the law of private corporations applies to religious societies and churches. ”

“ Rules, Diocese.—One who buys the privilege of burying his dead in a cemetery acquires no general right of property, but only a right to use the grounds as a place of interment, and the rules governing a cemetery in force at the time the privilege is acquired measure the extent of the use. ”

“ And the mere fact that the maternal relatives who have had the care of the child from its birth have become attached to it and desire to continue to care for it and are able to secure it better advantages than its parent, does not render the parent unsuitable to have its care and custody within the meaning of the statute. ”

“ When a married couple do not unite in adopting a child, the consent of the non-adopting spouse must be obtained. Also, if the child's parents are living, their consent is necessary unless they have lost their paternal rights by abandonment or divorce. [pg 196] The decree of adoption may be set aside for good cause. The adopted parent has all the rights over and duties toward the person of the adopted child that a natural parent has, including necessaries and religious training. Usually the child inherits from the adopted parents, but the adopted parents do not inherit from the child. ”

“ In some States the same liability exists where an attempt has been made to incorporate, but there was a failure to comply fully with the law.93 There is some authority freeing the individual members of a religious society from liability for the debts of such society,94 and holding that an agent of such society could not bind the society in their associated capacity by a promissory note,95 but the rule is that the members of an unincorporated society who actively incur lawful debts or ratify them after their creation are personally liable. ”