religious establishment by law, a legal force and sanction being given
to certain articles in its constitution and administration. Nor can it
be considered that the articles thus established are to be taken as the
descriptive criteria only of the corporate identity of the society,
inasmuch as this identity must depend on other characteristics, as the
regulations established are generally unessential and alterable
according to the principles and canons by which churches of that
denomination govern themselves, and as the injunctions and prohibitions
contained in the regulations would be enforced by the penal consequences
applicable to a violation of them according to the local law.

_Because_ the bill vests in the said incorporated church an
authority to provide for the support of the poor and the education of
poor children of the same, an authority which, being altogether
superfluous if the provision is to be the result of pious charity, would
be a precedent for giving to religious societies as such a legal agency
in carrying into effect a public and civil duty.

JAMES MADISON.



FEBRUARY 28, 1811.

_To the House of Representatives of the United States_:

Having examined and considered the bill entitled "An act for the relief
of Richard Tervin, William Coleman, Edwin Lewis, Samuel Mims, Joseph
Wilson, and the Baptist Church at Salem Meeting House, in the
Mississippi Territory," I now return the same to the House of