every bishop, each of the venerable and excellent men who now adorn the church and its counsels, ceases to be a general superintendent. The law of union, the principle of gravitation, binding us together, is dissolved, and the general superintendency of the Methodist Episcopal church is no more!

"8. The South have not been led thus to protest merely because of the treatment received by Bishop Andrew, or the kindred action of this body in other matters. The abandonment of the compromise, the official refusal by the majority, as we have understood them, to abide the arbitrement of law, is their principal ground of complaint and remonstrance. If the minority have not entirely misunderstood the majority, the abolition and anti-slavery principles of the North will no longer allow them to submit to the law of the Discipline on the general subject of slavery and abolition; and if this be so, if the compromise-law be either repealed or allowed to remain a dead letter, the South cannot submit, and the absolute necessity of division is already dated. And should the exigent circumstances in which the minority find themselves placed, by the facts and developements alluded to in this remonstrance, render it finally necessary, that the Southern Conferences should have a separate, independent existence, it is hoped that the character and services of the minority, together with the numbers and claims of the ministry and membership of the portion of the church represented by them, not less than similar reasons and considerations on the part of the Northern and middle Conferences, will suggest the high moral fitness of meeting this great emergency with strong and steady purpose to do justice to all concerned. And it is believed that, approaching the subject in this way, it will be found practicable to devise and adopt such measures and arrangements, present and prospective, as will secure an amicable division of the church upon the broad principles of right and equity, and destined to result in the common good of the great body of ministers and members found on either side the line of separation."*

CHAP. IV. Organization of the Church, South-Preliminary Proceedings-Convention-Measures taken-Settlement-Real Posi

tion-Reflections.

BEFORE separating at the General Conference, the South delegates took measures to form themselves into a separate church. A Committee of nine had been appointed to devise a plan of separation.

"June 7th. Dr. Paine, Chairman of the select Committee of nine, reported the following Plan of Separation:

:

"The select Committee of nine to consider and report on the declaration of the delegates from the Conferences of the slave-holding States, beg leave to submit the following Report :

*"History of the Organization of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South," pp. 73-87. This Protest was answered by the Northern majority; but the document has not fallen into my hands.

86 6 Whereas, a declaration has been presented to this General Conference, with the signatures of fifty-one delegates of the body from thirteen Annual Conferences in the slave-holding States, representing that, for various reasons enumerated, the objects and purposes of the Christian ministry and church organization cannot be successfully accomplished by them under the jurisdiction of this General Conference as now constituted; and

"Whereas, in the event of a separation, a contingency to which the declaration asks attention as not improbable, we esteem it the duty of this General Conference to meet the emergency with Christian kindness and the strictest equity; therefore,

"Resolved, by the delegates of the several Annual Conferences in General Conference assembled,

"1. That, should the Annual Conferences in the slave-holding States find it necessary to unite in a distinct ecclesiastical connexion, the following rule shall be observed with regard to the Northern boundary of such connexion:-All the societies, stations, and Conferences adhering to the church in the South, by a vote of a majority of the members of said societies, stations, and Conferences, shall remain under the unmolested pastoral care of the Southern church; and the ministers of the Methodist Episcopal church shall in no wise attempt to organize churches or societies within the limits of the church, South, nor shall they attempt to exercise any pastoral oversight therein; it being understood that the ministry of the South reciprocally observe the same rule in relation to stations, societies, and Conferences, adhering, by vote of a majority, to the Methodist Episcopal church; provided, also, that this rule shall apply only to societies, stations, and Conferences bordering on the line of division, and not to interior charges, which shall in all cases be left to the care of that church within whose territory they are situated.

"2. That ministers, local and travelling, of every grade and office in the Methodist Episcopal church, may, as they prefer, remain in that church, or, without blame, attach themselves to the church, South.

"3. Resolved, by the delegates of all the Annual Conferences in General Conference assembled, That we recommend to all the Annual Conferences, at their first approaching sessions, to authorize a change of the sixth restrictive article, so that the first clause shall read thus :-They shall not appropriate the produce of the BookConcern, nor of the Chartered Fund, to any purpose other than for the benefit of the travelling, supernumerary, superannuated, and worn-out preachers, their wives, widows, and children, and to such other purposes as may be determined upon by the vote of twothirds of the members of the General Conference.

"4. That whenever the Annual Conferences, by a vote of threefourths of all their members voting on the third Resolution, shall have concurred in the recommendation to alter the sixth restrictive article, the agents at New-York and Cincinnati shall, and they are hereby authorized and directed to, deliver over to any authorized agent or appointee of the church, South, should one be organized,

all notes and book accounts against the ministers, church-members, or citizens, within its boundaries, with authority to collect the same for the sole use of the Southern church; and that said agents also convey to aforesaid agent or appointee of the South, all the real estate, and assign to him all the property, including presses, stock, and all right and interest connected with the printing establishments at Charleston, Richmond, and Nashville, which now belong to the Methodist Episcopal church.

"5. That when the Annual Conferences shall have approved the aforesaid change in the sixth restrictive article, there shall be transferred to the above agent for the Southern church so much of the capital and produce of the Methodist Book-Concern as will, with the notes, book accounts, presses, &c., mentioned in the last Resolution, bear the same proportion to the whole property of said Concern that the travelling preachers in the Southern church shall bear to all the travelling ministers of the Methodist Episcopal church; the division to be made on the basis of the number of travelling preachers in the forthcoming Minutes.

and

"6. That the above transfer shall be in the form of annual payments of 25,000 dollars per annum, and specifically in stock of the Book-Concern, and in Southern notes and accounts due to the establishment, and accruing after the first transfer mentioned above; until the payments are made, the Southern church shall share in all the net profits of the Book-Concern, in the proportion that the amount due to them, or in arrears, bears to all the property of the Concern.

"7. That Nathan Bangs, George Peck, and James B. Finley be, and they are hereby appointed, commissioners to act in concert with the same number of commissioners appointed by the Southern organization, (should one be formed,) to estimate the amount which will fall due to the South by the preceding rule, and to have full powers to carry into effect the whole arrangements proposed with regard to the division of property, should the separation take place. And if by any means a vacancy occurs in this board of commissioners, the Book-Committee at New-York shall fill said vacancy.

"8. That whenever any agents of the Southern church are clothed with legal authority or corporate power to act in the premises, the agents at New-York are hereby authorized and directed to act in concert with said Southern agents, so as to give the provisions of these Resolutions a legally binding force.

9. That all the property of the Methodist Episcopal church in meeting-houses, parsonages, colleges, schools, Conference-funds, cemeteries, and of every kind within the limits of the Southern organization, shall be for ever free from any claim set up on the part of the Methodist Episcopal church, so far as this Resolution can be of force in the premises.

"10. That the church, so formed in the South shall have a common right to use all the copyrights in possession of the BookConcerns at New-York and Cincinnati, at the time of the settlement by the commissioners.

11. That the Book-Agents at New-York be directed to make such compensation to the Conferences, South, for their dividend from the Chartered Fund, as the commissioners above provided for shall agree upon.

"12. That the bishops be respectfully requested to lay that part of this Report requiring the action of the Annual Conferences before them as soon as possible, beginning with the New-York Conference.'

After considerable debate, this Plan was adopted; the votes being for the measure, 147; against, 22. On a motion to "authorize the Southern Conferences, instead of the delegates, to decide on the necessity of a separation, the vote was again taken, and stood Ayes, 135; Noes, 15."

Thus the question of division was left to be decided by the several Annual Conferences; who, on meeting, determined the subject in the affirmative.

The question was brought forward in the South by the delegates to the General Conference sending the following Address to their constituencies::

*Address to the Ministers and Members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in the Slave-holding States and Territories.

"THE undersigned, delegates in the late General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal church, from thirteen Annual Conferences in slave-holding States and territories, would most respectfully represent, that the various action of the majority of the General Conference, at its recent session, on the subject of slavery and abolition, has been such as to render it necessary, in the judgment of those addressing you, to call attention to the proscription and disability under which the Southern portion of the church must of necessity labour in view of the action alluded to, unless some measures are adopted to free the minority of the South from the oppressive jurisdiction of the majority in the North, in this respect.

"The proceedings of the majority, in several cases, involving the question of slavery, have been such as indicate most conclusively, that the legislative, judicial, and administrative action of the General Conference, as now organized, will always be extremely hurtful, if not finally ruinous, to the interests of the Southern portion of the church; and must necessarily produce a state of conviction and feeling in the slave-holding States, entirely inconsistent with either the peace or prosperity of the church.

"The opinions and purposes of the church in the North on the subject of slavery, are in direct conflict with those of the South; and unless the South will submit to the dictation and interference of the North, greatly beyond what the existing law of the church on

* 66 History of the Organization of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South," pp. 90-93.

slavery and abolition authorizes, there is no hope of any thing like union or harmony. The debate and action of the General Conference in the case of the Rev. Mr. Harding, of the Baltimore Conference; the debate and action in the case of Bishop Andrew; and the opinions and purposes avowed and indicated in a manifesto of the majority, in reply to a protest from the minority against the proceedings complained of, together with hundreds of petitions from the east, north, and west, demanding that slavery, in all its possible forms, be separated from the church; these, and similar demonstrations, have convinced the undersigned, that they cannot remain silent or inactive without hazard and injustice to the different portions of the church they represent.

“They have, therefore, thought proper to invoke the attention of the church in the South to a state of things they are compelled to regard as worthy the immediate notice and action of the church throughout all the slave-holding States and territories. The subject of slavery and abolition, notwithstanding the plain law of the Discipline on the subject, was agitated and debated in the late General Conference, for five successive weeks; and even at the very close of the session, the aspect of things was less satisfactory and more threatening to the South than at any former period; and under such circumstances of mutual distrust and disagreement, the General Conference adjourned.

"Some time before the adjournment, however, upon a declaration made by the Southern delegations, setting forth the impossibility of enduring such a state of things much longer, the General Conference, by a very large and decided majority, agreed to a plan of formal and pacific separation, by which the Southern Conferences are to have a distinct and independent organization of their own, in no way subject to Northern jurisdiction. It affords us pleasure to state, that there were those found among the majority who met this proposition with every manifestation of justice and liberality. And should a similar spirit be exhibited by the Annual Conferences in the North, when submitted to them, as provided for in the plan itself, there will remain no legal impediment to its peaceful consummation.

"This plan is approved by the undersigned as the best, and, indeed, all that can be done at present, in remedy of the great evil under which we labour. Provision is made for a peaceable and constitutional division of church property of every kind. The plan does not decide that division shall take place; but simply, and it is thought securely, provides that it may, if it be found necessary. Of this necessity, you are to be the judges, after a careful survey and comparison of all the reasons for and against it.

"As the undersigned have had opportunity and advantages which those at a distance could not possess, to form a correct judgment in the premises, and it may be expected of them, that they express their views fully on the subject, they do not hesitate to say, that they regard a separation at no distant day as inevitable; and farther, that the plan of separation agreed upon is as eligible as the Southern