The Harmony Society was established upon the basis of a
community of property, and one of the articles of association
provided that if any member withdrew from it, he should not claim a
share in the property, but should only receive, as a donation, such
sum as the society chose to give.
One of the members withdrew, and received the sum of two hundred
dollars, as a donation, for which he gave a receipt, and
acknowledged that he had withdrawn from the society and ceased to
be a member thereof.
A bill was then filed by him, claiming a share of the property
upon the ground that he had been unjustly excluded from the society
by combination and covin, and evidence offered to show that he had
been compelled to leave the society by violence and harsh
treatment.
The evidence upon this subject related to a time antecedent to
the date of the receipt. There was no charge in the bill impeaching
the receipt or the settlement made at its date.
Held that under the contract, the settlement was
conclusive unless impeached by the bill.
This was a bill filed by Nachtrieb under the circumstances
mentioned in the opinion of the court.
The circuit court, after having referred the case to a master to
state an account, decreed that the trustees should pay to Nachtrieb
the sum of $3,890, from which decree the trustees appealed to this
Court.
MR. JUSTICE CAMPBELL delivered the opinion of the Court.
The appellee, who describes himself as a member in the common
and joint stock association for mutual benefit and advantage and
for the mutual acquisition and enjoyment of property called the
"Harmony Society," filed a bill in the circuit court against the
appellants, as the trustees and managers of its business and
estate. The object of the bill is to obtain for the plaintiff a
decree for an account of the share to which he is entitled in the
property of the society or compensation for his labor and service
during the time he was a member.
In 1819 he became associated with George Rapp and others in the
Harmony Society in Indiana, and remained with them there, or at
Economy, in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, till 1846. He devoted his
time, skill, attention, and care during that period to the increase
of the wealth and the promotion of the interest of the society.
Page 60 U. S. 127
These facts are admitted in the pleadings of either party.
The bill avers that in 1846, the plaintiff, being then
forty-eight years old and worn out with years and labor for said
association, was wrongfully and unjustly excluded from it and
deprived of any share in its property, benefits, or advantages by
the combination and covin of George Rapp and his associates; that
at the time of his exclusion, he was entitled to a large sum of
money which those persons unjustly and illegally appropriated to
their own use; that George Rapp was the leader and trustee of the
association, invested with the title to its property; and that,
since his death, the defendants have acquired the control and
management of its business and affairs, and the possession of its
effects. The plaintiff calls for the production of the articles of
association which from time to time have regulated this society,
and prays for an account and distribution of its property, or a
compensation for his labor.
The defendants produce a series of articles by which the
association has been governed since its organization in 1805.
They admit that from small beginnings, the society have become
independent in their circumstances, being the owners of lands ample
for the supply of their subsistence, warm and comfortable houses
for the members, and engines and machinery to diminish and cheapen
their labors. They affirm that the plaintiff participated in all
the individual, social, and religious benefits which were enjoyed
by his fellows under their contract until he became possessed by a
spirit of discontent and disaffection a short time before his
membership terminated. They deny that the plaintiff was wrongfully
excluded from the association or deprived of a share or
participation in the property and effects, by the combination or
covin of George Rapp and his associates, but assert that
voluntarily and of his own accord he separated himself from the
society. They deny that he had a title to any compensation for
labor and service while he was a member other than that which was
expended for his support, maintenance, and instruction and that
which he derived during the time from the spiritual and social
advantages he enjoyed. To support this averment they epitomize the
history of the Harmony Society, and the agreements which from time
to time have been the basis of its organization.
The society was composed at first of Germans who emigrated to
the United States in 1805, under the leadership of George Rapp. The
members were associated and combined by the common belief that the
government of the patriarchal age, united to the community of
property, adopted in the days of the Apostles, would conduce to
promote their temporal and
Page 60 U. S. 128
eternal happiness. The founders of the society surrendered all
their property to the association for the common benefit. The
society was settled originally in Pennsylvania, was removed in 1814
and 1815 to Indiana, and again in 1825 to Economy, in
Pennsylvania.
The organic law of the society in regard to their property is
contained in two sections of the articles of association adopted in
1827 by the associates, of whom the plaintiff was one. They are as
follows:
"All the property of the society, real, personal, and mixed, in
law or equity and howsoever contributed and acquired, shall be
deemed now and forever joint and indivisible stock; each individual
is to be considered to have finally and irrevocably parted with all
his former contributions, whether in land, goods, money, or labor,
and the same rule shall apply to all future contributions, whatever
they may be."
"Should any individual withdraw from the society or depart this
life, neither he in the one case nor his representatives in the
latter shall be entitled to demand an account of said
contributions, whether in land, goods, money, or labor, or to claim
anything from the society as matter of right. But it shall be left
altogether to the discretion of the superintendent to decide
whether any, and, if any, what allowance shall be made to such
member or his representatives as a donation."
The defendants, admitting, as we have seen, that the plaintiff,
until 1846, was a contented member of the association, answer and
say that during that year he became disaffected, used violent
threats against the associates, made repeated declarations of his
intentions to leave the society, and in that year fulfilled his
design by a voluntary withdrawal and separation from the society,
receiving at the same time from George Rapp two hundred dollars as
a donation. They exhibit as a part of the answer a writing signed
by the plaintiff, to the following effect:
"Today I have withdrawn myself from the Harmony Society and
ceased to be a member thereof; I have also received of George Rapp
two hundred dollars as a donation, agreeably to contract."
"JOSHUA NACHTRIEB"
"ECONOMY, June 18, 1846"
This statement of the pleadings shows that no issue was made in
them upon the merit of the doctrines, social or religious, which
form the basis of this association, nor any question in reference
to the religious instruction and ministration or the domestic
economy or physical discipline which their leader and the other
managers have adopted and enforced.
Page 60 U. S. 129
Nor do they suggest any inquiry into the condition of the
members and whether they have experienced hardship, oppression, or
undue mortification from the ambition, avarice, or fanaticism of
their guides and administrators.
The bill depends on the averments that the plaintiff approved
the constitution of the society, submitted to its government,
obeyed its regulations, and prized the advantage of being a member.
The burden of his complaint is that he was wrongfully and without
any fault or consent on his part deprived of his station through
the combination of the leader and his assistants. And the
defendants concede the character that the plaintiff claims for
himself; they concede that the plaintiff was an approved and
blameless member of the association and was entitled to whatever
its constitution and order provided for the temporal good or the
eternal felicity of the members, and assert that he enjoyed them
until he became disaffected and repining, and finally surrendered
to a spirit of discontent, which moved him to abandon his condition
and privileges. As an evidence of this, they produce a writing,
signed by him, in which he acknowledges a voluntary secession from
the society and claims that the case has arisen to authorize him to
make an appeal to the bounty of the superintendent, and that the
superintendent has answered that appeal by a donation. The value of
this writing is now to be considered. The power of the
superintendent to subtract from the otherwise "joint and
indivisible stock" of the society a portion for the individual use
of a seceding member depends upon the concession that the member
has withdrawn voluntarily. He cannot supply one who is the victim
of covin or combination. The evidence shows that the mind of the
plaintiff, in June, 1846, was disquieted in consequence of his
connection with the association, and that he contemplated a change
in his condition; that he made inquires upon the expediency of a
removal from Economy, and made some preparations for his departure;
that the leader of the society, suspecting his discontent and
discovering some deviation by him from the rules of the society,
rebuked him with harshness and menaced him with a sentence of
expulsion. Some of the witnesses testify to such a sentence, while
the testimony of others reduces the expressions to an admonition
and menace. But two days after the occurrence of the last of these
scenes, and before any removal had taken place, the writing in the
record was executed by him, embodying his decision to leave the
society and to accept the bounty the constitution permitted the
superintendent to bestow. This writing would have much probative
force, if we were simply to treat it as an admission of the
statements it contains, when
Page 60 U. S. 130
considered in connection with other evidence in the record. But,
we think, this writing is something more than an admission, and
stands in a different light from an ordinary receipt. The writing
must be treated as the contract of dissolution, between the
plaintiff and the society, of their mutual obligations and
engagements to each other. No evidence of prior declarations or
antecedent conduct is admissible to contradict or to vary it.
It was prepared to preserve the remembrance of what the parties
had prescribed to themselves to do, and expresses their intention
in their own language, and that such was its object, is
corroborated by the fact that for three years there is no evidence
of a contrary sentiment. Treating this writing as an instrument of
evidence of this class, it is clear that the bill has not made a
case in which its validity can be impeached. To enable the
plaintiff to show that the rule of the leader, Rapp, instead of
being patriarchal, was austere, oppressive, or tyrannical; his
discipline vexatious and cruel; his instructions fanatical, and,
upon occasions, impious; his system repugnant to public order, and
the domestic happiness of its members; his management of their
revenues and estate rapacious, selfish, or dishonest; and that the
condition of his subjects was servile, ignorant, and degraded, so
that none of them were responsible for their contracts or
engagements to him, from a defect of capacity and freedom, as has
been attempted by him in the testimony collected in this cause, it
was a necessary prerequisite that his bill should have been so
framed as to exhibit such aspects of the internal arrangements and
social and religious economy of the association. This was not done,
and for this cause the evidence cannot be considered. The
authorities cited from the decisions of this Court are decisive.
Very v.
Very, 13 How. 361,
54 U. S. 345;
Patton v.
Taylor, 7 How. 157;
Crockett v.
Lee, 7 Wheat. 525.
Decree reversed. Bill dismissed.