from
Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856)
CLERGY. All who are attached to the ecclesiastical ministry are called the
clergy; a clergyman is therefore an ecclesiastical minister.
2. Clergymen were exempted by the emperor Constantine from all civil
burdens. Baronius ad ann. 319, Sec. 30. Lord Coke says, 2 Inst. 3,
ecclesiastical persons have more and greater liberties than other of the
king's subjects, wherein to set down all, would take up a whole volume of
itself.
3. In the United States the clergy is not established by law, but each
congregation or church may choose its own clergyman.