"Wherean, The Discipline of our Church forbids the do- ing anything calculsitcd to destroy our itinerant general suijeriutciuicnty ; and whereas bishop Andrew has be- come coiiiieiied with slavery by marriage and otherwise, ami tills ;u'. li;iviiig drawn after it circninstances which, iu the e>tini;iiinn of theCicneral Conference, will greatly em- barrass the exercise of his office as an itinerant general superiutendeut, if not iu some places entirely prevent it ; therefore,
''Jiesolved, That it is the sense of this General Confer- ence that he desist from ihe exercise of his office so long as this impediment remains."
Evidently this was the mildest action possible with- out the abandonment of the established princiidcs and usage of the Church. It left him still a bisliop, free to choose his own course, and with unquestioned right to the fidl exercise of his powers the hour the '• impedi- ment" should be removed ; and private individuals vaiu- 1}' opened the way for his relief by offering to bind themselves to purchase all his slaves and their comiec- tions, and set them free. The Southern delegates took no steps from first to last towards an amicable settle- ment of the difficulty; and ac(iuiescencc in the doctrine of a non-slaveholding bishop or separation from the Church were the only alternatives left. All their meas- ures were in the latter direction. First, Dr. Cajiers ]iro- posed a plan of two independent (ieneral ConlVrt iices, with a joint interest in the Book Concern and the ^lis- sionary Society. This, being in reality a division of the Church, was held impossible. Then, as a second stej), the following <leclaration was presented, signed by fifty-one delegates from the thirteen slaveholding Con- ferences, and one from Illinois :
"The dell- ':ite'^ nf the Conferenres in the slaveholding states tnkr !r:i\r |.. ,,.l.n.^ u, ilic (Jciioral Coiircrciice of llio:Mellio,ii-i I'l i^rn, ,,1 ( hnr.li.lhat llic contimiecl aLMta- tioii .111 111'' Mil.it'.i ( I' >l;i\riv ;uiil abdiiiioii in a iiorlion (if Ihe Cluiirh: Uic tVci|iiciil action on lliat siibject in the (Joiicral ('oiiliTciicc; and esiicciallv Ilic exIia-JiKiii'ial l)ro-
iirday h»>-t. Tii the virtual sii>-|iciisi(iii cf liiin tYdiii li;s ( fflce as sui)priiit<MHU'iit. Jiuist iir.Hlnce il stale of tliii;u-s in the South which rciidcis a roiitiiuiancc of the juri-diclion of this (u'licral Coiileiciu e ovi'r tlie^e (■.uilcrciici's iiicon- sistoiit with tlie mcccss of the nlini^tl•y in the slavchold- I iug states."
This paper was at once referred to a committee of ! nine, who were afterwards instructed (according to tlie Journal, in case they couhl not frame an ''amicable I adjustment of the didicidtics now existing in the Church I on the subject of slavery, to devise, if jiossible, a consti- tutional plan for a mutual and friendly division of the Church." But ^Ir. I lamline (afterwards bishop), one I of the committee, refused to go out with such instruc- , tioiis. '• Being urged to go. lie said. ' I will not go out with instructions to devise a ]>lan to divide Ihe Church.' 'Then will brotiier I lamline go if the instructions be so ! changed as simply li> read, if the South should sejiaratc, I to make jirovision in such a contingency to meet tho I emergency with Christian kindness and the strictest
METHODIST EPLSC. CHURCH 177 METHODIST EPISC. CHURCH
equity ?' Mr. Hamline said, ' I will go out with such instructions' " (Hamline's Life and Letters, p. 165). The instructions were modified accordingly. On the next day a protest against the action of the majority was read, aflirming in stronger terms the position of the Declaration, which was followed some days later by a Keply. Whether, after this formal notice of the coming separation, it would not have been the wiser to allow events to take their course, is an open question. The protesting delegates, about to renounce the jurisdiction of the General Conference, could claim nothing, as of right, at its hands ; and it was certainly an act of the highest magnanimity on the part of the two-thirds' ma- jority to prescribe for itself beforehand a law of most liberal treatment of the withdrawing Conferences, and to provide for the conditional division with them of the property of the Church. Yet this ;vas done in the re- port of the committee on the Declaration. (See the pap3r quoted in full under Methodist Episcopal CiiLitCH. South.) This document was adopted with great unanimity. An analysis of it shows that (1) it is based upon one fundamental condition, namely, a ne- cessity to be found by the slaveholding Conferences for a distinct ecclesiastical connection, produced by the ac- tion of the (ieneral Conference. Ql) It assumes that such distinct organization, if formed at all, will come into being by the action of those Conferences, and upon their own responsibility. (3) It does not arrange a di- visiou of the Church. For this the General Conference had no power, as was agreed in the Committee; and that it did not and could not divide the Church was as freely asserted by Southern as by Northern delegates, both during and after the debate. The term " division" does occur, but solely with reference to property. (4) It is not a " plan of separation," as it afterwards came to be styled, for it does not authorize, direct, or sanction any step of the withdrawing party; but is purely an enactment of the rules to be observed by the Methodist Episcopal Church in case a '-not improbable contin- gency" becomes, by the sole action of the South, an ac- complished fact. (5) To avoid the strife and bitterness that so generally attend a disruption, it enacts that, in case a new Church is formed, the Methodist Episcopal Church shall exercise no jurisdiction beyond certain limits, if the Church South shall act upon the same friendly principle. The Church simply lays down for itself the rule of non-interference. (G) Nine of the twelve resolutions relate entirely to property, which, even if a Southern Church should be formed, can have no force whatever without tlie three-fourths' concurrent vote of the Annual Conferences for the proposed change of the Kestrictive Rule. All this was well miderstood at the time.