# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1911_S139
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

13th Delegate Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States, 1911. 139

...to our knowledge ever issued any declaration or consent to that effect.

The members of the Milwaukee committee hold inviolably to the principles contained in the above five points; for, in their firm conviction, these form the foundation of our Reverend Synod. If a Reverend Synod recognizes these principles, and if these are the same principles under which the Reverend Synod allowed itself to be incorporated in 1894, then these principles became, through a resolution of a Reverend Synod recorded on page 127 of the report of the 22nd General Synod of 1893 — "that the Synod also have itself as such incorporated" — the foundation of the act of incorporation.

It is a recognized legal principle that persons who organize themselves under law must conform to the law of the state under which they wish to organize. In the incorporation of the General Synod, this principle was entirely disregarded.

Religious corporations are prohibited under the constitution of Missouri. Article 2, Section 8, of the constitution of the State of Missouri reads literally:

"That no religious corporation can be established in this state,
except such as may be created under a general law for the purpose
only of holding the title to such real estate as may be prescribed by
law for church edifices, parsonages, and cemeteries."

The Reverend General Synod, however, is a purely religious union; consequently it is, as such, for all time excluded by this section of the Missouri state constitution from being a lawful corporation in this state.

The members of the Milwaukee committee take the liberty of drawing the particular attention of a Reverend Synod to the opinion of the three attorneys of the St. Louis committee, as proof that these gentlemen, upon investigation, arrived at the very same conclusion as the members of the Milwaukee committee.

Judge Ferris, attorney for the St. Louis committee, writes the following in his opinion on Article 2, Section 8, of the Missouri state constitution:

"It follows from this constitutional limitation that a religious
corporation cannot be organized in Missouri for any purpose other
than to hold title to church buildings and cemeteries.

"If, therefore, the incorporated synod is a religious corporation,
its charter is invalid, because it does not come within the constitu-
tional exception, that is, was not incorporated for the sole purpose
of holding title to church edifices, parsonages, and cemeteries. . . ."

The attorneys of the St. Louis committee, Messrs. Rowell and Zumbalen, write as follows in their opinion: