METHODIST EPISC. CHURCH ITG METHODIST EPISC. CHURCH
as necessary to free themselves from the giiilt of con- nection with it. Others, who had been prominent in the anti-slavery ranks, and had advocated such modifi- cations in the law of the Church as would prevent the holduig of slaves as chattels, maintained that the Dis- cipline was against slavery, and that secession was jiot an anti-slavery measure. They preferred to fight the battle within the Church. Hut Orange Scott, Jotham Horton, Luther Lee, and others, felt impelled liy their consciences to withdraw. At a convention held at Utica, N. Y., in 1S4;J, they organized the " Wesleyan Methodist Connection." This Avas but the beginning of a strug- gle in which churches were rent in twain through most of tho Xorthorn States. The organization thus formed luimbered at one period a considerable number of preach- ers and members ; but time and events have produced such changes that many of its first leaders and warm- est friends have returned to the old Church in the belief that the denomination has accomplished its mis- sion.
But a severer convulsion was preparing in the South. The discriminations of the Discipline against slavchold- ing had come to be distasteful to a generation that held views on slavery widely different from those of the fa- thers, though six Conferences, lying wholly or partly in slave states, the Baltimore being one, rigidly enforced the old rule requiring ministers to emancipate the slaves of whom they might become owners by inheritance, marriage, or any other means, wherever the civil law allowed it, and never permitted slaveholders in their ranlis. It was also the ancient and settled policy and constant usage to jilace no slaveholder in the Episcojia- cy; and in 18.'}2 James O.Andrew was put in nomina- tion for that high ortice by Southern delegates, because, thougli of tlic South, he was free from all ])ersonal con- nection with slavery, and was elected. This was upon the principle that a bishop, in a system of general super- intendency which gave him equal jurisdiction in Massa- chusetts and Soutii Carolina, mu.-t be free from what- ever would i)revent the exercise of his functions with acceptance in any part of the Church. A slaveholding bishop could never have presided in the Xorthcrn Con- ferences, and the election of one would be an infraction of the law forbidding the General Coid'erence to " de- stroy the i>lan of our itinerant general superintendency." The increasing restiveness under this exclusion from the highest olHce of the Church led to an attempt by South- ern delegates, in 18.3(>, to elect to it a slaveholder, and, upon its failure, to great agitation and threats of seces- sion, if what was termed " this proscriptive system" should not be abandoned. The renewal of the effort in 1844 was fully determined upon, and the purpose of re- sistance on tlie part of the Northern Conferences was C(iually firm, when the marriage of bishop Andrew, in January of that year, with a lady who was the owner of slaves, suddenly gave the friends of the movement precisely wliat they wanted, but could not have obtained by the sulTrages of the (leneral Conference — a slavehold- ing bishoj). That trouljle was ahead was evident, and the Southern ministry l)t'camc at once a unit in sustain- ing him. It could not be expected that the Cinirch would quietly submit to the revolutionizing of its an- cient policy liy a marriage; and nothing could have more astouiuiod the Northern delegates to the (ieneral Conference of 1844 than the intelligence, which met them upon their arrival in New York, the ])lacc of the session, that slaveholding was already intrenched in the Episcopacy. ICarly in the session an appeal of the Kev. Francis A. Harding from the action of the Baltimore Conference was presented. That gentleman having become by marriage the owner of five slaves, the Con- ference, in pursuance of its old ])urpose to "not tol- erate slavery in any of its members," required him to legally emanci])ate them within the year, and, upon his refusal, suspended him from I lie ministry. The (ien- eral Conference, after a full hearing of the case, it be- ing clear that emancipation could be legally effected in
Maryland, affirmed the decision of the Baltimore Con- ference by a vote of 117 to bd. That body, though few were '"abolitionists," certaiidy was in no mood to yield further to the encroachments of slaverj-; and it was equally evident that should bisiiop Andrew be touched, secession would ensue. His voluntary resignation could have saved both the South and the Church ; and this step he promptly resolved to take, but he was overruled by the Southern dele<;ates. They preferred disruption to a non-slaveholding Episcopacy. The committee on the Episcopacy was instructed to ascertain and report the facts in relation to the bishop's alleged connection with slaverv, when it was found that, besides the legal own- ership of several others, he had married a lady owning slaves, and had secured them to her by a deed of trust, thus putting their freedom out of his power. A resolu- tion, with a preamble reciting the facts, was promptly oifered by ;Mr. (iriffith. a delegate fnjm Baltimore, affec- tionately requesting him to resign his ofiice; but the final action, after ten days' debate, was the adoption of the following substitute bj' a vote of 111 yeas and 69 nays :