The General Kules drawn up by Mr. Wesley for the
Methodist societies in England were not placed in the Discipline at the time of the organization of the Meth- odist Episcopal Church in America in 1784. They were inserted, with some alterations, by bishops Coke and Asbury in 1789. The bishops took the liberty of inter- polating the rule forbidding " the buying or selling the bodies and souls of men with an intention to enslave them."* In 1792 it was altered thus : " The buying or selling of men, women, or children, with an intention to enslave them." In 1808 thus : " The buying and sell- ing of men, women, and children, with an intention to enslave them." In view of the time and manner of its introduction, and its peculiar phraseologj', this rule was considered to refer to the African slave-trade, and not to the transfer of those already in slavery from one per- son to another; hence it met with but little opposition in the South, which denounced that odious traffic. The later General Conferences, down to that of 1840, were conservative on this subject, and this latter affirmed the right of local preachers in Maryland and Virginia who held slaves to ordination, from which they had beeu debarred by the Baltimore Conference. As the South- ern States" did not allow the emancipation of slaves without expatriation, both ministers and members held them without violation of the Discipline. As slavery was a civil and social institution, it was impossible for the Church to exist in the South without this permis-^ sion. In this respect the J.Iethodist Episcopal Church only imitated the Apostolic and Primitive Church, which allowed of slavery among both the membership and ministry, and made laws for the regulation of the same. Mr. Wesley pursued the same course in the AVest Indies, licensing Mr. Gilbert, a slaveholder, to preach, and baptizing his slaves. The British Conference tlid so too, charging its ministers in the West Indies to have nothing to do with the institution of slavery, as that was a matter belonging to the legislature, but to preach the Gospel alike to master and slave. Thus, after a tortuous legislation on tlie vexed question, which scarce- ly knows a parallel in Church history, the Methodist Episcopal Church in America appears to have been set- tling down upon a satisfactory and permanent br.sis.
III. The Sepm-ation.— But when the General Confer- ence met in 1844, in New York, the Rev. Francis A. Harding, of the Baltimore Conference, appealed to it from the decision of that Conference, which had sus- pended him from the ministry for not manumitting slaves belonging to his wife. The General Conference confirmed the decision of the Baltimore Conference, de- spite the laws of Maryland and of the Discipline. It was ascertained, too, that one of the bishops, .James Os- good Andrew, residing in Georgia, had become con- nected with slavery. Neither he nor IMr. Harding had either bought or sold a slave. Bishop Andrew was le- gally in possession of a slave, bequeathed him by a lady, and whom he would liberate at any time, but she would not receive her freedom ; also a boy, left by his former wife to his daughter without will; him, too, he would willingly manumit if he could do so by the laws of Georgia; also slaves legally his by his second marriage, whom he coidd not own, "but secured them by deed to his wife, to whom they belonged— the law not allowing their emancipation. But after a lengthened, excited, and very able discussion of the question on both sides, the General Conference adopted the following prearajjle and resolution : " Whereas, the Discipline of the Church forbids the doing anything calculated to destroy our itinerant and general superintendency ; and whereas, bishop Andrew has become connected with slavery, by marriage and otherwise, and this act having dra^vn after it circumstances which, in the estimation of the General Conference, will greatly embarrass the exercise of his office as an itinerant general superintendent, if not, in some places, entirely prevent it ; therefore, Resolved^ That it is the sense "of this General Conference that he
* [See, however, foot-note on p. 173 of the art. MetuoD'
1ST El'lBCOrAL CUUKOU.— En.]
M. E. CHURCH, SOUTH 184 M. E. CHURCH, SOUTH