GIFT OF 
 JANE K.SATHER 
 
? 
 
 THE 
 
 METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
 
 AND 
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 A HISTORICAL SURVEY OF THE RELATION OF THE 
 EARLY METHODISTS TO SLAVERY. 
 
 BY 
 
 DANIEL DEVINNE, 
 
 OF THE NEW-YORK EAST CONFERENCE. 
 
 NEW-YORK: 
 
 FRANCIS HART, G3 CORTLANDT STREET. 
 1857. 
 

 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I PAGE 9. 
 
 RISE OF MODERN SLAVERY. 
 
 Its Introduction into America Its Collision with Christianity Plan of Primitive 
 Emancipation Slavery sought Refuge in the Church Ecclesiastical Decision. 
 
 CHAPTER II PAGE 11. 
 
 INTRODUCTION OF SLAVERY IN THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 
 
 First Members Poor Xo Slaves Slavery came in without the knowledge of Mr. "Wes 
 ley or of Mr. Asbury During the Revolution Through the Separated Conference 
 in Virginia First efforts to extirpate it 1780 Declaration of Sentiment Prohibi 
 tory Law Exceptions A moral and real Emancipation always anticipated. 
 
 CHAPTER III PAGE 20. 
 
 ORGANIZATION OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 
 HER CONSTITUTION NO N -SLA V EHO LDI N G. 
 
 History of the Rule on Slavery In what her Constitution consists Main Question 
 stated Terms Defined Design of the Rule Subject treated Philologically Ethi 
 cally Historically. 
 
 CHAPTER IV PAGE 28. 
 
 THE RULE CONSIDERED PHILOLOGICALLY. 
 
 Enslaving Its Grammatical Meaning Rule of Interpretation Corroborative Evi 
 dence How it was Understood by our Founders Only Consistent View of the Rule. 
 
 CHAPTER V PAGE 34. 
 
 THE RULE CONSIDERED ETHICALLY OR MORALLY. 
 
 Articles of Religion a part of the Constitution of our Church Xo Ecclesiastical Rule 
 to be interpreted in opposition to them X T o need of a change in the General Rules 
 to exclude Slavery The Requisition for it is already in the Constitution Slavery 
 forbidden in detail So understood by our Founders Xo Special Law in the Bible 
 to sustain Slavery The Law of Reciprocity applies to Slaves What Christianity 
 teaches in the premises. 
 
 CHAPTER VI PAGE 41. 
 
 THE RULE CONSIDERED HISTORICALLY. 
 
 ^Historical Circumstances Xecessary to a Right Exposition Spirit of the Times when 
 the Rule was Instituted Principles of Freedom Predominant Congress of 1774 
 Statesmen Jefferson Virginia Georgia Presbyterians Baptists If the Metho 
 dists had tolerated Slavery they would have been behind all others. 
 
CHAPTER VII PAGE 46. 
 
 SUSPENSION. 
 
 Prohibitory Rule Its Exceptions Its Suspensions Morally it was not Suspended 
 Its Enforcement was only carrying out the Common Law of God s Government 
 What led to the Suspension Its Effects on the Church What the Slave lost by 
 it In many Cases it was enforced At the South, the Adjustment of what was 
 Right left to the Administrator and the Conscience of the Master. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII PAGE 54. 
 
 COLLATERAL EVIDENCE OF NON -CO NSTITUTION AL SLAVEHOLDI NG. 
 
 Efforts to Extirpate Never acquiesced in Slaveholding Preached agoinst it Opposi 
 tion Dr. Coke Rev. J. Everett Rev. G. Dougherty Mobbed in Charleston Fell 
 a Martyr Bishop Asbury s Testimony Emancipations Methodists fled to Ohio 
 Sayle Axley Rev. Freeborn Garretson His Plan of Emancipation. 
 
 CHAPTER IX PAGE 66. 
 
 POLITICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL ACTION AGAINST SLAVERY. 
 
 Petitions to the State Legislatures Gen. Washington Address of the General 
 Conference of 1796 Circulated Wesley s Thoughts on Slavery United Effort 
 During which the Church prospers Adverse Influences Cotton Gin Purchase of 
 Louisiana. 
 
 CHAPTER X PAGE 72. 
 
 SUCCESS OF FIRST EFFORTS TO EXTIRPATE SLAVERY. 
 
 Great Revival of Religion among the Colored People, 1780-1800 Great Additions to 
 the Church Unprecedented Emancipation Preachers try to bring Master and. Slave 
 under the same Rule Failed Slavery in the Primitive Church and in Ours Con 
 trasted Master s Duty Slave s Duty Primitive Church had but One Law for Both 
 In Effect we have Two Unwritten Laws of Slavery carried out in onr Church 
 They Sanction it They more than Neutralize all Written Testimony against it. 
 
 CHAPTER XI PAGE 85. 
 
 FELLOWSHIP WITH SLAVHOLDERS. 
 
 The Church the embodiment of Christianity Two Ways to sustain an Evil The 
 Scriptural Rule The Covetous The Railer The Extortioner Moral Heresies 
 Nothing cohesive in Slavery It can not stand without outward support. 
 
 CHAPTER XII PAGE 91. 
 
 FUTURE ACTION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 Undo what has been done Unconstitutionally Repeal the Chapter on Slavery No 
 change of the General Rule necessary The Requisition to Exclude Slavery is in the 
 Constitution of our Church already General Conference should Re-affirm the Declar 
 ation of 1780 Give a Judicial Decision in regard to the Meaning of the Rule Pro 
 hibit the Observance of the Unwritten Laws of Slavery in the Administration of the 
 Church Allow to Every Member the Right of Suit Right of Testimony Recogni 
 tion of Marriage To require all Members, Bond or Free, to observe the Laws of 
 Christianity, whether in accordance with the Slave Laws or not. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 IN this historical survey, I purpose to prove that the Methodist Epis 
 copal Church was founded on a non slaveholding basis. That it never 
 was the intention of her founders that Slavery should have been 
 continued in her communion ; and that all the slaveholding which has 
 ever been in our Church, has been in contravention to the spirit and 
 design of her organic law. 
 
 In doing this, I shall mainly depend on documentary testimony. Oral 
 testimony is about wholly lost. The reaction which has been setting 
 back upon our Church for the last thirty-five years, has been inimical to 
 its transmission. A few items, however, have been preserved. During 
 several years residence in the South, and while in charge of four large 
 circuits, the author has not only seen the working of the slave system, 
 but has been enabled to glean from those of a former generation, some 
 precious items of our early history, in regard to Slavery. 
 
 The object of this composition is a defence of our fathers, and of the 
 Church which they founded, against the reproach which has been cast 
 upon both, not only by their open enemies, but also by their reputed but 
 mistaken sons especially that which has been put forth in many of the 
 speeches of the last general conference. For as Christians, disciples of 
 John Wesley, as American Methodists, we feel dishonored before our 
 European brethren, and in sight of the civilized world, that the Church 
 of our early choice, should be stigmatized as " constitutionally, historically 
 and administratively a Slaveholding Church." We readily acknowledge 
 that the inexplicable or contradictory expletive " though anti Slavery," 
 is as often asserted, but what it means in this connection we cannot tell. 
 
 We deplore the present position of our Church ; and in view of all 
 the ground, having traveled fifteen thousand miles in Slaveholding States ; 
 having visited, perhaps, a thousand plantations ; and having conversed 
 freely with Methodist slaves and slaveholders, we must here record our 
 solemn and religious testimony, that in our opinion, the influence of the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church, as administered for the last thirty years, 
 has been unfavorable to the emancipation of Slavery, either in our 
 Church, or in our country. For we fully believe, that " the plea of neces- 
 
Vlll 
 
 sity the plea of certain circumstances," and other excuses for the 
 continuance of Slavery in the Church, have done vastly more to uphold 
 this enormous evil amongst us, than any direct advocacy of it could 
 have possibly done. And we say this in sorrow, for we would not 
 unnecessarily utter one word in opposition to the expressed opinions of 
 our chief ministers, whose judgment, in all other respects, we highly 
 appreciate. 
 
 But is there not a cause ? Our connection with Slavery is repelling 
 thousands from our Church, and it is continually insulting the moral sense 
 of hundreds of thousands, who, otherwise, would wait on our ministry. 
 Slavery, at this moment, is forcing its way over the fairest portions of our 
 country ; it is attempting through the Supreme Court to nationalize and 
 legalize itself everywhere ; it is putting forth strenuous efforts to revive 
 the Foreign Slave Trade, and also to strike down the liberty of the Press, 
 and the freedom of the Pulpit. The sword is coming upon us, or the 
 "African flood," as Bishop Asbury seventy years ago denominated the 
 retributive justice of God against Slavery. And all the while we are 
 silent and the silence in many places is deemed a virtue. " The longer 
 the better." But is this wise I Is it the more excellent way 1 Will it 
 lessen the penalty which will surely be executed upon those who oppress 
 the stranger and rob the hireling of his wages 1 
 
 With many others, we had supposed that the division of 1844 would 
 have changed our policy on the moral question of Slavery. But we 
 have been disappointed. That great disruption was not on moral grounds. 
 The moral question of Slavery is yet to be decided. In view of this 
 decision, the author has felt it his duty to set forth his testimony, and 
 thus to address his brethren, that they may bring back our beloved Church 
 to the basis on which she was at first founded. As much as ever, he still 
 loves the Church of his early choice, in whose blessed communion he has 
 passed nearly fifty happy years, and in whose fellowship he still hopes 
 to continue till he dies. 
 
 WEST MORRISANIA, ) 
 AUG. 12, 1857. J 
 
CHAPTER 1. 
 
 RISE OF MODERN SLAVERY. 
 
 ITS INTRODUCTION INTO AMERICA ITS COLLISION WITH CHRISTIANITY PLAN 
 OF PRIMITIVE EMANCIPATION SLAVERY SOUGHT REFUGE IN THE CHURCH 
 ECCLESIASTICAL DECISION. 
 
 THE Modern Slave Trade commenced its operations in the sixteenth 
 century ; and within one hundred- and fifty years from that period 
 it imported 1,500,000 slaves into North America and the West 
 Indies. With its rise at this time, a new difficulty was originated 
 in the Church : It was the first instance on record in which Slavery 
 was attempted to be ingrafted upon an already existing Christian 
 community. 
 
 In former times and in heathen countries, Christianity had battled 
 with Slavery, and had achieved two splendid victories. On those 
 occasions her course was clear. The Gospel which was to go to all, 
 was, under the apostolic administration, intended for the benefit of 
 all, whether they were bond or free. The Primitive Church, like 
 the Jewish, had in it but " one law for the home born and the 
 stranger," and but one administration for all her members: the 
 principles of which were equality not however of condition, for 
 the world is made of variety but an equality, of right, in the priv 
 ileges and immunities of the new relation. 
 
 But when Slavery in our country, as an institution, was to be 
 ingrafted upon Christianity, it was soon found that the one law 
 principle, the one administration, and " the giving of that which 
 was just and equal," would not suit the respective classes. They 
 could not be applied to them in the relation of master and slave. 
 And thus the slaveholding proprietors in the new colonies were 
 involved in difficulties. 
 
 For at this period there were many Christians who supposed that 
 baptism imparted, somehow, an impersonation of Christ, and that, 
 consequently, the degradation of Slavery was inconsistent with the 
 dignity of the Christian. This notion, although it originated in the 
 Church of Home, had great influence with the Churchmen of Vir 
 ginia and the Carolinas. And it brought with it the following 
 serious difficulty : 
 
 That the negro must either remain without the benefits of Christian 
 ity, or he must be admitted to emancipation. The demands 
 of avarice, however, were strong and active, and some of the Colo- 
 
10 - . m&.QfjMQffa Sl avery. 
 
 nial Legislatures yentu;;e.d to decree that baptism and Slavery were 
 not neces^rityincdasfetefct. * And In this opinion Yorke and Talbot, 
 the crown lawyers of the motner country, concurred. But the de 
 cision was only that of secular men, and it could not quiet the 
 conscience. 
 
 The question was then referred to the Church ; and Gordon, 
 Bishop of London, pronounced ex cathedra, that " the embracing 
 of the Gospel did riot make the least alteration in civil property." 
 This decree, thus vaguely worded, was at once received as an 
 ecclesiastical sanction for Slavery and the Slave Trade. "Authority," 
 says Locke, " keeps in ignorance and error more people than all 
 other causes." Thus it turned out, that Slavery, driven out by 
 conscience and the common sense of uninterested men, sought a 
 refuge in the Bible. And from that day to the present, it has ever 
 made the false or equivocal interpretations of ministers and of 
 churches its main support its chief bulwarkof defense. 
 
 In passing, it is really worthy of notice, that after this decision 
 and the revival of modern Slavery, nearly all subsequent com 
 mentators on the Scriptures have expounded those passages in the 
 Bible referring to servitude in a very different sense from that of 
 their predecessors. Most of them seem to have seen every thing 
 through the haze or medium of Slavery. Thus it has resulted, that 
 this " complicated crime," as John Wesley and Bishop Asbury have 
 called it, has so long nestled in the bosom of the Church. And 
 there it will ever continue, until the true exposition of* God s 
 "Word is set forth and applied to it. For we will never be better 
 than our Bibles. And while Slavery " nnder any circumstances " 
 is supposed to be allowed in the Bible, it will be perpetuated both 
 in the Church and in the State. But the truth is now destroying 
 this " complicated villainy " " by the brightness of his coming." 
 This fancied asylum for Slavery in God s Word will yet be its 
 sepulcher. Its fancied city of refuge in the Church, will soon be 
 the city of its destruction. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 INTRODUCTION OF SLAVERY IN THE METHODIST 
 EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 
 
 FIRST MEMBERS POOR No SLAVES SLAVERY CAME IN WITHOUT THE KNOWL 
 EDGE OF MR. WESLEY OR OF MR. ASBURY DURING THE REVOLUTION 
 THROUGH THE SEPARATED CONFERENCE IN VIRGINIA FIRST EFFORTS TO 
 
 EXTIRPATE* IT 1780 DECLARATION OF SENTIMENT PROHIBITORY LAW 
 
 EXCEPTIONS A MORAL AND REAL EMANCIPATION ALWAYS ANTICIPATED. 
 
 THE Emerald Isle, which has sent from her shores more soldiers 
 to foreign armies, and more Romanist Priests, and more Gospel 
 ministers than any other portion of Christendom of equal size and 
 population, was the country honored by planting the two first Meth 
 odist societies in America. But soon after, John Wesley, whose 
 parish was the world, sent over regular itinerants to establish and 
 carry out the work. Like the primitive apostles, they began their 
 work in the most humble manner, and generally among the poorer 
 classes. Their first societies were, perhaps, altogether composed of 
 those whose moderate circumstances kept them wholly from the 
 least participation in Slavery. 
 
 The precise time and manner in which Slavery found its way into 
 our Church, cannot, at this period, be very satisfactorily ascertained. 
 But they do the greatest injustice and dishonor to the head and 
 heart of John Wesley, who assert that it was with his knowledge 
 and approbation. Nothing can be further from the truth. Previous 
 to the first conference in 1773, Mr. Wesley could not have exerted 
 much influence over these infant societies, being himself more than 
 three thousand miles from them, and they, in general, composed of 
 only a few individuals in a place, and scattered over the immense 
 territory of the provinces. And in the year preceding the com 
 mencement of the revolutionary war, nearly all amicable communi 
 cation was cut off between the two .countries. Nor can we find, 
 during this period, one word in reference to the existence of Slavery 
 in the American societies, either in his writings, or in those of any 
 of his preachers ; so that it is wholly begging the question to assert 
 that there was any Slavery in the Methodist societies before the 
 Revolution, much less that it was there with his knowledge and 
 approbation. 
 
 From all the circumstances in the case, it must be evident that 
 Slavery found its way into the Methodist societies not only without 
 
12 Introduction of Slavery 
 
 the knowledge of John Wesley, but even that of his assistant, 
 Francis Asbury. For during the seven years of the revolutionary 
 war, all friendly intercourse between the two countries had 
 ceased ; and in 1778, all the English preachers had returned to the 
 mother country, except Mr. Asbury ; and he, it is well known, was 
 confined mostly to the small State of Delaware ; so that by these 
 events, even his advice and control were almost wholly lost to the 
 rising societies. Consequently, the extension of the cause and the 
 founding of societies were committed to young and inexperienced 
 men, most of whom had, as yet, been taught the way of the Lord 
 but very imperfectly. For in this great revival of religion, some, 
 almost immediately on their conversion, were sent, not only to 
 preach, but to found churches, receive members and administer 
 except the ordinances the entire discipline. Almost all of these 
 young preachers had been also born and raised in the midst of 
 Slavery, and, with the Eev. Freeborn Garrettson, had only an im 
 perfect idea that Slavery was wrong. They had " never read a book 
 on the subject, nor had they reflected much upon it." 
 
 The forty-eight preachers who had been received into the itinerancy 
 during the war, belonged almost exclusively to this class. All the 
 conferences which were held from 1776 to 1787 were held in what 
 are now denominated the slaveholding states. So entirely was early 
 Methodism confined to this section of our country, that from 1777 to 
 1783 there was not one appointment of a preacher north of some parts 
 of New- Jersey ; and out of a membership of about 14,000, as re 
 ported at the conference of the latter year, only about 2,000 resided 
 in what are now called the free states. And further, in 1779, mainly 
 on account of the ordinances, the more southern preachers, amount 
 ing to far more than one-half of the entire body, seceded, holding 
 a separate conference in Fluvanna, in Virginia ; while Mr. Asbury 
 held one consisting of only seventeen preachers, in Kent county, 
 state of Delaware. Each conference passed its own resolutions, 
 stationed its preachers, and exercised discipline over their respective 
 societies. This separation continued during the seventh and eighth 
 conferences, or parts of 1779-80. And, although in May of the 
 latter year, a reconciliation took place, so far as to suspend the ordi 
 nances, and admit Mr. Asbury into the seceding conference, yet the 
 two bodies did not meet at the same time and place until the year 
 1784-. And even during this interval, there is sufficient evidence 
 that the administration of the general assistant was received with 
 considerable caution. 
 
 In 1779, when the question was asked, " Who of the preachers 
 are willing to take the stations this conference shall place them in, and 
 continue till the next year ?" out of thirty-two members of which 
 the whole conference was composed, sixteen only replied in the 
 affirmative. Those who did not, held a separate conference in 
 Virginia. 
 
 But it was when Mr. Asbury met the two conferences in one 
 body, for the first time, that we heard anything on the subject 
 
In the Methodist Episcopal Church. 13 
 
 of Slavery. The fair probability then is, that Slavery had been 
 introduced into the Methodist societies by this separated conference 
 in Virginia ; and that when the preachers came back, placing them 
 selves again under the supervision of Mr. Asbury and the conference 
 of Baltimore, that they brought, of course, their members with them 
 some of whom had been, already, received as slaveholders. 
 
 This great evil, then, having been admitted in this way into the 
 Church, the. entire conference of 1780 took immediate measures to 
 extirpate the mere sprinkling of it, which had come into her com 
 munion, and also, wholly to prevent its further introduction. And 
 for this purpose, they sent forth to the infant societies and to the 
 world, that noble Declaration against Slavery, which we shall soon 
 adduce, and which should ever be regarded as the only clue to the 
 right interpretation of all their subsequent rules and measures on 
 this question of Slavery. 
 
 But before we present it, it seems proper to review the whole 
 ground, that we may have a right appreciation of the true import 
 of that Declaration. It is acknowledged, that, to the early Meth 
 odists, John Wesley was their great prototype. They regarded him 
 as an honored and extraordinary minister of the Lord Jesus. They 
 embraced his theological views, followed his ecclesiastical polity, 
 and adopted the whole of his moral discipline. Consequently, there 
 is no probability that they would have done anything in religious 
 matters which they knew was contrary to his expressed and pub 
 lished will. 
 
 Now, it should be remembered, that only six years before this 
 time, he had published his "Thoughts on Slavery," which must 
 have been well known at least to all the older and more influential 
 preachers. In that tract, after having set forth its doctrine, Mr. 
 Wesley applies its teachings to slaveholders, specifically whether 
 they were such by purchase, inheritance or otherwise in the follow 
 ing unmistakable words : 
 
 "And this equally concerns every gentleman that has an estate in 
 our American plantations ; yea, all slaveholders of whatever rank 
 and degree ; seeing men-buyers are exactly on a level with men 
 stealers. Indeed, you say, I pay honestly for my goods ; and I am 
 not concerned to know how they are come by. Nay, but you are ; 
 you are deeply concerned to know they are honestly come by. 
 Otherwise you are a partaker with a thief, and are not a jot honest er 
 than he. But you know they are not honestly come by ; you know 
 they are procured by means nothing near so innocent as picking of 
 pockets, housebreaking, or robbery upon the highway. You know 
 they are procured by a deliberate series of more complicated villainy 
 (of fraud, robbery and murder) than was ever practised either by 
 Mohammedans or Pagans; in particular, by murders of all kinds; 
 by the blood of the innocent poured upon the ground like water.* 
 
 *A graphic and truthful description of this trade is from the pen of Hon. 
 Horace Mann, in the House of Representatives. Speaking of Great Britain who 
 introduced Slavery in her colonies, he says, " She broke into the Ethiop s home. 
 
14: Introduction of Slavery 
 
 !Now, it is your money that pays the merchant, and through him the 
 captains and the African butchers. You, therefore, are guilty, yea, 
 principally guilty, of all these frauds, robberies and murders. You 
 are the spring that puts all the rest in motion they would not stir 
 a step without you ; therefore, the blood of all these wretches who 
 die before their time, whether in their country or elsewhere, lies 
 upon your head. The blood of thy brother (for whether thou wilt 
 believe it or no, such he is in the sight of Him that made JfSm) crieth 
 against thee from the earth, from the ship, and from the waters. 
 O ! whatever it costs, put a stop to its cry before it be too late ; 
 instantly, at any pi-ice were it the half of your goods, deliver thy 
 self from blood-guiltiness ! Thy hands, thy bed, thy furniture, thy 
 house, thy lands, are at present stained with blood ! Surely it is 
 enough : accumulate no more guilt ; spill no more the blood of the 
 innocent ! Do not hire another to shed blood ; do not pay him for 
 doing it ! Whether you are a Christian or no, show yourself a man ! 
 Be not more savage than a lion or a bear ! 
 
 "Perhaps, you will say, I do not buy my negroes ; I only use 
 those left me by my father. So far is well ; but is it enough to 
 satisfy your own conscience ? Had your father, have you, has any 
 man living, a right to use another as a slave ? It cannot be, even 
 setting Revelation aside. It cannot be that either war or contract 
 can give any man such a property in another as he has in his sheep 
 and oxen. Much less is it possible that any child of man should 
 ever be l>orn a slave. Liberty is the right of every human creature, 
 as soon as he breathes the vital air : and no human law can deprive 
 him of that right which he derives from the law of nature. 
 
 "If, therefore, you have any regard to justice, (to say nothing of 
 mercy, nor the revealed will of God) render unto all their due. 
 Give liberty to whom liberty is due, that is, to every child of man. 
 Let none serve you but by his own act and deed, by his own volun 
 tary choice." 
 
 Now, these were the published and the known views of Mr. 
 Wesley, whom the Methodists of that day revered as next only to 
 the inspired apostles. His words need no comment. They go to 
 
 as a wolf into a sheep-fold at midnight. She set the continent aflame, that she 
 might seize the affrighted inhabitants as they ran shrieking from their blazing 
 hamlets. The aged and the infant were left to the vultures ; but the strong men 
 and the strong women she drove, scourged and bleeding to the shore. Packed 
 and stowed like merchandise between unventilated decks so close that the 
 tempest without could not ruffle the pestilential air within the voyage was 
 begun. Once a day the hatches were opened to receive food and disgorge the 
 dead. Thousands and thousands of corpses which she plunged into the ocean 
 from the decks of her slave ships, she counted only as the tare of her commerce. 
 The blue monsters of the deep became familiar with her path- way; and not 
 more remorseless than she, they shared her plunder. At length the accursed 
 vessel reached the foreign shore. And there, the monsters of the land fiercer 
 and feller than any that roam the watery plains rewarded the robber by pur 
 chasing his spoils. For more than a century this traffic raged, during which 
 the clock of eternity never counted one minute that did not witness the death of 
 some father or mother of Africa/ 
 
In the Methodist Episcopal Church. 15 
 
 the entire root of this evil. He places the holder of slaves whether 
 by inheritance or otherwise on the level with the trafficker, or 
 rather, below them ; for it was the gains of the former, which were 
 the main "spring that puts all the rest in motion." Now, is there 
 even a shadow of probability, that those who had followed John 
 Wesley so closely in all other matters, should have departed from 
 him so widely in this ? And that, too, at the time of their ecclesias 
 tical organization, or indeed, at any other time? Who, then, can 
 believe that they should have made special provision to allow, or^ 
 to tolerate in their societies, that which he had so sweepingly 
 denounced ? We say that it is morally impossible that they should. 
 Everything in the history of the times, and in their own character, 
 is against such a supposition. 
 
 In accordance, therefore, with the views, and in the spirit of their 
 pattern, the conference in Baltimore of ITSOj put forth their first 
 Declaration against Slavery :- 
 
 " That Slavery is contrary to the laws of God, man and nature, 
 and hurtful to society , contrary to the dictates of conscience and 
 pure religion, and doing that ivhich we would not others should do 
 to us and ours" 
 
 So, then, Slavery, and certainly slaveholding whether by inher 
 itance or otherwise in the judgment of our founders, was contrary 
 to the laws of God the Scriptures that is, it was a sin. 2. Con 
 trary to those of man an unnatural state, one dreaded by the 
 whole species. 3. And nature for it blighted and blasted every 
 section of the Lord s earth over which it had spread itself. 4. It 
 was hurtful to society no good state of which could exist where it 
 was, no reciprocity of interests, no public spirit, nor general schools. 
 5. Conscience unseared and unimpaired at once rejected it. 6. Pure 
 religion could not exist with it, for it nullified marriage and the 
 Sabbath, and by repelling slave testimony, it raised a screen in the 
 Church to cover up every abomination/ 7. In one word, it repu 
 diated the golden rule the law and the prophets, and every moral 
 bond which keeps society together. 
 
 This was the testimony of our fathers against Slavery a noble 
 testimony worthy the men who made it, worthy of the gospel 
 which they preached, and worthy of the infant churches which they 
 were then planting. It was put forth in the South in the seat of 
 Slavery at the zenith of the foreign slave trade, and in the midst 
 of the revolution, when a timid, worldly policy would have suggest 
 ed silence ; and at a time when almost every man s hand was raised 
 against them. There was a moral sublimity in the attitude of those 
 early Methodists. As ambassadors from God, they published abroad 
 their entire sentiments on the question of Slavery. They did not 
 handle the word of God deceitfully, nor keep back any ungracious 
 truth from the people, which they deemed profitable for them. 
 They did not wait till public opinion was prepared to receive their 
 principles. They were in advance of public opinion. Circum 
 stances at this period did not mould them ; but, on the contrary, 
 
16 Introduction of Slavery 
 
 they set themselves to the remodelling of the world and its institu 
 tions especially to the "spreading of holiness throughout the land." 
 None were more willing to obey Csesar in all that belonged to him. 
 But then Cresar must keep on his own side of the brook, and not 
 invade the temple or the territory of the Lord ; nor attempt to 
 trammel them in the carrying out all the requisitions of the gospel. 
 The Church has rights as well as the State. God, who ordained the 
 powers that be, ordained, also, those of the Church, and intended 
 that in her onward course of reform she should raise the lowly, level 
 the high, straighten the crooked, and make the rough places plain. 
 
 During the subsequent years immediately following, the confer 
 ence bore the same testimony, and continued the same means for 
 the extirpation of Slavery. But these merely admonitory measures 
 did not seem to have fully effected their designed object. For about 
 the time of the Christmas conference of 1784, when the societies 
 were to be organized into an Independent Church, the whole eccle 
 siastical polity was again thoroughly reviewed ; and the whole 
 Discipline of the infant Church was compared with the larger Min 
 utes of Mr. Wesley : " Composing a form of Discipline for the Minis 
 ters, Preachers, and other members of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church in America." * 
 
 At this conference, the most effectual measures were taken to rid 
 the Church, at once and forever, from every vestige of Slavery ; and 
 for this purpose, in answer to the forty-second question of the new 
 Discipline, as compared with the large Minutes, it was asked : 
 
 " What method can we take to extirpate Slavery ? 
 
 "Ans. We are deeply conscious of the impropriety of making 
 newf terms of communion for a religious society already established, 
 except on the most pressing occasion. And such we deem the prac 
 tice of holding our fellow creatures in Slavery. We view it contrary 
 to the golden rule of God on which hang all the law and prophets 
 and the inalienable rights of mankind, as well as the principles 
 of the revolution, to hold in the deepest abasement, in a more abject 
 Slavery than is perhaps to be found in any part of the world except 
 America, so many souls that are capable of the image of God. 
 
 " We, therefore, think it our most bounden duty, to take imme 
 diately some effectual method to extirpate this abomination from 
 among us. And for that purpose, we add the following to the rule 
 of our society." 
 
 Here follow the rules, the purport of which was, that there should 
 be a full and entire emancipation of every slave in the possession of 
 the members of the Church, and that such "An instrument should be 
 legally executed and recorded." Then the third clause of the rule adds: 
 
 * Title page of Discipline: New- York, 1789. 
 
 f On reflection, we think our founders would have seen, that in this apologetical 
 phrase, they had conceded too much. For it could have been no new term to 
 require their members to observe the most obvious principle of Christian morality. 
 For the very constitution of the Christian Church required it, without a specific 
 rule in the matter. 
 
In the Methodist Episcopal Church. 17 
 
 " In consideration that these rules form a new term of commun 
 ion, every person concerned, who will not comply with them, shall 
 have liberty quietly to withdraw himself from our society within 
 twelve months succeeding the notice given as aforesaid ; otherwise, 
 the assistant shall exclude him in the society." 
 
 4. " No person so voluntarily withdrawn, or excluded, shall ever 
 partake of the Lord s Supper with the Methodists, till he complies 
 with the above requisitions." 
 
 5. " No person hoMing slaves, shall in future be admitted to our 
 society, or to the Lord s Supper, till he previously complies with 
 these rules concerning Slavery." 
 
 And then in a nota lene, they immediately add : " These rules 
 are to affect the members of our society no farther than they are 
 consistent with the laws of the State in which they reside." And 
 the brethren in Virginia " were allowed two years from the notice 
 given, to consider the expedience of compliance^or non-compliance 
 with these rules." These, then, were the existing rules of the Meth 
 odist Episcopal Church at her organization in 1784. 
 
 Here it should be observed, that the rules for the continuance of 
 membership in the above case, required a bill of emancipation 
 " legally executed and recorded." In some States, however, it was 
 " inconsistent with the laws," to do this ; for as there was no law in 
 the matter, consequently there could have been no legal process, and 
 no legal book of record. In the State of Virginia there were pecu 
 liar difficulties ; hence, the conference gave them two years to comply 
 with the rule. 
 
 Now, as already observed, what the rules required, was a legal 
 and recorded emancipation, which in some States could not be ob 
 tained. But this legal emancipation must not be confounded as 
 many do with a moral and real emancipation ; hence, the conference 
 made exceptions, where it was inconsistent with the laws of the 
 State. The former could not be effected in some cases ; but the 
 latter could be at all times, and in every place : and consequently, 
 there could be no exceptions to its requirements. For the conference 
 never assumed the popish power of granting a dispensation to con 
 tinue in sin, nor could they measure moral obligation by geograph 
 ical or state lines. They certainly never intended that an iniquitous 
 State law should release the church member from his moral obliga 
 tion to obey God in giving to his fellow creature " that which was 
 just and equal" for his work or from his obligation to "execute 
 justice and judgment " to all men nor from, the requirements of 
 the Church he had joined, to aid her in " extirpating that abomina 
 tion from among them." 
 
 For the conference knew, and every body should know, that no 
 law can prevent the reputed master from announcing to his former 
 slave, that he disclaims all right of property in him, and that he 
 discards, as anti-scriptural, all the authority which the slaveholding 
 laws may give over him ; thereby, immediately and forever, clearing 
 himself of the sin of Slavery, before God and in the face of the world. 
 
18 Introduction of Slavery 
 
 Can any power under Heaven prevent the white man from treat 
 ing the black man as a human being, a Christian, a brother? Can 
 the State prevent him in some way, from giving the reputed slave 
 fair, honest wages for his work a right to his wife and to his child 
 ren or liberty to remove to a State where he can enjoy full free 
 dom? Or, if the freedman chose to remain with him, the former 
 . master, as a guardian, can protect him from cruel and oppressive 
 State laws. Where there is a will, there is a way. All these, the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church, at her organization, "required from all 
 her members. And thus she never could have excepted any of 
 them, in any State, from the moral obligation of giving a true and 
 a real emancipation ; because, God s word never excepted any from 
 the doing of " that ^hich was right and just." The letter and spirit 
 of her rules require the same at the present day. "Where there 
 can not be a legal and civil emancipation, the Church supposes, in 
 effect, the relation of guardian and ward, the protector and the pro 
 tected ; but her organic law never intended to sanction the relation 
 of slaveholder and slave, either morally or ecclesiastically. For 
 even the intention of enslaving a man, woman or child and much 
 more the actual holding of them in that relation was deemed a 
 disqualification for membership. It was the practice of Slavery 
 the holding of slaves, not the mere buying and selling which they 
 aimed to extirpate. It was the real, living, laboring, soul-degrading 
 practice which they abhorred. That practice, whether it was 
 carried on by a professor or a sinner, by a preacher or a bishop, 
 whether in Virginia, New- York, or the Carolines, whether the claim 
 came through a bequest, by purchase, or inheritance. What folly 
 it is to lose sight of the subject, and to lay the whole stress upon its 
 accidents. Buying and selling are the mere accidents of Slavery, 
 which may or may not exist, and still there may be Slavery of the 
 most horrid character. The subject, the thing itself, that which 
 embodies the iniquity, and that which our organic law prohibits, is 
 the holding and using of a human being as property the getting 
 of work, without paying for it. This was that which constituted the 
 sin of Slavery, in estimation of our fathers. This latter, is the real 
 pith and germ of Slavery, and it is as Mr. Wesley says, " the spring 
 that puts all the rest in motion," the traders and the kidnappers. 
 
 In a word, during the Revolution, Slavery crept into our Church ; 
 in 1780, the conference sent forth their first declaration against it ; 
 these admonitory measures, however, failing in their object, in 1784, 
 at her organization, the Methodist Episcopal Church took an " effec 
 tual method " to sweep away the last vestige of Slavery from her 
 border. And when our Church was founded, this effectual method, 
 this entire prohibition of slaveholding, was then the law of the 
 Church a law, at that time, standing out in its full force, unim 
 paired, unrepealed, and unsuspended. 
 
 These rules were then the materials out of which the general rule 
 on Slavery was subsequently formed. Indeed, the entire extinction 
 of all slaveholding, as set forth in Wesley s " Thoughts on Slavery," 
 
In the, Methodist Episcopal Church. 19 
 
 and in the declaration of sentiment by the conference of 1780, was 
 the object, the pith, and the purpose the whole scope and design 
 of all that the early Methodists ever said or wrote on this subject. 
 And further, the spirit, the animus of these rules, is really the only 
 clue to a right interpretation of the present general rule. Without 
 reference to these, no one ever can give any thing like a clear and 
 satisfactory solution to the subsequent legislation of our Church upon 
 Slavery. 
 
 This", then, was the original basis on which our Church was found 
 ed. Mr. Lee himself, the southern historian, acknowledges all this, 
 and affirms [page 101] "That it was founded with a number of 
 express rules, which stipulated that Slavery should not be continued 
 in the Church" And to this original basis, it is the bounden duty 
 of every Methodist to "bring her back. In the words of the old 
 discipline, " Let this be continued from year to year, till the desired 
 end be accomplished." We readily allow that these rules were not 
 fully carried out; they were, however, in very many instances, as 
 we shall show. 
 
 But in the constitutional argument, however, we lose nothing in 
 conceding that this " effectual method " to rid the Church of Sla 
 very was never fully or generally carried out. The early Meth 
 odists, in good faith, tried to enforce it. They did enforce it in hun 
 dreds of instances, as I have heard old Methodists of that day affirm 
 from their own knowledge, and as may still be seen in the un 
 precedented emancipations which took place between 1790 and 
 1800. But they met with difficulties, with great difficulties, as all 
 will in attempting to abolish an enormity of such ramifications, and 
 of such gigantic proportions. They hesitated ; they "gave time for 
 consideration," and soon suspended the rule for a limited term, " to a 
 future conference." But they never repealed it ; they never compro 
 mised it ; but after struggling for twenty or more years to enforce 
 it, they seem to have allowed it to go by default. This prohibitory 
 rule was never suspended indefinitely. And ever since, at least 
 nominally, the Methodist Episcopal Church stands protesting against 
 the continuance of slaveholders in her communion, and asking, every 
 day, by the thousands of disciplines which she sends forth every year, 
 "what shall be done to extirpate Slavery?" Does this look like 
 making constitutional provision for its continuation, under any 
 circumstances, in the Church ? 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 ORGANIZATION OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 
 HER CONSTITUTION NON SLAVEHOLDI NG. 
 
 HISTORY or THE RULE ON SLAVERY IN WHAT HER CONSTITUTION CONSISTS 
 MAIN QUESTION STATED TERMS DEFINED DESIGN OF THE RULE SUBJECT 
 TREATED PuiLOLOGIC ALLY ETHICALLY HISTORICALLY. 
 
 THE organization of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the 
 acknowledged nationality of the United States, were nearly contem 
 poraneous. After a struggle of seven years, the young republic 
 took her station among the nations of the earth ; and the Methodist 
 societies having been served for eighteen years by lay preachers,. and 
 consequently destitute of the ordinances, were formed into an eccle 
 siastical body, enjoying all the privileges of a Christian Church. 
 This important event took place on Christmas, 1784, the object of 
 which was "to reform the Continent, and spread Bible holiness 
 through these lands." 
 
 As has been already stated, during the confusion of the revolu 
 tion, when the reception of members, and the administration of the 
 discipline were mostly in the hands of the recently converted and 
 inexperienced ministers, Slavery found its way into the American 
 Methodist societies. At this Conference (1784*), when the founda 
 tion of her ecclesiastical polity was about to be laid, special and 
 vigorous measures were immediately taken to extirpate that which 
 had been introduced, and to guard against its future introduction. 
 For this purpose, the entire following clause was shortly afterwards 
 added to Mr. Wesley s original general rules. 
 
 *I have placed the general rule on Slavery as early as 1784, on the authority 
 of the fifth edition of the discipline, now before me ; the title page of which 
 reads thus: "A form of Discipline, for the ministers, &c. of the Methodist Epis 
 copal Church in America, considered and approved at a Conference held in Balti 
 more, Maryland, on Monday, 27th of December, 1784: in which Thomas Coke 
 and Francis Asbury presided. The Fifth Edition. New- York: Printed by 
 William Ross, in Broad-street, 1789." By the title page of this discipline, it would 
 appear that the rule had been formally " considered and approved" in the Christ 
 mas conference of 1784. But it is not very probable that it was embodied in the 
 discipline in the above words, until two and a half years afterwards until 1787. 
 The discipline of this year has never been recovered. But it is evident that the 
 rule, as above quoted, was in this edition; for in the edition of 1789, it was incor 
 porated with the other general rules, in the very words which we have quoted 
 over the signatures of Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury, and dated May 28, 1787. 
 
Constitution of the M. E. Church Non-Slaveholding. 21 
 
 " The buying or selling the souls and bodies of men, women or 
 children, with an intention to enslave them." 
 
 Whether this addition was made by the order of Mr. "Wesley, or 
 at the suggestion of Dr. Coke ; or whether it originated wholly with 
 the American societies, cannot, at this time, be determined ; but the 
 probability is, that it was with Mr. Asbury and the conference with 
 him in Baltimore, who, four years before, had put forth that noble 
 declaration of sentiment against Slavery. 
 
 The truth is, this rule and all others in regard to Slavery at this 
 time, were self-imposed by the southern Methodists upon themselves ; 
 some of whom might have been formerly slaveholders, and all of 
 whom had been more or less acquainted with the entire system. 
 For at this period, it must be remembered, our societies were almost 
 entirely confined to the present slaveholding States. On account of 
 the war, Methodism had spread but very little to the north or east ; 
 even one year after the peace in 1785 there were but five places 
 to which preachers were appointed, situated in what are now called 
 the free States ; and of about 15,000 members, of which our Church 
 was at that time composed, nearly 14,000 were within the bounds 
 of the present slaveholding States. Southern anti-slavery Meth 
 odists, who are really such, always have been found to be among 
 the most thorough, constant, and energetic opponents to Slavery. 
 And we believe the day is not very distant, when men will arise 
 from among themselves, who will take the right ground on this 
 question, and who will put to silence and to shame those northern 
 ones, who so long have followed a wavering, inconsistent, and con 
 tradictory course. 
 
 The evil of Slavery must have been great in their estimation, to 
 have caused them to insert such an entire addition to rules which 
 had been the standard among Methodists from the beginning, and 
 which had been set forth by their founder as the moral code of 
 Christianity. But Slavery was a form of iniquity with which Meth 
 odism had never before come in collision ; and it required a new 
 and special rule to meet the emergency of the case, and to exclude 
 it from the new and rising community. And in this entire investi 
 gation, we should ever keep in view what was the object, the scope, 
 and design of this special,rule. This seems to have been almost wholly 
 overlooked. Many have regarded merely the words. It was not 
 specifically against the traffic, as it has been so strangely affirmed, 
 i or at that time, there was properly no such thing as the domestic 
 slave trade ; there was, indeed, the buying and selling of slaves in 
 the town or in the neighborhood, but the domestic slave trade did 
 not arise till thirty years after this till after the purchase of Louis 
 iana, in 1803. And further, in such transfers at that day, there was 
 nothing opprobrious in them. And in regard to the African slave 
 trade, who can believe that the few poor and God-fearing Methodists 
 of that period were so eager to join the marauders in Africa, that a 
 special rule was necessary to restrain them from it ? Nor was it 
 merely to " legalize slaveholding by inheritance." This is a new 
 
22 Constitution of the M. E. Church Non-Slaveholding. 
 
 invention to sustain a bad cause, and one that is really not worth 
 answering. Now, the object of this special rule was not for any of 
 these purposes, but, on the contrary, it was instituted as it is every 
 where expressed, " to extirpate " the Slavery that had crept in un 
 awares, and to exclude forever, hereafter, " this abomination," as 
 they then called Slavery from the precincts of the Methodist Epis 
 copal Church. 
 
 The organic law or constitution of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church, is said to be included in her articles of religion, general 
 rules, and restrictive regulations; and the several parts of these 
 are to be taken as a whole, a unit; and they are always to be inter 
 preted as in entire agreement with themselves. Or rather, the two 
 last, being derived from the first, are always to be construed in 
 agreement with the first ; and in all doubtful cases, in regard to their 
 true meaning, they are to be interpreted by the articles of religion, 
 and consequently, the holy scriptures, whence these articles are 
 derived ; for no one can suppose that our founders ever intended 
 to insert any thing in the general rules which they thought to be 
 contrary to the bible. And our articles of religion, which we thus 
 receive as the essential constitution of our Church, affirm, that " The 
 holy scriptures contain all things necessary to salvation : so that 
 whatever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to 
 be required of any man " so that the moral code of our Church is 
 never to be construed contrary to the holy scriptures, but always in 
 agreement with them. Consequently, the scriptures are to guide us 
 in the interpretation of the general rule. 
 
 "We now approach the main question. Does the constitution of 
 the Methodist Episcopal Church allow, under any circumstances, to 
 her members the practice of slaveholdingf Was it the mind or in 
 tention of our founders that slaveholders might be continued in the 
 Church, while they still retained their slaves? We have thus 
 stated the case fully and strongly, avoiding the mystifications of 
 exceptions and circumstances. And to this statement there can be 
 but two answers. We take the negative ; that the founders of our 
 Church never intended that Slavery, in any case, should be allowed 
 to exist within her sacred borders. 
 
 But here, before we attempt to prove our position, we must define 
 the terms employed in this investigation, or in other words, we wish 
 to show what Slavery is, and who is a slaveholder, This is very 
 necessary, for in no controversy has there been such an ocean of 
 mist and confusion as in the present one. Terms have been used so 
 vaguely, in such an indefinite sense, that good men have been fight 
 ing each other in the dark. John Wesley denominated Slavery to 
 be " execrable villainy:" again he says, "I strike at the root of this 
 complicated villainy, I absolutely deny all slaveholding to be con 
 sistent with any degree of natural justice." A disciple of his, Dr. 
 Fisk, speaks of it, on the contrary, as of a " present rightful author 
 ity," and Bishop Hedding has said that one " may hold a slave by 
 the golden rule." The first Methodists said, " That Slavery was 
 
Constitution of the M. E. Church Non-Sla/veholding . 23 
 
 contrary to the laws of God, man and nature ;" but many among 
 the modern ones affirm, that simple slaveholding should be no bar 
 to an admittance into the Church. Then again, we have many dis 
 tinctions ; " sinful and innocent Slavery," " voluntary and involun 
 tary, mercenary, and even benevolent slaveholding." 
 
 Now, all these positions cannot be true. Certainly, our language 
 is not so poor that it cannot afford us words through which we can 
 express our meaning. And as we seem to be called upon to fight 
 the battle of freedom over again, let us define our terms at once. 
 Truth discriminates; error confounds things. What then is Slavery, 
 and who, then, is a slaveholder? 
 
 Webster defines a slave to be U A person who is wholly subject to 
 the will of another ; one who has no freedom of actions, but whose 
 person and services are wholly under the control of another." This 
 is a good general definition. We will now give two legal ones of 
 Slavery, which, without any material variations, obtain throughout 
 the slaveholding States : "A slave is in the power of his master, to 
 whom he belongs. The master may sell him, dispose of his person, 
 his industry and labor. He can do nothing, possess nothing, nor 
 acquire any thing but what must belong to his master." This, 
 without any figure of speech, is the absorption of one human being 
 into another ; for if the slave have hands, they are not his own 
 his body is not his own. Indeed, in reference to the slave, his and 
 my are mere figures of speech. He can possess nothing. To use 
 himself for his own good, is a crime. To keep what he earns, is 
 stealing. To take the management of himself for himself, is insur 
 rection, and punishable with death. 
 
 The relation, per se, gives the right of entire property to the 
 master, to use the slave for his own exclusive benefit. He can task 
 him, let him, lease or sell him. The master is entitled by the rela 
 tion, to obedience without bounds, to the fruits of the slave s labor, 
 and even the children of his body. And the slave, on his part, is 
 subjected by this relation, in the words of southern law, " To 
 absolute obedience, respect without bounds, and a subordination not 
 susceptible of any modification or restriction. There must be no 
 appeal from the decision of the master" Consequently, every slave, 
 male or female, is obliged to obey every command, good or bad, and 
 to yield to every act of lust and power which the master may enjoin. 
 When all this is done, the relation is not abused, nor its legitimate 
 bounds transcended, but all this is done within its constitutional 
 limits. All these correlative rights and obligations are essential to 
 its very being. Take any of them away, and it ceases to be slavery. 
 There are those, no doubt, who do not claim all that Slavery gives 
 them, but while they sustain the relation, they are a part of the 
 whole system, and sustain others in claiming all that the system 
 allows. 
 
 The leading or essential attribute in the relation, is that G property 
 in a human being. This right of property, as one may easily see, 
 at once subverts every other relation which God has established 
 
24: Constitution of the M. E. Church Non-Slaveholding. 
 
 among human beings. It subverts the social, domestic, civil and 
 even religious relations, to wit : the slave s reputed wife is not his 
 own she belongs to another, her master, who owns her person 
 and without violating the relation in the least, can use her as he 
 pleases. The slave s children are not his own. In civil society he 
 is nobody ; but a thing. The relation requires him to render to his 
 master " absolute obedience, loithout modification or restriction" 
 Now,- without a figure or exaggeration, does not this put the master 
 in the place of God, as it regards the slave ? If, at any time, the 
 slave should obey God in opposition to his master, in this case he 
 violates the requirements of the relation, and if the master should 
 not require all the above, it is a mere concession on his part ; the 
 relation gives him the right. 
 
 Now, this is the Slavery and the relation which the venerable 
 founders of our Church declared to be contrary to the laws of God, 
 without regard to the modification of circumstances. And this is 
 the Slavery which exists at this hour, and ever must exist while it is 
 Slavery. A supposed "Slavery only in name, in which there is no 
 oppression, in which there is justice or righteousness," is an impossi 
 bility ; it is a misnomer, a contradiction. We might as well talk of 
 fire in which there is no heat of frost in which there is no coldness, 
 as to talk of Slavery in which there are no oppression and injustice. 
 
 How it is to be lamented that learned ministers, good brethren, 
 who love the cause of humanity, and the reputation of the Church 
 to which they belong, should use terms in such a sense which actu 
 ally gives the most efficient strength and permanancy to that very 
 system which they say they are trying to pull down. They talk of 
 Slavery under certain circumstances, which circumstances, accord 
 ing to their showing, at least in some cases, forms a condition which 
 is really no Slavery at all, but something of a different character, 
 partaking of the relation of guardian and ward, the protector and 
 the protected. Yet, the misapplication of these terms do immense 
 mischief. It was this, no doubt, which the good bishop meant, when 
 he said " one could hold a slave by the golden rule." Why then do 
 not these brethren use the words Slavery and slaveholder in their 
 grammatical and in their legal sense ? Why should they mislead 
 by this entire misapplication of terms, and give the infidel and 
 others, who understand the words in their legitimate sense, an occa 
 sion to spurn a religion, which, according to their showing, outrages 
 every principle of natural justice? The words Slavery and slave 
 holder are as capable of clear definitions as any other words in the 
 language. Why then do they not use them in their true and gram 
 matical meaning ? For the condition of guardian and ward is as 
 far from that of slave and slaveholder, as heaven is from hell. If 
 they mean the former, why not say so ? and if the latter, why should 
 they be offended to be called pro-slavery ? "For if these brethren 
 mean that a member of the Church can legally hold and use a 
 human being as a slave, and still continue in the Church, they are 
 certainly for Slavery, for its continuance, under present circum- 
 
Constitution of the M. E. Church Non-Slaveholdiny. 25 
 
 stances ; and pro-Slavery is certainly the most appropriate name to 
 designate those who hold such opinions. To say they are anti-sla 
 very, that is, merely opposed to Slavery, is not saying any thing 
 more than nineteen-twentieths of all the slaveholders in the land. 
 It is too general to mean any thing. A learned judge once said, 
 "he was always fearful of those witnesses who deal in generalities." 
 We have thus labored to define the terms which we use in this 
 investigation. We have dwelt on them for some time, from a full 
 conviction, that the misapplication of the terms Slavery, slave 
 holder, and the mystification of " certain circumstances," employed 
 by prominent men in our Church, have been more detrimental 
 to the cause of religion and of emancipation, than the most pro- 
 Slavery doctrines could possibly have been. The tree is known by 
 its fruits. What then has been the tendency of this indefiniteness ?- 
 
 1. It has nearly obliterated all the lines by which we were accustom 
 ed to designate the boundaries between justice and injustice. It has 
 diffused such a mist and haze over the whole subject of Slavery, and 
 the duties of Christians, and of slaveholders themselves, that almost 
 every thing in regard to duty has become uncertain. We seem to 
 grope as if we had no eyes. We are left as if we had no revelation 
 in this matter, and that every one is at liberty to infer his duty as he 
 pleases, or to define such justifying circumstances as will best suit him. 
 
 2. While all acknowledge and even bewail the evil of Slavery, 
 every one fancies himself within the " circumstances which free him 
 from the charge of any immorality in the matter." And thus it 
 turns out that there is not a slaveholder, from the most indulgent 
 master to the worst negro trader, or the veriest Legree, of Uncle 
 Tom celebrity, who cannot, by the misapplication of these terms, 
 persuade himself that he is within the limit of those justifying 
 circumstances, which these brethren, doctors and conferences say, 
 "clear him from any participation in sinful slaveholding." 
 
 3. It has transferred the blame from the individual to the State, 
 to the system, or at least to those who at first brought slaves to this 
 country. The present slaveholder, in his estimation, at this time, 
 can do nothing; and where there is no ability, there can be no blame. 
 So that while there is an enormous amount of sin, there is, at the same 
 time, no sinner. God s laws are violated, but no one is accountable 
 for it, unless it be the State, or the system ; and these are both im 
 personalities without conscience, and without a moral existence. 
 And thus God s word is made of no avail through their indefinite- 
 ness and vague generalities. 
 
 We return now to the examination of the general rule the moral 
 constitution of our Church on Slavery. And for the sake of order, 
 we will treat it philologically, ethically and historically. 
 
 At this point, let us again inquire more fully, what was the design 
 in making the rule at all ? It had some design. What was it to 
 have accomplished ? To understand the scope or design of a docu 
 ment, is almost to understand the whole of it. It is the clue to 
 
 3 
 
26 Constitution of the M. E. Church Non-Slaveholding. 
 
 unravel that which may be entangled ; or, it is like the main direc 
 tion to the traveler, who is surrounded by various and winding roads. 
 " The scope," one has \vell observed, " is the soul or spirit of a book 
 or document. And that being once ascertained, every argument 
 and word appears in its right place, and is perfectly intelligible; 
 but if the scope be not duly considered, every thing becomes 
 obscured, however clear and obvious its meaning may really be."* 
 
 What, then, was the design in originating the rule f It was not, 
 Certainly, to establish Slavery. For this could have been better 
 accomplished by saying nothing about it, as they do at the far South. 
 It was not, as was argued at the last general conference, to give 
 Methodists the " right to hold a slave by inheritance," for this plan 
 would appear very absurd and contradictory : to make provisions to 
 perpetuate it, and then to extirpate it at the same breath. Most 
 evidently, the whole scope and design -of the rule, was to abolish 
 the Slavery which had crept into the Church, and to exclude, 
 forever, its further introduction. This was the pith and purpose of 
 the rule. 
 
 The rule under consideration was special: it had never been in 
 Mr. Wesley s original ones. It was framed to meet a specific and 
 local case in our country ; an evil with which Methodism had never 
 before came in contact. And as it came from those who originated 
 It, it stands in the fifth edition of the discipline, printed 1789, and 
 reads thus: "The buying or selling the bodies and souls of men, 
 women or children, loit/i an intention to enslave them" In the 
 discipline of 1792, it reads, "The buying or selling of men, women 
 or children with an intention to enslave them." And in 1808, the 
 rule was mutilated and altered to the present reading : ." The buying 
 and selling of men, women and children with an intention to enslave 
 them." 13r. Robert Emory, in his History of the Discipline, say?, 
 "For this alteration (if, indeed, it be not a purely typographical 
 error) no authority is found in the journal of the general conference." 
 This, however, was no typographical error, as the veriest tyro of the 
 type can see. The mutilation of so short a sentence by the throwing 
 out of more than one-fifth of its words, and by the substitution of 
 two other words, of entirely different meaning, could never have 
 been such an error. 
 
 In its original and only authoritative form, the rule prohibited the 
 purchase of one single human being who was to be held in Slavery. 
 But in the latter and unauthorized form as it now stands, it does not 
 do this, at least not so clearly ; but it seems to be only the prohibi 
 tion of engaging in slave trading. And so the rule was construed 
 by some at the last general conference. At what time and by whom 
 this change was made we cannot tell. Certainly our founders could 
 not have done it. But this mutilation in favor of Slavery is only 
 one among the many encroachments which this dark spirit has been 
 making upon us for the last forty years, until our Church is now 
 .announced in open general conference to the disgrace of Christian- 
 
 *Horne : s Introd. 
 
Constitution of the M. E. Church Non-Slaveholding. 27 
 
 ity, the scorn of European Christians, and the contempt of the civil 
 ized world to be "constitutionally, historically and administratively, 
 a slaveholding Church." It is true the contradictory expletive, 
 " though anti-slavery," is often thrown in the same sentence, but 
 what it can mean in this connection, who can tell ? For how can a 
 religious, or any other community, be properly anti-slavery, in any 
 right sense of that word, who have retained Slavery among them 
 for seventy years ; who have increased the number of their slaves 
 frpm tens to tens of thousands ; who, while Slavery is going on in 
 full career, wish all, eyerywhere, to, let it alone ; and who will not 
 even require her members to give that which is just and equal to 
 their slaves ? While this is the practice, the mere avowal of anti- 
 slavery avails nothing in the estimation of any one, except those 
 only who seem to be deluding themselves by it. 
 
 The truth is, we have nearly, perhaps wholly spent the anti-sla 
 very capital which our fathers left us. That our Church was origi 
 nally anti-slavery, and that she is so still constitutionally, we will 
 soon endeavor to show ; but that she is now anti-slavery in her ad 
 ministration, or that she has been so for the last thirty-five years, 
 we positively deny. We say it in grief, but we believe -the ten 
 dency is rather in the other direction. Apologists for the continu 
 ance of Slavery " under present circumstances," are trying to take 
 advantage of their own wrong, trying to make one wrong the justifi 
 cation of another; because a former administration neglected to 
 enforce the rules against Slavery, that the present one may domicile 
 it, and plead " chartered rights" and "constitutional rights" to hold 
 slaves. 
 
 To talk of an " Anti-slavery Church," that has " constitutional 
 rights" to hold slaves is certainly confusion confounded. But where 
 are those " constitutional rights" to be found which are said to allow 
 Slavery in the Church ? In what book, discipline, or paper are 
 they to be seen * We deny their existence in toto. We will go be 
 hind the above avowals, and show that Slavery is not chartered, 
 even in the State. That even there the holding of slaves was an 
 unwarrantable assumption, alike unauthorized by any charter or 
 constitution of either God or man. 
 
 In the debate in the U. S. Senate, on the Fugitive Slave Bill, Mr. 
 Mason of Virginia, objected to the amendment of Mr. Dayton, pro 
 viding for a jury trial, because, said he: "If he means by this, that 
 proof shall be brought that Slavery is established by existing laws, 
 it is impossible to comply with the requisition. For no such law 
 can be produced, I apprehend, in any of the slave States. I am not 
 aware that there is a single State in which the institution is estab 
 lished by positive law." Now if the early Methodists had made 
 constitutional provision for Slavery, they would have been in ad 
 vance in iniquity of any of the old thirteen States. 
 
 Rights! what Rights! supreme in mischief. 
 If wrong give rights." 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE RULE CONSIDERED PHI LOLOGICALLY. 
 
 ENSLAVING ITS GRAMMATICAL MEANING RULE OF INTERPRETATION COR 
 ROBORATIVE EVIDENCE How IT WAS UNDERSTOOD BY OUR FOUNDERS ONLY 
 CONSISTENT VIEW OF THE RULE. 
 
 AGAIN we return to the exposition of the general rule. And in 
 this rule there is really but one prohibition, viz. : that of enslaving; 
 for the buying or the selling was not the real prohibition. They 
 were prohibitory, but only so in reference to the real design of the 
 rule, which was the enslaving, the holding of a human being in the 
 condition of a slave. This prohibition was, throughout the whole, 
 the very pith and purpose of the rule. 
 
 For if the member bought for the purpose of setting the slave at 
 liberty, the rule was not violated ; and as it was impossible to free a 
 slave by selling him, the same conference a little before prohibited 
 the sale of a slave " on any consideration." Now, all depends on 
 the meaning of the words " to enslave" This form of the verb 
 implies: first, either the commencement of an action; or, secondly, 
 the continuation of one already begun. In which sense did the 
 founders of our Church intend the words to be understood ? If i 
 the first, that is, to commence the action, then the rule only prohibits 
 the enslaving of those who are free ; and the proper terms in that 
 case would have been kidnapping, or taking by capture. 
 
 Then, to violate the rule in this sense, the member would be under 
 the necessity of joining a maurauding party in Africa, or, by kidnap 
 ping, must commit a crime for which the civil law would send him to 
 the penitentiary. It would not even prevent a church member from 
 engaging in the African slave trade ; for American traders in that 
 country almost always buy those who are already in a state of Sla 
 very. And again, there is an absurdity in forbidding one to buy or 
 sell a free man ; for, as such, he is incapable of being sold or purchas 
 ed ; being free, he is inalienable, until by capture or kidnapping he 
 is made a piece of merchandise. Who, then, can believe that the 
 founders of our Church ever intended the w r ords " to enslave " to be 
 understood in the above sense ? in the sense of commencing the 
 enslaving of a human being by capture or by kidnapping ? 
 
 If, then, they could not have meant them to be thus understood, 
 they must have used them in the only remaining sense : that is, to 
 continue the action already begun ; or to prohibit the holding as 
 
The Rule Considered Philologically. 29 
 
 slaves those who were already in that condition. This must evidently 
 have been their meaning. For enslaving in general, in every sense, 
 appears to have been the thing aimed at and prohibited by the 
 general rule. Then, according to this, Slavery was not to come into 
 the Church, nor to go out of the Church, and by fair implication 
 and construction, was not to have remained in the Church ; for the 
 sole object of the rule was directly and specifically against enslaving 
 against enslaving in every sense and in every situation. Hereditary 
 sTavery may be viewed as a running stream, the bitter waters of 
 which were not to flow into the holy temple, nor to issue from it, nor 
 to abide in it ; for our fathers would not have allowed in the Church 
 the same evil which they denounced out of it ; for this would be 
 claiming a monopoly of wickedness in their own community. 
 
 If the above rule would not allow a church member to hold one 
 as a slave for whom he had given, perhaps, 500, surely it was never 
 intended to allow the same member to hold one as a slave, born in 
 his house, for whom he had never paid one cent, and from whom he 
 had had already fifteen or twenty years of service for nothing. The 
 founders of our Church were neither casuists nor hair-splitters in 
 morals ; but on the contrary, they laid down broad principles, and 
 intended that their words should be understood in their plain and 
 most obvious sense. 
 
 The buying and selling is not really that which the rule prohibits. 
 "What is it, then? It is the intention to enslave. The intention 
 constitutes the praise or the blame, the guilt or the innocence. For 
 instance : I buy thus far there is no violation of the rule but I 
 intend to enslave, to hold the person whom I have bought as a slave. 
 Now, the rule is broken. I inherit a slave, with or without my 
 consent. I consider; I determine. I intend to hold the one inherited 
 as a slave. Now in this case, I break the law of the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church. A child is born in my house. John Wesley says, 
 Nature says, God says, that he is free. The whole is now with 
 me, for no State law can make me sin. I think and I intend to hold 
 this child as a slave. So that the words " to enslave," in the rule, 
 really means the holding of one as a slave. 
 
 The whole matter is simply this : the founders of the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church, by the rule in question, did most evidently intend 
 to exclude the little amount of Slavery that had crept in the Church, 
 and by it to keep out, unconditionally and forever, the introduction 
 of any more. That this was their intention, is acknowledged by 
 eminent men at the South, as has already been shown. The Eev. 
 Dr. Winans, in a letter now before me, says in so many words, "At 
 that period [the organization of the Church] the preachers were 
 practical abolitionists" And the Rev. Dr. W. A. Smith, in a speech 
 before the Virginia conference of 1844, says, " They founded it [the 
 Church] on pure abolition grounds." It is true these gentlemen 
 immediately affirm that this ground was abandoned, and a compromise 
 was entered into ; but whether it were a compromise or an encroach- 
 
30 The Rule Considered Philologically. 
 
 ment, their testimony, with a mass of other evidences, proves unequiv 
 ocally that slaveholding at first was not constitutionally in the Church. 
 
 Whether this rule was properly carried out or not, whether it had 
 been enforced for one month or for years, does not in any way, affect 
 or invalidate its constitutionality. It is further evident, that the first 
 preachers in executing the rule met with difficulties : it was a new 
 rule of membership ; the people were not fully informed ; they hes 
 itated ; after a while they suspended it, and although they never 
 repealed it, they never fully executed it. And this fact accounts for 
 the discrepancy between their sayings and doings. But the consti 
 tutional rule remained and does remain as at first. 
 
 In ascertaining the meaning of our general rule, we need only to 
 follow the most common rule in interpretation : " when in any ordi 
 nary composition, a passage occurs of doubtful meaning, the obvious 
 course of proceeding is, to examine what the author has said in 
 other parts of his work on the same subject ; to weigh well the force 
 of any particular expression he is accustomed to use ; and to inquire 
 what there might be in the occasion or circumstances under which 
 he wrote, tending to throw light on the immediate subject he had in 
 view." * 
 
 Following then this rule, let us see what the founders of our 
 Church have said in other places on the subject of Slavery, as 
 explanatory of their meaning of the general rule. 
 
 1. In the same year, seven months before the organization of our 
 Church, the conference held in Baltimore, said, " If they [the church 
 members] buy with no other design than to hold them as slaves, and 
 have been previously warned, they shall be expelled. And permit 
 ted to sell on no consideration." This quotation is valuable, as it 
 must fix their meaning of the words " to enslave " in the general 
 rule. The founders of our Church must certainly have used the 
 words " to enslave " and " to hold as slaves " synonymously, for they 
 were both directed against the same practice, at about the same time, 
 and in the same place. What then can be clearer ? 
 
 2. Again, in the year (1784), in which the Church was founded, 
 so far from " leaving slaveholding by inheritance untouched," as 
 was asserted in the last general conference, the 43d question reads : 
 
 " What shall be done with those who buy or sell slaves, or give 
 them away ?" Ans. " They shall be expelled immediately, unless 
 they buy on purpose to free them." 
 
 And further, at the same time, they instituted a series of rules for 
 the entire extirpation of the mere sprinkling of Slavery that had 
 crept into the Church. They preface these rules, thus : 
 
 " We, therefore, think it our bounden duty to take some effectual 
 method immediately to extirpate this abomination from among us." 
 
 Here then follow the rules. How absurd then to suppose while 
 our founders prohibited the buying and selling, that they intended 
 to allow " this abomination " by inheritance. The practice of which, 
 without limitations to persons or to circumstances, was that very 
 thing which they "abominated and abhorred." Now it would 
 * Home s Introduction. 
 
The Rule Considered Philologically. 31 
 
 certainly seem that these quotations must be sufficiently explanatory 
 of their meaning of the general rule. J3ut 
 
 3. In ITS 5, the next year after the adoption of the above rules, 
 the conference said, " We do hold in the deepest abhorrence the 
 practice of Slavery, and shall not cease to seek its destruction by all 
 wise and prudent means." Here is no Slavery in the abstract ; here 
 are no incomprehensible distinctions between Slavery and slave- 
 holding under certain circumstances, between holding by purchase, 
 by bequest, or by inheritance. 
 
 The manner of coming into the possession of a slave, could not, 
 with them, alter the nature of Slavery, nor the intention to enslave 
 him. How can slaveholding be contrary to the laws of God, in the 
 case of a worldly man, and allowable in that of a church member? 
 If it is a crime in the one case, is it not equally so in the other ? 
 
 4. Why was there such a great moral difference between the 
 buying and the selling of a slave, that, on account of the latter, the 
 member was to be expelled immediately ? If the slave, before the 
 sale had been held in the same servile condition by the church 
 member, that he would be after the sale, what great moral evil did 
 the one who sold Jiim commit by transferring to another that same 
 power which he himself had been before practicing? It was Sla 
 very in both cases, and the injury to the slave was the same, whether 
 it were inflicted by a saint or a sinner. 
 
 N-ow. the only rational answer that can be given to these inquiries 
 is, that while the slave was with the church members, he was not to 
 be held as a slave. He was to be treated as a being who had rights, 
 and not as a slave. It is really preposterous for the apologists of the 
 present day to assert that Slavery was constitutionally domiciled in 
 our Church at her organization. It is an arrogant assumption, un- 
 sustained by the history and the testimony of those times. Twenty- 
 five years ago, F. T. Keys, Esq., late of Washington City, and highly 
 commended in the African Repository, and who stated no doubt 
 from his own personal knowledge, thus wrote : "The Methodists 
 formerly denounced Slavery in general terms, as it is now [1836], at 
 the .North. They were not allowed by their discipline to continue 
 in the Church if they purchased and held slaves. If a member 
 purchased a slave, no matter under what circumstances, the matter 
 was brought before the monthly conference, and it was there deter 
 mined how many years service at the usual rate of hire, would reim 
 burse the advance of the master. And he was no longer to be a 
 slave, but a servant for that time." 
 
 5. And yet other reasons show that the words " to enslave," of the 
 general rule were intended to be understood synonymously with the 
 "holding as a slave," may be easily inferred in many ways. Take 
 the following: 1. How absurd to denounce out of the Church the 
 very practice which is said to have been lawful in it. In the former, 
 it was contrary to the laws of God, an abomination, a disgrace to 
 the species, contrary to conscience and the golden rule. But if it 
 was in the latter, in the Church and by inheritance, then, according 
 
32 The Rule Considered Philologically. 
 
 to these modern constitutional expounders, the " slaveholdiug was 
 allowed by the general rule, the organic law of the Church," and 
 consequently freed the holder from blame. 2. This would really 
 seem like creating a monopoly of Slavery, or an " abomination " in 
 the Church. And instead of making it the means of " spreading 
 bible holiness through the land," it would be, on the contrary, 
 making the Church a cage for this unclean and hateful bird in which 
 to nestle. It would really be making the Church an asylum and a 
 resting-place for Slavery, in which it could multiply and abide 
 forever. 3. And again, according to the preceding exposition, 
 there was an immense difference betw r een the condition of one who 
 was purchased and one who was inherited. The former was to be 
 placed in the relation of servant or ward, and to receive wages, or 
 that which was just and equal for his ransom. But not so the latter. 
 According to the above authorities, the condition of the one who 
 was born in his master s house, and to whom he had given already 
 ten or twenty years hard service for nothing, was to remain un 
 touched, and he and his children after him were- to be transmitted 
 interminably to the fangs of Slavery. 
 
 And this seems really to be about the views of some Southern 
 Methodists. The Rev. J. A. Collins objected to the report of the 
 last general conference on Slavery, on the ground that it was con 
 trary to the constitution, or the general rules of the Church. He 
 says ; The third answer in the proposed rule provides for giving 
 them (the slaves), such compensation as shall be just and equal, 
 and for their proper treatment. That, (says he), makes a new test. 
 It changes entirely the relation of master and slave. It makes the 
 slave a free man. (Amen, said several.) I am glad you say amen, 
 it gives your endorsement of what I say. I say then, this passage 
 does, in effect, make non-slaveholding a test of membership in our 
 Church." 
 
 What a declaration is this ! So then the positive commandment 
 of God to " give that which is just and equal," is to be set aside, as 
 if of secondary importance, because, according to this false inter 
 pretation, it would conflict with an ecclesiastical rule in making a 
 new test of membership. And thus implying that our founders 
 allowed that members might remain in the Church who did not give 
 that which was just and equal, according to God s word. And 
 further, that they might abrogate the scriptural rule, to establish 
 their own rule, while at the same time, they say that all their rules 
 " are taught in God s written word, which Is the only and sufficient 
 rule of faith and practice." Into what absurdities does this dogma 
 of constitutional slaveholding drive its abettors. 
 
 Now, where is the person under heaven, not blinded by Slavery, 
 who can bring himself to believe that these holy men who framed 
 our rules on Slavery, and who fastened the rule constitutionally 
 upon the Church, ever intended that any such construction shoul d 
 be put upon it? That while they were preaching against Slavery, 
 writing against it, circulating tracts against it, and petitioning for its 
 
The Rule Considered Philologically. 33 
 
 abolishment, that they were, at the same moment, so contradictory 
 in their course, or so indifferent about it, or so in love with it, that 
 they actually made constitutional provisions for its continuance, and 
 so fastened it upon the Church, that future Methodists should not be 
 able to shut it out, unless they unsettled the whole frame work of 
 our ecclesiastical establishment ? 
 
 Or who can believe that our fathers intended that their rule 
 should be thus construed in opposition t;o God s word, so that Meth 
 odists might be absolved from obeying the most obvious demands of 
 justice ? All these suppositions would be equal in atrocity to the 
 dispensing power of the papacy, setting their rule above the com 
 mon law of heaven, and making God s law of no effect through 
 their ecclesiastical constitution. 
 
 And these are only a few of the absurdities into which this teach 
 ing of constitutional slaveholding must necessarily lead us. 
 
 Now w r hat is said in opposition to this array of evidence ? 1. "That 
 Slavery has always been in the Church." But it has never been 
 legalized there; its*continuance has ever been under the strongest 
 protest ; efforts from the beginning have been put forth to extirpate 
 it ; it was wrong that our rules had not been enforced against it 
 years ago. But those who committed the wrong are not authorised 
 to take advantage of this, their own wrong, and justify the continu 
 ance of it at this day. This would be like arguing in a circle, mak 
 ing one wrong the reason for committing another one. 
 
 Again it is said that Slavery is allowed by implication, thus : 
 " That the general rule by prohibiting the buying and selling, and 
 not at the same time prohibiting the holding of slaves, does 
 thereby authorize slaveholding!" To which we reply: 1. The 
 highest judicial authroity in all countries, including our own until 
 very recently, have long since decided, "That Slavery can only 
 exist by positive enactment and is never to be inferred." Thus 
 says the U. S. Supreme Court, 2 Cranch. p. 390: "That where 
 rights are infringed, fundamental principles are overthrown, where 
 the general system of laws is departed from, the legislative inten 
 tion must be expressed with irresistdble clearness." Is Slavery thus 
 expressed in the general rule ? 
 
 2. But Slavery is not in the rule even by implication. In Slavery 
 there are many incidents besides holding slaves, such as *Bp. As- 
 bury mentions, "the cutting, skinning and starving of slaves." Now 
 we have just as much reason to say that these are allowed in the 
 rule by implication as we have that holding is allowed there. But 
 3. To the new doctrine dragged in. to sustain Slavery, viz. : " That 
 what the rule does not prohibit it allows." The general rule on 
 profaning the Sabbath forbids working, buying, selling ; but at the 
 same time it does not forbid sporting, hunting, fishing does it there 
 by authorize these ? In conclusion, we say that the above sporting, 
 <fec., are authorized by our general rule in precisely the same way 
 and to the same extent that Slaveholding is authorized. 
 
 * Journal, vol. 2. p. 273. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE RULE CONSIDERED ETHICALLY OR MORALLY. 
 
 ARTICLES OF RELIGION A PART OF THE CONSTITUTION OF OUR CHURCH No 
 ECCLESIASTICAL RULE TO BE INTERPRETED IN OPPOSITION TO THEM No 
 
 NEED OF A CHANGE IN THE GENERAL RULES TO EXCLUDE SLAVERY THE 
 
 REQUISITION FOR IT is ALREADY IN THE CONSTITUTION SLAVERY FORBIDDEN 
 
 IN DETAIL So UNDERSTOOD BY OUR FOUNDERS No SPECIAL LAW IN THE 
 
 BIBLE TO SUSTAIN SLAVERY THE LAW OF RECIPROCITY APPLIES TO SLAVES 
 WHAT CHRISTIANITY TEACHES IN THE PREMISES. 
 
 WE have already examined the general rule on Slavery, philo- 
 logically. "We shall now examine ifc ethically, or perhaps more 
 properly, according to scripture morality. As it has been already 
 stated, the constitution of our Church is comprised in her articles 
 of religion, general rules and restrictive regulations. The first is 
 certainly a part of the constitution of our Church, and indeed it is 
 the principal part. And consequently in every right interpretation, 
 the three are to be taken together as a unit. And if at any time 
 a clause is doubtful in either of the two, they must always be con 
 strued in agreement with the first ; for it is most certain that our 
 founders never intended that anything should be in the general 
 rules contrary to our articles of religion, and consequently to the 
 scriptures. 
 
 In regard to these general rules, our Church says, " all of which 
 we are taught of God in his written word, which is the only rule, 
 and sufficient rule of faith and practice." Here, nothing can be 
 more evident, than that our fathers intended that their ecclesiastical 
 rules should be construed by the scriptures the only and sufficient 
 rule. But where do the scriptures allow the enslaving of a human 
 being? Nowhere. Who then can believe that it was their in 
 tention to domicile Slavery in the Church by the general rules? 
 And in all this controversy it is what our founders intended, which 
 alone is of ecclesiastical authority. 
 
 It is very remarkable that when the constitutionality of slave- 
 holding by inheritance and otherwise, was so long under discussion 
 in the last general conference, that there was no reference to its con 
 stitutionality in,view of our articles of religion ; but that on the con 
 trary, the whole was argued and passed upon as if there were no 
 such article in existence, or that, in this matter, they had no author 
 ity in determining the meaning of the rule on Slavery, when, in the 
 conclusion to these very rules, it is affirmed " that all [these rules] 
 
The Rule Considered Ethically or Morally. 35 
 
 we are taught of God in his written word." But now there is 
 nothing more natural and consistent than, that where a clause is 
 doubtful in any document, that we should go immediately to the 
 original from which that document is derived, and see what it says 
 upon the doubtful point. So then in this case. Our moral code is 
 derived from the scriptures. But-where do the scriptures allow the 
 hereditary and interminable enslavement of a human being ? And 
 it should ever be remembered, that for the allowance of Slavery 
 there should be always and everywhere a positive precept ; for Sla 
 very being an unnatural state of humanity, always requires positive 
 law for its existence. The judges of Europe and all our judges in 
 this country, until very recently, have decided thus, " that the estab 
 lishment of Slavery in every case requires positive law for its ex 
 istence, and that it is never to be assumed, or to be received by 
 implication or construction." Xow the same doctrine must obtain, 
 in regard to our discipline. Such a relation as that of master and 
 slave, so abhorrent to nature, and so incongruous to the spirit and 
 genius of religion, certainly requires positive ecclesiastical enactment 
 for its existence. We never should, we never will, allow its legal or 
 constitutional existence among us by inference byjmplication or 
 by construction. We should hold it, as civil judges do in other coun 
 tries, to the very letter of the law. We mast have positive enact 
 ment for it. And it certainly exhibits rather a very, low estimate 
 of its horrid character, in the opinion of so many of our chief minis 
 ters, that it should be allowed for one moment a place among those 
 things which may be proved by construction. But in the present case 
 we can afford to be liberal, and then disprove its lawfulness among us 
 in any way. But still those who plead, and those who apologize 
 for the continuance of Slavery in the Church, are bound by every 
 rule in law or propriety, to substantiate their claim by positive en 
 actment, in the Bible or in the discipline. 
 
 The Rev. J. A. Collins of Baltimore, iu the last general confer 
 ence, argues thus. "If it (Slavery) were an open question, you 
 would find me in the right place and labouring at the strong oar." 
 And again "It is argued that Christianity is hostile to Slavery. 
 Suppose we admit it ; we lose nothing by the admission." But we 
 think far otherwise ; for as we have shown, the moral code of our 
 Church and Christianity or the scriptures are one, and the former 
 is always to be construed in agreement with the latter. And in 
 fixing the true meaning of a disputed clause in the general rule, we 
 must allow that the scriptural character of Slavery is an open 
 question, at least so far as. to determine what is the meaning of the 
 rule in the discipline. And that if Christianity is hostile to Slavery, 
 the general rule must be equally hostile to it, for our fathers cer 
 tainly never could have intended that there should be one plank 
 more or less in the latter that there was not in the former. 
 
 Thus " Christianity is hostile to Slavery." The rule on Slavery 
 is in perfect agreement with Christianity ; therefore the rule is hostile 
 to Slavery to the same extent. Things which agree with one and 
 
36 The Rule Considered Ethically or Morally. 
 
 the same thing must also agree with each other. Into what palpable 
 absurdities then would the converse of this interpretation drive us ? 
 
 The same eloquent leader of the South, in meeting the argument, 
 that the general rules were not altered, when the Church required 
 as a test of membership, baptism and confession of faith, thus ar 
 gues "We have a constitution. One of our disciplinary rules 
 teaches the necessity of baptism before admission into the Methodist 
 Episcopal church, and another makes a profession of faith, and these 
 are simply a carrying out of the constitution. I submit that these 
 objections do not hold in this case. [Slavery?] There was no ne 
 cessity for changing the general rule for baptism and a confession 
 of faith before admission into our societies, because the requisitions 
 were in the constitution." This reasoning, in reference to baptism 
 and confession of faith is very good. 
 
 And now I purpose to prove by the same kind of argument, that 
 non-si aveholding, whether by inheritance or otherwise, should be 
 equally made a test of membership with the two former, "because 
 the requisition " for it is already in the constitution of the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church. For the same scriptures which are recognized 
 by the constitution of our Church, do require non-slaveholding as a 
 test of membership, even more explicitly, more fully, and more au 
 thoritatively, than either or both of the other formulas ; all of which 
 must appear evident, thus : the essential property of slaveholding 
 is a right of property in man ; the absolute subjection of one will 
 to another, the right to compel work without wages, and all the rest. 
 Now every element of which this compound is made up, is con 
 demned by the scriptures, the recognized constitution of the Method 
 ist Episcopal Church, in the most thorough, the most frequent, and 
 in the most authoritative manner, viz : 
 
 "Thou shalt not pervert the judgment of the stranger nor of the 
 fatherless." Deut. xxiv. 17. "Woe unto him that buildeth his house 
 by unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong; that useth his 
 neighbor s service without wages and giveth him not for his work." 
 Jer. xxii. 13. "Therefore, all things whatsoever ye would that men 
 should do unto you, do you even so to them, for this is the law and 
 the prophets." Mat, vii. 12. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy 
 self. Mat. xix. 19. Behold the hire of the laborers, who have reaped 
 down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth : and 
 the cries of them which have reaped, are entered into the ears of 
 the Lord of Sabaoth." James v. 4. 
 
 Now these, and a multitude of other quotations which might have 
 been transcribed, comprise the common law of God s moral govern 
 ment. They were always kept before the people, and will be in 
 force to the end of time. They are repeated almost every where 
 from Moses to the Apostle James. They are not local nor sectional ; 
 they belong to the whole family of man, and to every individual in 
 that family, irrespective of nation, color or condition. They are as 
 applicable to the poor slave in the rice swamp of South Carolina, or 
 on the cotton field of Mississippi as to any other individual on God s 
 earth. 
 
The Rule Considered Ethically or Morally. 37 
 
 Now, therefore, is not the Christian Church of every name, under 
 as high an obligation, to carry out and enforce the plainest, the most 
 obvious commandments of moral right and common honesty, as it is 
 to require the observance of even the essential forms of Christianity ? 
 Or, in other words ; as baptism and confession of faith are essential 
 parts of Christianity, they should therefore be observed and avowed, 
 as tests of membership. So, also, as tt<w-slaveholding, (which is in 
 itself, simply the " giving of that which is just and equal" to all men, 
 and which is only the observing and the keeping of the common 
 law of God, and which common law is an essential part of Christi 
 anity), so, therefore, non-slaveholding, together with baptism and 
 confession should be made a test of Church membership, without 
 any alteration of the general rule ; because the requisition for it is 
 already in the moral constitution of our Church. If we pay the 
 tithe of mint and cumin, we should not omit the weightier matters 
 of the law judgment, mercy and faith. But to prove the rightful- 
 ness of non-slaveholding is like trying to prove the truth of an axiom. 
 
 And this was most evidently the view which was entertained on 
 this subject, by the founders of onr Church, who in express terms 
 say.* "We are deeply conscious of the impropriety of making new 
 terms of communion for a religious society already established, 
 except on the most pressing occasion ; and such we esteem the prac 
 tice of holding our fellow creatures in slavery. We view it as 
 contrary to the golden law of God on which hangs all the law and 
 the prophets," and we may add the general rules, the moral code 
 of our Church. And so they immediately set about making the 
 latter to conform with the former. 
 
 They called this a new term of membership; but according to 
 their reasoning it was an old one, as old as the golden law of God, 
 on which our general rule on Slavery was founded. In reality it 
 was a new application of an old rule, to keep out of the Church an 
 evil with which Methodism had never before come into collision. 
 And " the occasion was so pressing" that they could not for a mo 
 ment hesitate to enforce it ; that is, the moral law of God must be 
 enforced, although it should set aside all their former ecclesiastical 
 canons, and oblige them to begin anew, on a basis that was in agree 
 ment with God s written word. Unlike the reasons at the late gene 
 ral conference, as soon as they saw that Slavery was hostile to Chris 
 tianity, they immediately made the ecclesiastical rule conform to 
 the moral obligations of Christianity, even to the immediate rejec 
 tion of their former rules. This was only a plain common sense 
 course, and such a one, as every Church, professing Christianity is 
 bound to pursue. It is worse than mere folly, it is deistical, or 
 atheistical to interpret the claims of morality without a reference 
 to the Bible. Where would this lead us ? To Infidelity, or directly 
 to Romanism, setting up ecclesiastial law above the Divine laws. 
 Both these forms of error, together with the advocacy, or the defense 
 of Slavery under any circumstances, alike set up their respective 
 dogmas rather than the Bible as their standard of moral action. 
 *His. Discipline, p. 43. 
 
38 The Rule Considered Ethically or Morally. 
 
 EVERT ELEMENT OF SLAVERY FORBIDDEN IN DETAIL. But after 
 all an objector may say, "that the general rule does not prohibit 
 slaveholding, nor do the scriptures themselves forbid it in express 
 terms." The same may be said of many other sins of a com 
 pounded character, as of war, gambling, suicide, and many others. 
 But observe, every element of which these are made up, and Slavery 
 among them, is condemned in the Bible often and repeatedly, in the 
 most solemn and authoritative manner. Suppose a physician after 
 a minute examination should say that every limb and organ of the 
 patient was diseased, that from the sole of the foot to the crown of 
 his head there was no soundness in him, but that he was full of 
 wounds and sores. What would we think of one who, after all this, 
 would affirm, that the man was not sick, because the physician had 
 not said, in express terms that he was sick? But the physican has 
 said, that he w r as sick, far more thoroughly in his detailed account 
 of him, than he could possibly have done by the use of any two or 
 more express terms. And so it is of Slavery in every case. For 
 every element of which it is made up, is condemned in detail, in the 
 scriptures in the most emphatic and alarming manner. There is not 
 one item in this God-dishonoring compound, that is not denounced 
 under the most tremendous penalties. 
 
 Finally, if these objectors will not believe what Moses and the 
 prophets, what Christ and his apostles have said against injustice, 
 extortion, and consequently against Slavery, they would not believe, 
 if one were to rise from the dead and tell them in express terms that 
 slaveholding is sinful. 
 
 No SPECIAL LAW TO SUSTAIN SLAVERY. But another objector 
 may ask Is there not a special law between master and slave, 
 apart from the common law of reciprocity between other men, 
 which makes it obligatory on the slave to work without wages ; and 
 which, consequently, confers on the master a moral right to require 
 it ; and which, also, allows the Church to sanction and to continue 
 this practice? We emphatically say, No; there is no such law. If 
 there is, slaveholders and their apologists are bound to present it. 
 Where is it to be found ? By whom was it given ? And when and 
 where did God change the common law of Heaven in favor of the 
 slaveholder and against the slave ? 
 
 It is true that in the New Testament, God requires the Christian 
 slave to serve his heathen master ; not that the latter has any right 
 to the service, for there is not the least intimation of such a right on 
 his part. But that the service from the slave should be rendered 
 for a specific purpose, "that the name of God or his gospel.be not 
 blasphemed;" that it should not be spoken against by the heathen 
 master, who as yet had no correct idea of Christian morality, and who 
 was not yet, in his present state of ignorance, prepared to act upon 
 its holy principles. And further, it was certainly intended that this 
 unbounded generosity on the part of the slave should be the means of 
 melting down his master, by contrasting it with his own sordid covet- 
 ousness, and this way to induce him finally to give liberty to the slave. 
 
The Rule Considered Ethically or Morally. 39 
 
 The whole requirement of the slave s service was on the prin 
 ciple of "turning the other cheek," the doing of good for evil. 
 But this was no more of an acknowledgement that it was right for 
 the master to receive it without compensation, than that the per 
 secutor had a right to give the blow because the Christian was to 
 turn the other cheek. 
 
 But it should be observed that this specific purpose was not re 
 quired of those who had "believing masters," as we have already 
 shown, for there was no need of it, the masters being already 
 Christians. Another class of duties was assigned to them, and such 
 a class too as was really inconsistent with the existence of the rela 
 tion of master and slave. I. Tim. vi 2. 
 
 The enormous error, that God has somehow or somewhere, under 
 " certain circumstances," repealed the common law of his govern 
 ment, or made the slave an exception to it ; and that, at the same 
 time, he has released the master from the golden rule of reciprocity, 
 seems to underlie all the reasonings in the north and south, of 
 those who plead for the continuance of Slavery in the Church. They 
 readily acknowledge that free men, or men in general, are entitled 
 to the^ benefits of God s common law, but they seem strangely to 
 think that the slave is not entitled to it. 
 
 Xow there was a time when every slave, or the ancestors of every 
 slave, in our country was free, and according to universal concession 
 they were at that time entitled to all the benefits of this law, in com 
 mon with the entire race of man. But according to the above error, 
 whenever the captor or the kidnapper shall have knocked down a 
 free man. and shall have made him a slave, then, because he is a 
 -lave, God withdraws his usual protection from him, places him be 
 yond the pale of his common law, and thus allows the kidnapper 
 who has committed one stupendous wrong upon him, to take the 
 advantage of this, his own wrong, and then to compel this captured 
 man and all his posterity, to work for him, or his assigns, intermin 
 ably without wages. And again, because this poor slave is now a 
 slave, he is to serve with fear and trembling, not merely in obedience 
 to God on the principle of doing good for evil, but because there is 
 a moral right vested in this kidnapper, arising out of his relation to 
 him as his slave ; and then again, to facilitate and legalize the whole 
 business, God releases this kidnapper, and all other slaveholders, from 
 giving to this poor, injured slave "that which is just and equal." 
 And then again, to divinely sanction the whole, the Church refuses 
 to him the ordinary rights of membership, and places him under 
 the unwritten code of Slavery, which dooms him and his posterity 
 to hopeless bondage. 
 
 Xow these are only a few of the results which would arise out of 
 the supposition that "God has abrogated his laws against the slave, 
 and that he has instituted special ones to uphold Slavery. Into what 
 palpable absurdities will the plea for the continuance of Slavery, 
 under certain circumstances, drive us i 
 
40 The Rule Considered Ethically or Morally. 
 
 But no interpretation of scripture can be the right one, which 
 violates the fundamental principles of morality ; principles which 
 are so often repeated, and which are so universally enforced through 
 out the entire scriptures. But the requirements of slaveholding are 
 continually violating these fundamental principles, and must forever 
 violate them while it exists. 
 
 Finally, the Bible, as a book of principles. It teaches 
 
 1. The parental unity of the human race. 
 
 2. The equality of right among all God s creatures. Not the 
 equality of condition, for no two things are alike, but the equality 
 of right, which by the order of God belongs to every individual. 
 That is, if one is born with but half sight, he should have the right 
 of making the best use of his half, that others have of using their 
 whole sight. 
 
 3 That no condition but crime, as John Wesley affirms, can ever 
 deprive any human being of this right. It is in him, and it inures to 
 him as essentially and as universally as extension and ponderosity 
 belong to a stone. No compact of state or country can deprive him 
 of it. 
 
 4. That this law of God is universal in its claims. It knows 
 nothing of state lines or geographical limits. It holds that it is as 
 wrong to make a man work* without wages on the Mississippi as it 
 is on the Hudson. This law has no class legislation in it. It has 
 not in it one for the master and another for the slave. And finally, 
 it is as immutable as God its author. Thus it is beautifully set forth 
 by Mr. Wesley. " The law of God is a copy of the eternal mind, 
 a transcript of the divine nature : yea, it is the fairest offspring of 
 the everlasting Father, the brightest efflux of his essential wisdom, 
 the visible beauty of the most High." And, thank heaven, this law 
 is as much for the poor slave as it is for any creature in God s crea 
 tion, and consequently they who deprive him of its benefits, must 
 answer for it to his God at the great assizes. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE RULE CONSIDERED HISTORICALLY. 
 
 HISTORICAL CIRCUMSTANCES NECESSARY TO A RIGHT EXPOSITION SPIRIT OF 
 
 THE TlMES WHEN THE RULE WAS INSTITUTED PRINCIPLES OF FREEDOM 
 
 PREDOMINANT* CONGRESS OF 1774 STATESMEN JEFFERSON VIRGINIA 
 GEORGIA PRESBYTERIANS BAPTISTS IF THE METHODISTS HAD TOLE 
 RATED SLAVERY THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN BEHIND ALL OTHERS. 
 
 As has been promised, we will consult the history of the times 
 when the rule on Slavery was originated, and see what light it af 
 fords in fixing its true meaning. Like the doctrines of the holy 
 scriptures, the meaning of the rule in question does not wholly de 
 pend on the criticism of points and particles in grammar. There is 
 a great amount of historical, internal and collateral evidence to sub 
 stantiate the exposition which we have given of it. Historical cir 
 cumstances are always a great help, and sometimes absolutely ne 
 cessary to a correct understanding of an author, or a document. To 
 give a right interpretation, one should be well acquainted with the 
 occasion which gave rise to the writing. What was the design of 
 the author in setting it forth ? What was to be accomplished by it ? 
 And if a law or rute, what duty was to have been enforced ? Or 
 what evil was to have been avoided ? Indeed, the design should 
 not only be well considered and known, but also the animus, the 
 public spirit which pervaded the community at the time the rule or 
 law was enacted. Not following this rule of interpretation, and not 
 considering the spirit and the history of the period in which the rule 
 in question was formed, many brethren have committed egregious 
 mistakes in their construction of our general rule. They seem to 
 have interpreted the language of our fathers, two generations back 
 or more than seventy years ago, who were surrounded by an at 
 mosphere, at once pure and exhilarant with the spirit of universal 
 liberty, by the general sentiment of the present times, which has 
 been most unhappily poisoned by the miasmal influences of a sel 
 fish and money-loving age. It is to be feared that these brethren 
 had not the spirit of their fathers, and consequently were unable 
 rightly to interpret their real meaning. 
 
 Methodism commenced her glorious career in our country on the 
 eve of our Revolution. At a time when the principles of civil 
 liberty was stirring up the whole nation, when there was an unusual 
 outcry against tyranny and oppression of every kind. And, al- 
 
 4 
 
42 The Rule Considered Historically. 
 
 though, the poof slave was not considered as he should have been, 
 for he should have been set free at once, yet the reflective influences 
 ; upon him were neither few nor inconsiderable. For while the 
 Colonists were struggling to assert their own rights, it was impossi- 
 3>le for them, not to contrast the claims of the slave with those of 
 : their own. 
 
 There never was a more propitious field for religious cultivation 
 than tliat which our country presented at the organization of our 
 Church. The whole land was before them unincumbered, and at 
 the South almost unoccupied. The ecclesiastical burdens and semi- 
 pagan establishments of the old world, either had not been founded, 
 or they had been swept away by the Revolution. The field every 
 where was already white for the harvest. 
 
 We .boast, -and very justly too, of what great things God has done 
 through the agency of the Methodists in the United States, but I 
 &ave no doubt the future historian of our Church, will tell what 
 greater achievements might have been accomplished, had our 
 Church persisted, as she began, in preaching a full and unrestrained 
 gospel had she continued as in the apostolic times, to place both 
 master and slave under the same ecclesiastical rule, or even if she 
 had only carried out the requisition of the conference of 1787, " to 
 exercise among them (the slaves) the whole Methodist discipline." 
 
 The former state of public opinion on the slave question ought to 
 be more fully known. It would enable us to comprehend the spirit 
 which animated our fathers, and consequently help us the better to 
 interpret the real, meaning of their words. We will present a few 
 proofs on this point drawn from the public documents of our coun 
 try, which were put forth about the time of the organization of our 
 Church. 
 
 In the First General Congress of the Colonies in Philadelphia, 
 1774, in asserting the rights of British America, Thomas Jefferson, 
 laid before them a paper from which the following is an extract : 
 
 " The abolition of domestic Slavery is the greatest object of desire 
 in these Colonies, where it was unhappily introduced in their infant 
 State. But previous to the enfranchisement of the slaves, it is ne 
 cessary to exclude further importations from Africa. Yet our re 
 peated attempts to effect this have been defeated by his majesty s 
 negative." 
 
 The Virginia Convention about the same time adopted the follow 
 ing resolution : 
 
 u Resolved, We will neither ourselves import, nor purchase any 
 slaves imported by any other person, after the first day of Novem 
 ber next." 
 
 Most of the Colonies accorded most heartily to this resolution ; 
 and the representatives of Darien in the Colony of Georgia, said : 
 
 u To show the world that we are not influenced by any interested 
 motives, but by general philanthropy for all mankind of what ever 
 climate, language, or complexion, we hereby declare our disappro 
 bation and abhorrence to the unnatural practice of Slavery in 
 America." 
 
The Rule Considered Historically. 43 
 
 And again, the Continental Congress in 1779, ordered a pamph 
 let to be published, entitled, "Observations on the American Revo 
 lution" of which the following is an extract : 
 
 " The great principle (of government) is, and ever will remain in 
 force, that men are by nature free, as accountable to Him who made 
 them. They must be so for so long as we have any idea of Divine 
 justice, we must associate that of human freedom it is conceded on all 
 hands that the right to be free can never be alienated." Again, 
 about this time, Mr. Jefferson wrote his Notes on Yirginia, through- 
 out which he denounces Slavery, and has transmitted to us the abo 
 lition feeling which was every where rising in his day. 
 
 " I think," he says, " a change is already perceptible since the origin 
 of the present Revolution. The spirit of the master is abating, that 
 of the slave is rising from the dust, his condition is modifying, and 
 the way I hope, is preparing, under the auspices of heaven, for a 
 total emancipation" In most of the States there were Abolition 
 societies at this time; at the head of which was Benjamin Franklin. 
 
 The testimony for the abolition of human Slavery, about the 
 time that our Church was founded, from men high in office and 
 out of office, was so abundant that we could fill books with mere 
 extracts from their writings. We will close, however, this item in 
 our argument by an extract from the speech of Mr. Leigh, in the 
 Yirginia Convention of 1832 : 
 
 " I thought till lately," he said, " that it was known to every body 
 that, during the Revolution, and for many years after, the abolition 
 of Slavery was a favorite topic with many of our ablest statesmen, 
 who entertained with respect all the schemes for its accomplishment." 
 
 But it was not only the testimony of statesmen and political bodies 
 which were put forth, but also that of nearly all the ecclesiastical 
 ones of that day. In 1794:, the General Assembly of the Presbyte 
 rian Church added a note to the 142d question in the Larger Cate 
 chism in the Confession of Faith, which reads as follows : 
 
 I. Tim. i. 10 " The law is made for man-stealers" Then the 
 Catechism explains. " This crime, among the Jews, exposed the 
 perpetrator of it to capital punishment, (Exodus xxi. 16); and the 
 Apostle here classes them with sinners of the first rank. The word 
 he uses, in its original import, comprehends all who are concerned 
 in bringing any of the human race into slavery, or retaining them 
 in it. Ilominum fures, qui servos, vel libros abducunt, retinent, 
 vendunt, vel emunt. Stealers of men are those who bring off slaves 
 or freemen, and keep, sell or ~buy them? To steal a freeman, says 
 Grotius, is the highest kind of theft. In other instances we steal 
 only human property, but when we steal or retain men in slavery, 
 we seize those who, in common with ourselves, are constituted by 
 the original grant lords of the earth." This was a noble testimony 
 and covered the whole ground. And the Baptists of that day were 
 even before their brethren, the Presbyterians, in their testimony 
 against Slavery. 
 
 At a meeting of the General Committee of the Baptists of Yir 
 ginia, in 1788, the following point came up : 
 
44 The Rule Considered Historically. 
 
 " Whether a Petition should be referred to the General Assem 
 bly, praying that the yoke of slavery may be made more tolerable? 
 Referred to the next session. 
 
 " 1T89. At this session the propriety of hereditary slavery was 
 taken up, and after some time employed in the consideration of the 
 subject, the following resolution was offered by Eld. John Leland, 
 and adopted. 
 
 , " Resolved, That Slavery is a violent deprivation of the rights of 
 nature, and inconsistent with republican government, and therefore 
 (we) recommend it to our brethren to make use of every measure to 
 extirpate this horrid evil from the land, and pray Almighty God 
 that our honorable Legislature may have it in their power to pro 
 claim the great jubilee."* 
 
 Now who can believe that while the abolition of Slavery " was a 
 favorite topic among statesmen of the South, and the great desire of 
 the Colonies," and when it was pressed and urged by the Baptists of 
 Virginia, and the Presbyterians in their General Assembly who, I 
 say, can believe that, at that time, Francis Asbury, with his little band 
 of God-fearing, self-denying men, should have set down, and should 
 have deliberately nullified all their former declarations against 
 Slavery? or that they should have so adjusted the general rule, as 
 to legalize slaveholding by inheritance ? and that too, almost imme 
 diately after John Wesley, whom they followed more closely than 
 any other uninspired man, had just published his Tract on Slavery, 
 in which he said, addressing himself to the holders of slaves, whether 
 by inheritance or otherwise, " You are the spring that puts all the 
 rest [the kidnappers and the slave traders] in motion. Without you 
 they would not stir one step." And then immediately he adds, " at 
 any price, deliver thyself from blood-guiltiness. Thy hands, thy 
 bed, thy furniture, thy house, thy lands, are at present stained with 
 blood." 
 
 * Now, who can believe that these holy men, so circumstanced, 
 so impelled by the anti-slavery spirit that surrounded them, could 
 ever have belied all their former avowals, and could have framed a 
 rule that would fasten Slavery in perpetuity upon the Church? 
 Why, the very men of the world at that period would have shamed 
 them for doing so. The framers of the constitution of the general 
 government would not allow the word "slave" to be even named in it. 
 They " thought that it was wrong to admit in the constitution, the 
 idea that there could be property in man." But, according to some, 
 (those modern constitutional expounders at Indianapolis), our fathers 
 very readily admitted both: and that this admission,, viz., the 
 right to hold slaves, was so important, that shortly afterwards they 
 fastened it upon future generations by an organic law, so that nothing 
 but an entire change in the whole frame-work of the body, could 
 release future Methodists from continuing that very thing which a 
 little while before they had called, emphatically, "an abomination. 
 a complicated and execrable crime." 
 
 Facts for Baptist Churches, p. 365. 
 
The Rule Considered Historically. 45 
 
 Why, if the founders of our Church had made constitutional pro 
 vision to continue slavery, by inheritance or under any circum 
 stances whatever, they would have been immensely behind the age 
 in which they lived, and they would have been despised or repro 
 bated for doing so. Had they had no moral principle in regard to 
 slaveholding, it would have been most impolitic for them to have 
 incorporated such a rule for its perpetuity. They would, by it, have 
 insulted the moral sensibility of the whole country, and they would 
 have fixed an indelible stigma upon the very cause which they were 
 laboring to build up. No ane, who duly considers the spirit and 
 circumstances of the times in which our Church was founded, can 
 reasonably suppose that the rule on Slavery was inserted for any 
 other purpose than the entire extirpation of Slavery from our com 
 munion. 
 
 Had the Methodist Episcopal Church made any such provision for 
 the continuance of this great evil, by inheritance or other circum 
 stances, she never would have acquired the reputation which she had 
 for so many years afterwards, by both friends and foes, at the North 
 and at the South, as " the most deadly opponent to Slavery," as 
 "denouncing it as they do now at the North." Nor would the 
 most pro-slavery men of our day have so readily acknowledged, 
 " that the Methodists of that period were practically abolitionists." 
 
 The farther consideration of the rule historically, can be better 
 treated in distinct chapters, by showing the grounds on which the 
 rule was suspended, and the various means which the early Meth 
 odists used for the extirpation of Slavery. 
 
 Now, in regard to constitutional slaveholding in our Church, the 
 sum is this : 
 
 1. For its existence there is nothing positive in the discipline ; 
 all is "by mere implication. All judges in Europe, and our own in 
 this country, until very recently, have decided " that such an un 
 natural condition of society, can only exist by positive law, and that 
 it must never be received by implication or inference." 
 
 2. To say the least of it, the rule is capable of an interpretation 
 which amounts to a prohibition, viz. : it prohibits enslaving without 
 modification or limitation. 
 
 3. All the antecedents and historical circumstances of the times 
 when our Church was founded, are against this asserted constitution 
 ality to hold slaves. 
 
 4. The whole scope and design of the origination of the rule is 
 equally against it ; they were to extirpate it, not to continue it under 
 any circumstances. 
 
 5. And until the present generation, the general rule had never 
 been considered a barrier to the entire extirpation of Slavery from 
 our Church. The constitutional objection is an after thought. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 SUSPENSION. 
 
 PROHIBITORY RULE ITS EXCEPTIONS ITS SUSPENSION MORALLY IT WAS 
 NOT SUSPENDED ITS ENFORCEMENT WAS ONLY CARRYING OUT THE COMMON 
 LAW OF GOD S GOVERNMENT WHAT LED TO THE SUSPENSION ITS EFFECTS 
 ON THE CHURCH WHAT THE SLAVE LOST BY IT IN MANY CASES IT WAS 
 ENFORCED AT THE SOUTH, THE ADJUSTMENT OF WHAT W T AS RIGHT LEFT TO 
 THE ADMINISTRATOR AND THE CONSCIENCE OF THE MASTER. 
 
 THE rules and declarations of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 
 those days, were not intended to have been mere sentimentalisms 
 in the discipline. The Methodists were then the most practical 
 people of the age. It was generally said of them, that their religion 
 was " up and be doing." What they conceived to be their duty to 
 God, they usually carried out with great energy and directness. 
 
 In 1Y80, they began their battle with Slavery, and put forth that 
 noble declaration " that Slavery was contrary to the laws of God." 
 Four years afterwards, the year in which our Church was organized, 
 they instituted " an effectual method to extirpate this abomination 
 from among us." This method was ordained, not only to remove 
 the last vestige of Slavery from the Church, but also to erect against 
 it such a barrier that it could never again return to it. And after 
 devising a plan for immediate and -gradual emancipation, they or 
 dered among other matters the following : 
 
 3. " That every person concerned who would not comply with 
 these rules, shall have liberty quietly to withdraw from our societies 
 within twelve months following the notice ~being given as aforesaid. 
 Otherwise the assistant shall exclude him in the society" 
 
 4. " !N"o person so voluntarily withdrawn, or so excluded, shall 
 ever partake of the Lord s Supper among the Methodists, till he 
 complies with the above requisition." 
 
 5. " No person holding slaves shall in future be admitted into 
 society, or the Lord s Supper, till he previously complies with these 
 rules concerning Slavery." 
 
 !N"ow all must allow that this was " an effectual method." And 
 as Drs. Smith and Winans have acknowledged, it really made the 
 Methodist society or Church, at that time, an anti-slavery or Abo 
 lition Church, in the fullest and clearest sense of the word. 
 
 This law or rule was ordained the very year in which our Church 
 was founded. Indeed, the Church was erected upon it. For when 
 she was organized this was the existing rule on Slavery, and as yet 
 
Suspension. 47 
 
 it was standing out unimpaired and unstispendecl. The suspension 
 as we will show, came afterwards. 
 
 But to this there was an exception. Immediately following this 
 " method," there was added a nota lene, which was intended for 
 members who lived in those States in which they could not obtain 
 a legal emancipation, or, could only obtain it with great difficulty 
 and after protracted efforts, viz : 
 
 " These rules are to effect the members of our society, no farther 
 than they are consistent with the laws of the States in which they 
 reside. 
 
 " And respecting our brethren in Virginia that are concerned, 
 and after due consideration of their peculiar circumstances, we allow 
 them two years from the notice given, to consider the expedience of 
 compliance or non-compliance with these rules." 
 
 And then follows the 43d question, "What shall be done with 
 those who buy or sell slaves, or give them away ? 
 
 "Ans. They shall be expelled immediately ; unless they buy them 
 on purpose to free them." 
 
 Now we should observe that the above rules, for the continuation 
 of membership, required a regular bill of emancipation " legally exe 
 cuted and recorded" In some States, this was impossible ; for in 
 them there were no laws concerning emancipation, and no book in 
 which it could be legally recorded. And to such cases no doubt 
 the exception refers, when it releases members who resided in those 
 States whose laws are " inconsistent" with a legal emancipation. 
 In Virginia there were greater impediments than in Maryland, and 
 the more Northern States. Yet the " peculiar circumstances" of 
 the former could not have been insuperable in the estimation of the 
 Conference, for they limited the time to two years, " that the mem 
 bers might consider whether they Would, or would not comply with 
 these rules. But this exception, the releasing from the obligation 
 of a legal emancipation, was never intended to release the member 
 from the moral obligation of giving the reputed slave " that which 
 was just and equal" for his work, nor from the duty of treating 
 him in all respects as a fellow-man for the requisition for these, 
 was already in the Bible on which the discipline was founded, and 
 consequently it was prior in time and higher in authority than any 
 constitutions or ecclesiastical rules could possibly have made them. 
 
 THE SUSPENSION. The above effectual method, to use a coarse 
 but not inappropriate figure, was " taking the bull by the horns." 
 And it was no wonder that the untamed creature should have 
 raved and struggled so furiously. All the powers and resources 
 of Slavery were at this time aroused and marshalled against the 
 rule. It was to a great extent a matter of life and death with it. 
 For, at this juncture, statesmen and ministers, congresses, confer 
 ences and other ecclesiastical bodies w^ere generally arrayed against it 
 for its entire destruction. 
 
 To counteract these influences, the same system of threatening 
 
4:8 Suspension. 
 
 and terrorism was then resorted to, which has been practised in 
 our own day. "It was going too far," said some. It would do 
 more harm than good. It would hurt the Church, break up society, 
 and above all, it would exclude the gospel from the poor slaves. 
 
 And at the Virginia Conference of 1785, several petitions were 
 presented by some of the principal men and t members, urging the 
 suspension of the rules on Slavery ; but Dr. Coke and the confer 
 ence brought affairs to this issue: "That unless the rules against 
 Slavery were permitted to operate, preaching would be withdrawn 
 from those circuits and places in which they were too obnoxious to 
 be suffered." This first refusal, however, did not deter the agitators 
 for Slavery. They resolutely persisted in their efforts; and the 
 Baltimore conference of the same year, in an evil hour, yielded 
 and put forth the following, to wit: 
 
 " It is recommended to all our brethren to suspend the execution 
 of the minute on Slavery, till the deliberations of a future confer 
 ence; and that an equal space of time be allowed all our members 
 for consideration, when the minute shall be put in force. 
 
 " N. B. "We do hold in the deepest abhorrence the practice of Sla 
 very, and shall not cease to seek its destruction by all wise and pru 
 dent means." 
 
 But still these rules were not suspended at that time absolutely 
 and indefinitely ; nor were they suspended because they were 
 deemed unwise and imprudent, as the Eev. Jesse Lee and thou 
 sands after him, have asserted. But they were suspended only 
 for a short period, " until the deliberation of a future conference, " 
 and that too for a special purpose, " that time may be allowed all 
 our members for consideration, when the minute shall be put in 
 force" For although the conference believed Slavery to be sinful, 
 yet they very reasonably supposed that there were many others who 
 had not this knowledge. Many at that day might have been in the 
 situation of the venerable Garretson, who " had not reflected much 
 upon it and had read nothing about it." Right and wrong are im 
 mutable, depending on the will of God who has fixed the relation 
 of things ; but guilt or innocence depends on the knowledge of these 
 relations. Hence the conference gave " time for consideration," and 
 required that all "should be warned," when the rule "should be en 
 forced." Another reason is assigned for the suspension of this rule, 
 and one too in keeping with their avowed abhorrence to the prac 
 tice of slaveholding. In Dr. Cokds Life, p. 14i, the biographer says 
 of the conference, June 2, 1785, " the rule was taken up, and as the 
 legislature was about to act on the slave question, it was suggested 
 that further interference on their part, might not be proper. Lest 
 their steady perseverence might defeat a greater good, it was 
 finally determined that opposition for the present be suspended." 
 Now here is not the least intimation that the conference who sus 
 pended the rule, did so, because they thought it " unwise and im 
 prudent," but as the legislature was to act the next session, they 
 deemed it proper for the present to suspend their action, that there 
 
Suspension. 49 
 
 might not be the least appearance of interference or dictation with 
 the 3 civil authority in their acts. 
 
 But who were those agitators who resisted the action of bishops 
 and conferences at the time when that action- was against Slavery? 
 They were the slaveholders and their apologists, the same class of 
 men who now claim for those in authority almost a divine right 
 to compel members and subordinate ministers wholly to refrain from 
 the slave question. It was not any considerable number of the 
 Methodists who deemed these rules un-wise and imprudent. For 
 there never has been anything like a proportion of our poor white 
 brethren at the South who have been favorable to Slavery. 
 
 These agitators were of that class of whom Bishop Asbury wrote 
 sixty or more years ago : 
 
 "The great landholders who are industrious will soon show 
 the effects of the aristocracy of wealth, by lording it over their 
 poorer neighbors, and securing to themselves all the offices of profit 
 and honor." [Jour, vol 2, p. 36.] Without a figure or exaggera 
 tion, the most of the South is governed by an oligarchy. 
 
 This class enjoy the most ample means of education, and are in 
 general highly educated, and from their position on the plantations, 
 are trained from their very youth to the science of government. 
 They are to all practical purposes the privileged nobility of the 
 southern country. On the contrary, the great majority of the 
 whites are comparatively poor, and some of them extremely so. 
 Through the influence of Slavery, the means of instruction are not 
 within their reach ; consequently a large proportion of them are not 
 educated, and very many of them can neither read nor write. 
 Thus the large slaveholders, who are a small minority, form a real 
 oligarchy, monopolizing the entire direction of all ecclesiastical and 
 civil affairs. 
 
 The suspension of the prohibitory rule on Slavery of 1785, will 
 ever form a prominent feature in the history of the Methodist Epis 
 copal Church. For this was the first concession which she had ever 
 made to Slavery. From this period for twenty-five or thirty years 
 she struggled against this enormous evil, sometimes partially en 
 forcing the rule, but perhaps more frequently dispensing with it, 
 until nearly the whole of it at last went by default. 
 
 Dr. Olin in the general conference of 1844, said, that the con 
 templated division broke upon them as a thunder clap out of a clear 
 sky. The Doctor was eloquent, but he was not correct. Such 
 great events never come all at once. This great disruption dates 
 back about sixty years, to the period of which we write. But its 
 sad work ia not yet done. Discordant materials can never remain 
 very long together. First pure then peacable, and never till then. 
 After the lapse of nearly two generations, we can see perhaps 
 wherein our fathers might have done better. But probably the 
 most of us, with only their experience in the premises, might not 
 have done so well. They tried to enforce the rule, although it is 
 evident there was a great diversity and remissness in the adminis- 
 
50 Suspension. 
 
 tration of it, particularly in those States which did not allow civil 
 liberty to the emancipated. Some took advantage of these legal 
 impediments to emancipation, and did not carry out the real and 
 moral one which the spirit of our rule always required. And the 
 conferences, at last appear to have been at a loss to frame a rule 
 which would meet the case ; and consequently they left the adjust 
 ment of what was right in the. premises, to the administrator and 
 the conscience of the master. 
 
 At the Greenville conference, in Virginia, they saw, however, 
 that in very many cases, nothing had been done, and they urged 
 " That in those States which did not allow emancipation, the mas 
 ter should give wages" to the reputed slave.* This, indeed, had 
 always been understood, but now they found it necessary to define, 
 so that, if possible, they might detect the craft and sinuosity of sel 
 fishness. The proof or showing that it was right to give wages, or 
 an equivalent for work rendered, seemed like attempting to prove 
 the truth of an axiom ; for every uninterested person, civilized or 
 savage, felt the conviction of this, at sight. Yet the denial of this 
 axiomatic truth is the main pillar of {Slavery ; acknowledge this, 
 and the giant sin at once tumbles to. its native pit without the hope 
 of a resurrection. Well might Bishop Asbury say, " If the gospel 
 tolerates Slavery, what will it not authorize ?" 
 
 Although the same system of terrorism was brought to bear upon 
 them, that is menaced in our day, yet there were several other causes 
 which abated the action of our Church, and led to this suspension. 
 Public opinion at this period was deluded with the idea, that as the 
 principles of the Revolution were abroad, and as the foreign slave 
 trade would soon cease, that Slavery itself would soon die out. 
 Some of our wisest and best statesmen were of this opinion, and 
 many of our leading preachers were equally carried away with this 
 delusion. And some of both classes really appeared to think that 
 further action against it was unnecessary if not injurious. And 
 further: mainly through tjie Methodists the work of emancipation 
 was fairly in progress, and seemed to indicate to many the final 
 extirpation of this great evil. 
 
 But there was nothing in all this controversy, which so generally 
 and effectually checked the ministers of our Church in their imme 
 diate efforts to extirpate Slavery like the supposed exclusion of ac 
 cess to the slave. They had the temporal and spiritual good of the 
 slave at heart. Bishop Asbury frequently observes in his Journal, 
 " That their commission at the extreme South, was rather to the 
 slaves than to the whites." Hence it is not surprising that when 
 they saw themselves in some cases excluded from those who had 
 been begotten in bonds, and who would now be left without their 
 care or instruction, that some of the preachers began to waver and 
 doubt whether it were best to prosecute this enterprise any farther. 
 
 Yet, after all, if they had never abated one jot of their opposition, 
 but had continued to press on the conscience of the slaveholder and 
 
 * Asbury s Journal. 
 
Suspension. 51 
 
 the civil authorities, the injustice of this prodigious evil, we fully be 
 lieve God would have sustained them, and honored them in achiev 
 ing one of the greatest blessings to our church and country. But 
 they have lost that honor. Truth never produces bad results ; but 
 error always and invariably must. 
 
 This exclusion from the slaves would have been temporary, and 
 after some years it would have been followed by full and untram 
 melled access to them ; so that then they could have preached the 
 whole gospel to them. For Slavery unconnected with the church 
 could not long sustain itself in her presence. It is now nearly forty 
 years since our church began to recede from her first position in re 
 gard to Slavery, and what has the poor slave gained by those very 
 concessions which were, in the first instances, made for his sake ? 
 He has on the whole gained nothing, but lost much every way. 
 What, in the main, has been his moral and religious condition 
 during the last thirty years ? We will let two unexceptionable 
 Southern witnesses tell it. 
 
 The Keport of the Synod of Georgia and South Carolina in 1834, 
 says : " Who would cred itit, in these years of revival and benevo 
 lent effort, that in this Christian republic there are millions of human 
 beings in the condition of heathens, and in some respects in a worse 
 condition ? The negroes are destitute of the privileges of the gospel, 
 and ever will be under the present state of things." 
 
 The next witness whom we will present is the Eev. James O. 
 Andrews, one of the Bishops of the M. E. Church, South. In an 
 address to the Southern Church, several years ago, he says, " There 
 are thousands and tens of thousands of immortal souls, living in this 
 land of vision, who know little more of God or heaven, than their 
 sable brethren in the interior of Africa, for whose souls no man 
 careth, while with the avails of their sweat and toil, the Southern 
 Church has been contributing her thousands to send the Bible and 
 missionaries to perishing heathen beyond the seas." This is a sad 
 picture after the slaves have been with us for two hundred years. 
 
 That there is, however, much real Christianity among the slaves 
 at the South, we know from our own observation, but we know also, 
 that every concession to Slavery has been an impediment, a stum 
 bling-block to their reception of Christianity. None but those who 
 have gained the confidence of the slave and have heard their state 
 ments, can tell the amount of infidelity there is among them. They 
 may never have heard of Yoltaire or Paine, but yet there are many 
 Deists or Infidels among them notwithstanding. When any such slaves 
 disclose their real opinions they say, " If Christianity allows Slavery 
 they do not believe in it ; do not wish to have any thing to do with 
 it." And, if it does not, then they say, " the Ministers and Churches 
 are hypocritical, and they have no confidence in them. That Mas 
 ter and the Parsons are clubbed together to keep them down, to get 
 work out of them for nothing, so that they may both live on their 
 earnings." These are the views and feelings of thousands among 
 them. 
 
52 Suspension. 
 
 But still there are good Christians among slaves. Some of them 
 are practicing the purest morality the world has ever seen, the 
 doing of good for evil, and doing it heartily, as unto the Lord. 
 But we egregiously delude ourselves when we imagine that Christi 
 anity among them is dependent on the present race of white preach 
 ers. On the contrary, it would continue and spread among them if 
 another white preacher were never again to visit them. The true 
 case is this : Gospel preachers of the abolitionist type of John Wes 
 ley, first introduced Christianity among the slaves, and they received 
 such as messengers sent from God. A lodgment of truth was made 
 with them ; the plan of salvation by faith was understood by them ; 
 and God has since raised up a succession of instrumentalities from 
 among themselves to carry it on. We must not think that the Ho 
 ly Spirit is given only to ourselves. God does not see as we do. 
 There are men in Slavery who have been called of God to preach 
 as much as John Wesley or St. Paul, and although an impious law 
 will not allow them to read God s word, yet they are taught of God, 
 and they do preach to the edification of their poor fellow slaves. 
 These are they who keep the lamp alive among this, the most op 
 pressed and most abused body of Christians on God s earth. And 
 for nearly a hundred years these patient sufferers have been crying 
 How long, O Lord, dost tkou not judge us? And what folly and 
 infatuation it is in us to suppose that God will not hear them, or to 
 vainly think that the seeds of avarice and injustice which have been 
 sowed among them for nearly two centuries, will never be reaped. 
 We will close this paragraph in the words of a late writer. " The 
 fatal error of the first Methodists seems to have consisted in an un 
 warrantable lenity towards the delinquent members, in not prompt 
 ly enforcing the discipline, under the delusive expectation that they 
 would in a short time be prepared to take the step voluntarily them 
 selves, without being authoritatively coerced." 
 
 But we must riot concede too much. These rules were not abso 
 lutely and indefinitely suspended. They were most probably exe 
 cuted in the States of Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New 
 Jersey and New- York. How often I have heard old Methodists 
 of the South lament the change which had come over the Church 
 since their union with it. To use their own language, ," They had 
 made themselves poor by emancipations to retain a standing in that 
 very Church which is now overrun with Slavery." 
 
 That these rules were enforced in many cases is evident from the 
 history of this period, and from the unprecedented increase of the 
 free colored population in Maryland, which between 1790 and 1800 
 went up to 143.5 per cent., the natural increase being less than 25 
 per cen t. Nothing but the large emancipation, occasioned directly or 
 indirectly by the enforcement of this very rule in question, can ac 
 count for this phenomenon among the colored people in that State. 
 
 But throughout this whole investigation we must distinguish be 
 tween a legal emancipation and a moral and a real one. They are 
 quite different: the one may exist without the other. From the for- 
 
Suspension. 53 
 
 mer the conference might release the member; but they never 
 could " suspend " or release him from the obligation of the latter. 
 For the conference never undertook the dispensing power of the Pa 
 pacy, to dispense with the moral obligation to do right. Who can 
 suppose that the conference of 1785 attempted to suspend the moral 
 law of God, releasing the early Methodists from their duty, to give 
 to their servants that which was just and fight, the very thing which 
 the conference of 1856 actually declined to do? 
 
 All the exceptions and suspensions that were at first intended 
 amounted to about this: Releasing the members from procuring 
 the legal and recorded bill of emancipation, and leaving the adjust 
 ment of moral right and honesty in the premises to the masters, 
 trusting that they would do voluntarily that which the Church had 
 undertaken to do by ecclesiastical law. But still the Church re 
 quired those moral duties of them as much after as before the excep 
 tions or the suspensions were allowed. "We do not say that this 
 course was wise ; we think it was not, for it was yielding the rights 
 of the Church to a worldly policy ; and it was not sufficiently ap 
 preciating the Christian rights of poor brethren in bonds, as bound 
 with them ; and further, it was allowing a man to be a judge in his 
 own cause. But it is really sickening and lamentable to see editors 
 and members of the general conference producing the above excep 
 tion and suspension, as if by them, the conference of 1785 had con 
 ceded the whole ground, allowing an iniquitous secular law to over 
 ride their own, and to make, through it, the word of God of no ef 
 fect. The conference of 1785 intended no such thing. The truth is, 
 the conference too generously committed the adjustment of moral 
 right to the integrity of the masters, expecting that in this way they 
 would extirpate Slavery. But in most cases they betrayed the 
 trust, as they do now, and perhaps ever will, " for a gift blindeth 
 the eyes," and no man should be a judge in his own cause. 
 
 But although the Church could not change the relation in civil law, 
 yet she aimed to change it, in reality, in moral law. With very many 
 there is a great error in this particular, and the whole subject has 
 been strangely mystified. It ought to be remembered that the State 
 never makes domestic, that is, house slavery ; it only gives individu 
 als the privilege to do so if they see proper ; and when they do it 
 the State protects and sustains them in it. But it does not compel 
 them. In Turkey the law allows a man to have four wives, but that 
 would not compel a Christian in that country to have so many. A 
 Mohammedan having four wives, on embracing Christianity, could 
 not dissolve his relation to them in law; he would still be obliged to 
 support them and their children. But that would not compel him 
 to live with all of them in the relation of husband. 
 
 So the civil authority may say that a Christian shall not dissolve 
 the relation of master and slave in civil law ; but there is not a 
 Methodist from Maryland to Mexico who cannot dissolve it, in fact 
 and in reality, if he will. He can say that there shall not be a do 
 mestic slave on his plantation or in his domicil. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 COLLATERAL EVIDENCE OF NON -CONSTITUTION AL SLAVEHOLDI NG. 
 
 EFFORTS TO EXTIRPATE NEVER ACQUIESCED IN SLAVEHOLDING PREACHED 
 AGAINST IT OPPOSITION DR. COKE REV. J. EVERETT REV. G. DOUGH 
 ERTY MOBBED IN CHARLESTON FELL A MARTYR BISHOP ASBURY S TES 
 TIMONY EMANCIPATIONS METHODISTS FLED TO OHIO SAYLE AXLEY 
 REV. FREEBORN GARRETSON His PLAN OF EMANCIPATION. 
 
 THE period in which our Church was founded was not a compro 
 mising period ; and our fathers were no compromisers. Moral prin 
 ciple with them was an entity, fixed in its character as the attributes 
 of its Great Author ; and the gospel, under their administration, was 
 never intended to have that pliancy which could accommodate 
 itself to any existing evils of a moral nature. 
 
 As soon as Slavery was discovered in the Methodist societies, im 
 mediate measures, in 1780, were taken to drive it out. These efforts 
 were continued with more or less success during the whole life of 
 our founders. At first they were merely monitory ; and when they 
 did not accomplish their intended object, they became disciplinary. 
 The execution of which they delayed or hastened, according to the 
 light or the knowledge of the members in regard to the nature of 
 Slavery. Where it was attainable, they required a bill of emanci 
 pation " legally executed and recorded." In States in which this 
 was " inconsistent," they required a moral and a real one, giving 
 wages for service rendered, or leaving the adjustment of what was 
 right to the administrator and the conscience of the master. Some 
 times, as we have shown, suspending the rule for a season, and then 
 again enforcing it, but never during their life, losing sight of the 
 character of Slavery, that it was contrary to the laws of God and 
 man. 
 
 And in these measures there seems to have been, generally, 
 great unanimity. Perhaps none, except the Rev. Jesse Lee, 
 our southern historian, thought they were going too far. For 
 Bishop Asbury records frequently in his journal, " our conference 
 closed in peace," and " we were all agreed on African Slavery." In 
 the early period of the Church, her councils were not disturbed by 
 the agitation of the slave question, for she herself was the chief 
 mover in the matter. The opposition was mainly from without, and 
 the Church was only disturbed because a few had brought this 
 crying sin within her border. 
 
Collateral Evidence of Non- Constitutional Slaveholding. 55 
 
 After the commencement of the present century, the efforts of 
 the Methodist Episcopal Church to extirpate Slavery, were far less 
 vigorous than they had been before. But she never acquiesced 
 in the continuation of Slavery. So far from it, she held the practice 
 of it in the deepest abhorrence, and was continually enquiring for 
 the best means to effect its destruction. 
 
 This, perhaps, will be the best place to examine one of the most 
 specious arguments during the last general conference, to prove the 
 constitutionality of slaveholding. The Rev. Mr. Slicer, of the 
 Baltimore conference, said, " It is a wise maxim in civil law, that 
 the law is to be interpreted by the framers of the law, and by the 
 practice under the law immediately succeeding its enactment. 
 This is a fair principle of construction, or method of interpretation, 
 and to show that this principle has been recognized by the highest 
 judicial authority of this country, I beg leave to call the attention 
 of this conference to Cranctis Report^ p. 97. In the case of 
 Steward vs. Leaird, Mr. Chief Justice Marshall had tried the cause 
 in the Court below; the judgment was affirmed, and Mr. Justice 
 Patterson, in delivering the opinion of the Supreme Court, said : 
 " To this objection, which is of recent date, it is sufficient to 
 observe, that practice and acquiescence under it (the law) for a 
 period of several years, commencing with the organization of the 
 judicial system, affords an irresistable answer, and have indeed fixed 
 its construction. " 
 
 The above maxim is a good one, and the legal inference from it 
 is equally good ; but unfortunately for their cause, it was drawn from 
 an entire falsehood. The assumption that the " practice and acquies 
 cence of the Church in Slavery commenced with the organization 
 of the system," is wholly without foundation. The practice, on the 
 contrary, has always been under protest, and as to the acquiescence 
 in Slavery on the principle of ecclesiastical right, there never was 
 a vestige of it during the average lives of her founders. It is one 
 of the most unfounded assumptions in this whole controversy. So 
 this argument so far from proving constitutional slaveholding in the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church, will prove just the reverse, as we can 
 show ; and thus the enemy s guns can be easily turned upon them 
 selves. 
 
 For more than twenty years, while the administration was in the 
 hands of those venerable men who framed the rule, there was one 
 incessant war against slaveholding in the Church. They were strug 
 gling to " extirpate " it, calling for light, seeking its destruction, 
 "waiting when the minute [against it] shall be enforced," and 
 finally they left the stereotyped question, which the Church for 
 seventy -two years has been continually asking, "What shall be done 
 to extirpate Slavery ? " 
 
 .So that when the facts in the case are seen, the entire fabric raised 
 upon this fancied foundation, falls at once to the ground, leaving 
 only behind it an evidence of the weakness of the cause, which was 
 driven to such expedients. To illustrate : one has a fine field ; unruly 
 
56 Collateral Evidence of N on- Constitutional Slaveholding. 
 
 cattle get into it ; the proprietor tries to get them out ; they evade 
 his efforts ; he still tries, calls for help, and finally he stands continu 
 ally calling, " What shall be done to drive them out ?" 
 
 Surely this would seem to have been a strange way of acquies 
 cing. But as this is presented and dwelt upon as about the best 
 plea for constitutional slaveholding in the Church, we will amplify 
 and give a condensed view of the efforts of those who founded this 
 constitutional rule. The state of the case was simply this : our 
 fathers knew that Slavery was wholly and essentially wrong, but 
 they know that all had not this knowledge. They put forth their 
 views and laid down their rules for the rising Church, and then they 
 waited that all might abandon it voluntarily, as many had already 
 done. And further, that those who had been " warned might either 
 give up their slaves or quietly leave the Church." Their delay in 
 executing the rule did not arise from any change in their views or 
 feeling in regard to Slavery, or from any less determination to extir 
 pate it from the Church, but simply as the Minutes of 1785 say, 
 " That time be allowed all our members for consideration, when the 
 minute shall be put in force." 
 
 So far from acquiescing in Slavery to domesticate it in the 
 Church, her first efforts, on the contrary, were to extirpate it from 
 the Church. And soon these efforts were not only defensive, but 
 agressive. By private admonition, public preaching, and the circu 
 lation and presentation of petitions, she was laboring to drive Sla 
 very not from the Church only, but from the nation. The moral 
 sentiment which had been already put forth by our Church in the 
 hands of our fathers, was, not an abstraction, or a dead letter on the 
 statute book, but a living operating principle, known and felt in the 
 community. This crying evil was allowed no special privileges or 
 prerogatives ; but on the contrary, it was placed by them in the same 
 category with other sins. It was never called in those days a 
 " delicate question " or a " peculiar institution," but on the contrary, 
 an " abomination," a " complicated crime," and similar names, all 
 of them significant of their estimation of its sinful nature. 
 
 According to the history of those times, some of our ministers for 
 preaching against Slavery were abused, mobbed, arrested and fined. 
 But they still persisted ; God blessed them in it ; the people and the 
 Church stood by them, and emancipations were effected almost 
 wherever they went. 
 
 In Virginia, while preaching in a barn, Dr. Coke introduced 
 the subject of Slavery, and expatiated on its injustice in no measured 
 terms. Many were provoked to hear those truths which from their 
 earliest infancy they had been taught to stifle, and which their in 
 terest still instructed them to conceal. A small party, therefore, 
 withdrew from the house, and formed a combination to offer him 
 some personal violence as soon as he came out. To persevere in this 
 resolution, they were stimulated by a lady, whose fashionable appear 
 ance was more conspicuous than her politeness or humanity. This 
 lady informed the enraged mob that she would give them fifty 
 
Collateral Evidence of N on- Constitutional Slaveholding. 57 
 
 pounds in case they would seize the preacher and give him one hun 
 dred lashes. 
 
 On leaving the house, Dr. Coke was instantly surrounded by & 
 ferocious party, who began with threats, and proceeded to put these 
 threats in execution. A magistrate, however, who was present, 
 opposed the violence which they menanced, by seizing one who 
 appeared anxious to be foremost. Another who seemed to have 
 more strength, as he evidently had more zeal and courage than 
 religion, was preparing to repel the assailants by giving them battle. 
 This gentleman was a military officer, and sustained the rank of & 
 colonel. Their united influence had a most powerful effect. The 
 most courageous began to be abashed, and marks of timidity were 
 seen in all. They, therefore, gave vent to their rage in idle threat^ 
 and suffered the object of their vengeance to escape without further 
 molestation. But rage and hostility were not the only effects pro 
 duced by this discourse. The magistrate who had espoused the 
 cause of Dr. Coke began to view the subject in a more serious light; 
 and, to show that he acted from pure principle, immediately eman 
 cipated fifteen slaves. The report of his conduct extended the 
 benefit still farther, and induced another to follow his laudable 
 example, and to emancipate eight slaves. And the united example 
 of both induced another to emancipate one. These effects were in 
 stantaneously visible ; but to what extent this faithful but sharp 
 reproof operated in secret, we must not expect fully to know till we 
 enter into the world of spirits. Dr. Coke s Life, p. 138. 
 
 In these noble efforts Dr. Coke took a prominent part ; but he was 
 not alone in them. His labors were in common with the honored 
 names of Asbury, Garrettson, Everett, Dougherty, and many others, 
 whose memories will yet be revered in the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church when she shall be delivered from Slavery, and when her 
 future historian will write her whole history, unawed by the slave 
 power. Many anecdotes expressive of their abhorrence of Slavery,, 
 are yet in the remembrance of the older members of our Church .at. 
 the South, but most of them are now lost, perhaps forever. These 
 men were foremost among the real heroes of our Methodism. Could 
 their deeds and sayings, in this warfare against Slavery, be recover 
 ed and published, they would correct many popular errors, and they 
 would greatly enrich our literature. But our Church in those days 
 had no papers or periodicals to preserve these precious items of his 
 tory ; and on account of the pro-slavery current which has been 
 settling back upon us for the last forty years, very few of them have 
 been transmitted even orally to posterity. These worthies have long 
 since gone to their reward, and in regard to most of them, 
 
 "Their ashes lie 
 
 No marble tells us where : with their names 
 No bard embalms, nor sanctifies his song/ 
 
 Joseph Everett was admitted into the ministry in 1781. We 
 know little of him, other than that he was one of Nature s great 
 men. He received but little improvement from letters ; but he was 
 
 5 
 
58 Collateral Evidence of N on- Constitutional Slaveholding. 
 
 faithful and fearless in every thing pertaining to God and truth. 
 The following anecdotes of him are set forth on the authority of a 
 cotemporary who still lives. 
 
 On a circuit in Maryland, a lady who had recently been converted, 
 and whose husband was a large slaveholder, invited him after ser 
 mon to her home to get refreshment, or to pass the night. He avail 
 ed himself of the kind invitation, and was received by the family in 
 the most courteous and cordial manner. On looking around and 
 seeing something to awaken suspicion, he said, " Sister, do you keep 
 slaves here ?" The frightened lady, in a subdued tone, replied, "We 
 have a few servants." To which he answered, "Pll not eat bread 
 nor drink water in your house" And no apology, no plea of cir 
 cumstance nor inheritance, could avail any thing with him ; but 
 suiting the action to the word, he immediately left the house, lest he 
 should in some way acquiesce in the practice of Slavery. I 
 have been told by Southern Methodists, that when the early preachers 
 were obliged to lodge on slaveholding plantations, that in many in 
 stances, they would not allow a slave to take care of their horses, 
 but they would do it themselves, lest it might have the appearance 
 of acquiescing in Slavery. How matters with many are now 
 changed ! 
 
 Mr. Everett, as presiding elder on a large district, held many 
 love-feasts. In one of them, a member was present, against whom 
 there was something arising out of Slavery. During the meeting, 
 he arose to speak, and not having much liberty, he began to cough, 
 to clear the way for freer utterance. "Ah !" cried out the presiding 
 elder, " Cough that slave out of your throat, and then you will be 
 able to speak the better." Now this was not very smooth, nor very 
 polite ; but it told on the delinquent, and it told in the community 
 around him, and by it, this fearless minister of truth has transmitted 
 his testimony against Slavery, down even to our times. His oppo 
 sition to Slavery, and those of his compeers at that period, unlike 
 the sentimental anti-slaveryism of too many brethren and editors of 
 our day, had pith and point in it. It was significant, and it showed 
 at once his views of the matter, and that he intended to do some 
 thing for the extirpation of Slavery. 
 
 The Rev. George Dougherty, a South Carolinian, was another of 
 Nature s noble-men. Like the apostle to the Gentiles, his bodily 
 appearance was not imposing. But God had given him a mind of 
 superior mould, and what was far better, a heart to feel another s 
 woe, and a fidelity and a firmness which nothing earthly could 
 corrupt or bend. But in middle life he fell a martyr to the liberty 
 of the pulpit, and to a pure Methodism. He was an intense enemy 
 to Slavery, and finally lost his life on account of the poor down-trod 
 den slave, and was buried with them in the African Church Yard, 
 in Wilmington, North Carolina. 
 
 Many incidents in his life have been narrated. But we will present 
 at this time, the account of his last days, from the pen of Bishop 
 Andrews, of the Church South, published [1830] in the Quarterly Re- 
 
Collateral Evidence of Non- Constitutional Slaveholding. 59 
 
 mew. We choose this source for the two-fold purpose of illustrating 
 our main argument, and also of showing the great change of senti 
 ment and feeling which had come over our Church between the 
 time of the martyr and that of the narrator. 
 
 " In the years 1801-2," says the Bishop, " George Dougherty and 
 John Harper were stationed in Charleston. During their ministry, 
 it appears that Mr. Harper had received from some ecclesiastical 
 body* at the North a number of pamphlets, containing certain 
 resolutions recommending measures to memorialize the Southern 
 legislative bodies, in behalf of the abolition of Slavery. Mr. H. 
 had merely showed them to a friend ; it being agreed between them, 
 that it was not prudent to make any distribution of them. But 
 rumor, with her many tongues, was busy in publishing abroad the 
 terrible treason which was to be found in possession of the Meth 
 odist preachers. The intendant of the city called on Mr. Harper 
 for an explanation. This was satisfactorily given, and to close the 
 concern, the offensive documents were burned in the presence of his 
 honor, who went away apparently well satisfied with the proof he 
 had received of the prudent conduct of the clergyman. 
 
 " But the mob were determined that frhe Methodist parson should, 
 in his own person, atone for harboring the above-mentioned wicked 
 resolutions. They accordingly seized Mr. Harper as he left the 
 Church. A quarrel arising among them, he escaped to his home in 
 safety. The mob raged at the disappointment. They resolved, 
 however, to return to the charge the next evening. But it so happen 
 ed, that Mr. Dougherty was the officiating minister on that evening. 
 This disappointment, however, was a small matter. It was a Meth 
 odist minister, and they would not, of course, be very nice as to the 
 name. Mr. Dougherty was seized as he left the Church, and dragged 
 by the mob to a considerable distance, through the streets. Some 
 cried, " pump him," and others said, " duck him." It was finally 
 concluded to pump him. They accordingly dragged him to a pump, 
 placed his head under the spout, and continued pumping water on 
 him for some time. How much longer they might have continued, 
 is uncertain, had not the intrepidity of a female checked their pro 
 ceeding?. This was Mrs. Kugeley, a pious member of the Church, 
 who rushed into the midst of the infuriated mob, and stuffed her 
 shawl into the spout of the pump. This resolute act quite astound 
 ed Mr. D. s persecutors. At this moment, a gentleman stepped up 
 with a drawn sword, and taking Mr. Dougherty by the hand, avow 
 ed his purpose to protect him at all hazards. So saying, he led him 
 away, no man troubling him any farther. Mr. D. was by this time 
 thoroughly wet, and it is not unlikely that this disgraceful proceed 
 ing contributed in no small measure to lay the foundation of that 
 pulmonary affection, which ultimately carried to the grave this 
 
 *Now, this -some ecclesiastical body" was no less than the General Confer 
 ence of the Methodist Episcopal Church. For Bishop A.sbury s Journal, Vol. iii, 
 p. 4, in speaking of the very same mobbing, calls these pamphlets " our Address 7 
 and the "Address of the General Conference. 77 
 
60 Collateral Evidence of N on- Constitutional Slaveholding. 
 
 almost unequalled man of God, and minister of the Lord Jesus- 
 Christ." He lingered a few years after the injuries received on this 
 occasion, and died a martyr to the freedom of the pulpit, and to the 
 purity of the gospel. 
 
 The above is the account of the Southern Bishop. But it does 
 not tell the whole truth. The suppressions and omissions in this 
 and in other instances, are not only evidences of a far higher anti- 
 slavery character in our Church when it was founded, but also of an 
 unwillingness on the part of most writers of the present day that 
 her former intense hostility to Slavery should be fully known. But 
 truth, however, will come out ; and a few quotations from Bishop 
 Asbury s Journal will give us the whole truth in this matter, and it 
 will show that with them there was no succumbing to the slave power. 
 " I had thought," says the Bishop, " our Address would have moved 
 their majesties, the peers of Charleston. Report says they have pump 
 ed poor Dougherty until they had almost deprived him of breath, and 
 John Harper committed the Addresses to the flames before the In- 
 tendant of the city. I saw one of the members of the General 
 Assembly of South Carolina, who informed me that our Addresses 
 from the general conference had been read and reprobated ; and 
 furthermore, it had been the occasion of producing a law which 
 prohibited a minister s attempting to instruct any number of blacks 
 with the doors shut ; authorizing a peace officer to break open the 
 doors in such cases, and disperse or whip the offenders. A Solomon 
 Reeves let me know that he had seen the Address, signed by me ; 
 and was quite confident that there were no arguments to prove that 
 Slavery was contrary to the spirit of the gospel. What absurdities 
 will not men defend ? If the gospel will tolerate Slavery, what will 
 it not authorize f I am strangely mistaken if this said Mr. Reeves 
 has more grace than is necessary, or more of Solomon than the 
 name."* 
 
 What a glorious land of liberty that, in which Christians peace 
 ably worshipping God, were liable to have their doors broken 
 open, and to be whipped and driven away ! So it seems there 
 were pro-slavery advocates formerly, as there are in our day ; but 
 Bishop Asbury judged, if the gospel would tolerate Slavery, it 
 would tolerate any abomination whatever. This does not look as if 
 he had a few years before made ample provision in the general rules 
 to domicile Slavery in the Church, either by inheritance, or under 
 any circumstances, for he makes no exceptions. We are sorry that 
 Mr. Harper could have been weak enough to dishonor the paper 
 and doings of his own conference, and thus bow to the unrighteous 
 demands of Slavery. This concession, however, gained nothing for 
 him, for the intendant who had been ostensibly so solicitous for the 
 peace of the city, suffered a ruthless mob unrestrained, so far as we 
 can learn, to abuse him and his more intrepid colleague.^ Or, more 
 probably, he instigated the mob to do it, for mobs against liberty 
 and free labor scarcely ever originate with the poor, or with the mass. 
 *Jour. Vol. iii, pp. 4, 8, 13. 
 
Collateral Evidence of N on- Constitutional Slaveholding. 61 
 
 We think further, that Bishop Asbury and a general conference 
 of gospel ministers were as capable of judging what was proper in 
 the premises, as a small oligarchy of slaveholders, and that the burn 
 ing and public reprobation of their address, was not only an insult 
 to a large body of respectable citizens, but a daring outrage on the 
 rights of gospel ministers. But what rights, sacred or secular, has 
 Slavery ever regarded in its furious course of assumption and op 
 pression ? A system that can flog women and seft children, can do 
 almost any thing. 
 
 This, and a few other quotations from Mr. Asbury s Journal, will 
 show what were his ideas of our general rule on Slavery : that he 
 never thought or intended to tolerate it in the Church, under any 
 circumstances. For in the above, he classes Slavery among the 
 greatest sins, the ne plus ultra of sins, and that if the gospel, and 
 consequently, the general rule would tolerate it, it w T ould authorize 
 any thing. 
 
 And further, in going to Charleston, he says, " Here are the rich, 
 the rice, and the slaves ; the last are awful to me. "Wealthy people 
 settle on the rice lands of Cooper Eiver, and hold from 50 to 200 on 
 a plantation, in chains of bondage.""- In looking over the slave- 
 holding country, he says in another place, " What blanks are in this 
 country, and how much worse are the rich plantations ! If a man- 
 of-war \<. a floating hell, these are standing ones. Wicked masters, 
 overseers and negroes cursing, drinking, no Sabbath, no ser 
 mons. ^ 
 
 In the following quotation, he alludes to cruelties which the public 
 sentiment allowed in his day, and which it still allows : " My spirit 
 has been grieved with some Methodists who hire out their slaves at 
 public places, to the highest bidder, to cut, skin, and starve them. 
 I think such members ought to be dealt with. On the side of the 
 oppressor there are law and power ; but where are justice and mercy 
 to the slave ? What eye will pity, what hand w r ill help, or even 
 listen to their distresses ? I will try if words can be as drawn swords 
 to pierce the hearts of their owners.":): 
 
 These were probably the Methodists with whom they were 
 Awaiting," or those who lived in States that did allow civil eman 
 cipation, and to whom the church had given the moral adjustment 
 of what was right for the legal slave. And if the latter, it shows 
 how absolute power and selfishness would allow the unprotected to 
 be skinned and starved, that great profits may come to the master. 
 God never intended that any one should be a judge in his own 
 cause. And as to the adjustment of what is right, God has fixed 
 that, and the Church has no right to transfer it to another. 
 
 More than fifty years ago Bishop Asbury deprecated the divine 
 vengeance which would visit the Southern country on account of 
 Slavery. " I saw how the flood had ploughed up the streets of Au 
 gusta (in Georgia.) I walked over the ruins for nearly two miles, 
 viewing the deep gulf in the main street. I suppose they would 
 
 * Jour. Vol. ii, p. 241. f Ibid. Vol. ii. p. 185. \ Ibid. Vol. ii. p. 273. 
 
62 Collateral Evidence of Non- Constitutional Slaveholding. 
 
 crucify me if I were to tell them that this is the African flood y but 
 if they could hear me think, they would discover this to be my sen 
 timent."* 
 
 Other passages might be adduced, but these may suffice. And 
 the above certainly gives a different phase to Slavery from that 
 which many modern ministers have ffiven. And Bishop Asbury 
 had an opportunity to know ; for his knowledge was not obtained, 
 like that of most modern travellers and chief ministers, on the stage 
 route, from the interested masters, or in their ^ay and splendid par 
 lors ; but it was formed in the cabins, on the fields, and in the rice 
 swamps of the slaves themselves. And Slavery is now what it was 
 then ; for it can never be essentially ameliorated. For it is a rela 
 tion kept together by force and tear, and nothing else. Mutual 
 interest, faith, truth, honesty, duty and affection, are elements which 
 do not belong to it. Every element of which it is composed is at 
 war with all that God has loved or established. Many good people 
 do not concern themselves much about it, because they do not know 
 its true character, and will not believe, although such a one as Bishop 
 Asbury compares many plantations to " standing hells," and Metho 
 dist plantations are not beyond the average, according to my obser 
 vation of other plantations. 
 
 In the preceding I have mostly dwelt upon the testimonies of the 
 early Methodists. I shall show* now what they did. Their testi 
 mony was not a mere abstraction in the discipline. It was a living, 
 working principle : their faith had works. 
 
 In the case of Dr. Coke and others, we have shown that the first 
 Methodists preached publicly against not only Slavery, but against 
 slaveholding. And these vigorous efforts were not in vain. There 
 was a general inquiry awakened concerning the religious and politi 
 cal bearing of Slavery, and many were convinced of its unrighteous 
 ness and emancipated their slaves. Under one sermon, as we have 
 seen, twenty-three slaves were known to have been set free ; and 
 how many others, as the result of other faithful warnings, eternity 
 alone can tell. Bishop Asbury records in Annamessex, Maryland, 
 in 1788, " that most of our members in these parts have freed their 
 slaves." There are a few yet remaining at the South who well re 
 member the sacrifices which they or their fathers had made to the 
 demands of justice, and to gain a standing in the Methodist Episco 
 pal Church. Emancipations must have been considerable, and 
 mostly through the means of our Church, for just at that time we do 
 not learn that there was any considerable effort from any other 
 quarter. For according to the census of 1790, there were in Mary 
 land alone 8,043 free persons of color, and in 1800 this number had 
 increased to 19,538. And many others of Maryland and Virginia, 
 who had liberated their slaves, liad removed with them to Ohio. 
 
 Among the early Methodists there was a holy chivalry in doing 
 
 f)od. Towards the close of the last century there were few, between 
 ew England and the Carolinas, who had not heard, or who had 
 * Jour. Vol. ii, p. 246. 
 
Collateral Evidence of Non-Constitutional Slaveholding. 63 
 
 not sung, the ballad " The Banks of the Lovely Ohio." Kentucky 
 was much richer in soil, and to the Virginian it was much nearer. 
 But Ohio was the land of Liberty ; on her soil Freedom could grow 
 and thrive without stint without the bligh tings and the curses of 
 Slavery. And thither, from the slave States, many Methodists and 
 Methodist preachers went, together with all their freed men. 
 
 It is related, I think of John Sayle, long a worthy member in Vir 
 ginia, and among the first emigrants to the West, that as soon as he 
 and his former slaves had reached the opposite bank of " the lovely 
 Ohio," that, leaping from the craft that had ferried them over, they 
 embraced the very ground in their arms ; and that then, all of them 
 on their knees, thanked God aloud for bringing them from a land of 
 oppression into a land of liberty. And that after inhaling its free 
 air, and making the shores reverberant with their hallelulas, the for 
 mer master and slaves shook hands together, saluting each other now 
 in the relation of man to man, untrammeled by Slavery and the 
 disabilities which iniquitous laws had placed upon them. And now 
 this exultant company having reached a free soil, enjoying both the 
 freedom of speech and the blessing of a pure and a full gospel, went 
 forth into the wilderness, beginning, as it were, the world anew. 
 
 Most Methodists, and nearly every preacher of this period, ab 
 horred the practice of Slavery. James Axley, a backwoods preacher, 
 but always good and true to a pure Christianity, had his " trinity of 
 devils" to fight in almost every sermon which he preached. These 
 were Dress, Eum, and Slavery. And Slavery was not the least in 
 the triad. He hated it intensely, and he loved to hate it, and to 
 drive into it on all occasions with his characteristic force and blunt- 
 ness. 
 
 It is an old adage, that wherever there is a will there is a way. 
 And when our entire Church, ministers and members, shall be thor 
 oughly imbued with the spirit of freedom, and shall be deeply 
 impressed with a keen sense of the moral obliquity of slaveholding, 
 then there will be many ways by which they can rid themselves and 
 the Church of this enormous evil. We fear that it is really this 
 willingness, in most cases, which is chiefly wanting. We may wish 
 the abolition of Slavery as the sinner wishes for Heaven, but are we 
 both willing to make the requisite sacrifices to obtain them ? 
 
 We are happy to find an example in early Methodism, in the Life 
 of the Rev. Freeborn Garrettson, to illustrate the possibility and 
 practicability of emancipation, even in those States which do not 
 allow civil freedom to the emancipated. And although Maryland, 
 the State in which this took place, might have permitted civil eman 
 cipation, yet Mr. G. effected it without any reference to State regu 
 lations, and could have done the same in South Carolina or any 
 other State. Now what has been done can be done again, and ought 
 to be done by every Methodist in the United States. The Rev. 
 Freeborn Garrettson having lost his first manifestation, and being in 
 great distress, writes : 
 
 " I continued reading the Bible till eight, and then, under a sense 
 
6& Collateral Evidence of Non- Constitutional Slaveholding. 
 
 0f duty, called the family together for prayer. As I stood with a 
 liook in my hand in the act of giving out a hymn, this thought 
 powerfully struck my mind : " It is not right to keep your fellow 
 creatures in bondage j you must let the oppressed go free" I knew 
 fcliis to be the same blessed voice which had spoken to me before ; 
 till then I had never suspected that the practice of slave keeping 
 was wrong ; I had not read a book on the subject, nor had been told 
 so by any. I paused a minute, and then replied : Lord, the op 
 pressed shall go free. And I was as dear of thtm in my mind as 
 xfl never owned one. I told them they did not belong to me ; that 
 1 did not desire their services without making them a compensation. 
 I was now at liberty to proceed in worship. After singing I kneeled 
 to pray. Had I the tongue of an angel I could not fully describe 
 what 1 felt ; all my dejection and that melancholy gloom which op 
 pressed me vanished in a moment, and a divine sweetness ran 
 through my whole frame. It was God, not man, that taught me the 
 impropriety of holding slaves, and I shall never be able to praise 
 Him enough for it. My very heart has bled since that for slave 
 holders, especially those who make a profession of religion. For I 
 "believe it to be a crying sin." 
 
 In the above plain, unvarnished, yet highly beautiful narrative, 
 we have an exhibition of the operation of the Holy Spirit upon an 
 awakened and an obedient mind ; and also an exemplification of the 
 doctrines, measures, and practice of Abolitionism. 
 
 His creed. " It is not right to hold in bondage." This is the 
 pith, point and main spring of all real Anti-Slaveryism. God taught 
 it to him. The relation between master and slave was not the rela 
 tion between man arid man, but that between man and brute. It 
 Lad no warrant in God s word. One human being could not own 
 another, for this would be the entire absorption of one man into 
 another, annihilating at once his individuality in creation and his 
 accountability to God. It would be deranging the whole order of 
 heaven; defacing the crowning distinction between persons and 
 things ; despoiling man of the dominion which God gave him, and 
 impiously attempting to pluck down an heir of immortality to the 
 level of merchandize. 
 
 His measures. He avowed his creed; he bore his testimony. 
 Knowing that public opinion in this country is the basis on which 
 iniquitous laws and usages were founded, was only the aggregate of 
 Individual opinion, he immediately withdrew his support from it. 
 He did not inquire how it would be received ; whether the rulers 
 would approve of it ; or what would be the consequences. It was 
 sufficient for him to know that it was wrong, and that it was his duty 
 to do right. Duty is ours ; consequences belong to God. He will 
 take care of his own work. A good deed can never really have bad 
 consequences, no more than a good tree can have bad fruit. 
 
 His practice. He let the oppressed go free ; he dissolved imme 
 diately and for ever the relation of master and slave. He let go his 
 bold on his fellow men ; he refused any longer to take the advantage, 
 
Collateral Evidence of Non- Constitutional Slaveholding. 65 
 
 which the unrighteous law of the State gave him, of taking his 
 neighbor s work without wages. He said nothing about " legal re 
 lations ;* perhaps he thought nothing about them. If he did he 
 could defend and protect all his former slaves who chose to remain 
 with him. He yielded at once to the impulsive dictations of the 
 Holy Spirit ; he let the oppressed go free, and God blessed and sus 
 tained him. 
 
 Now all that this man of God did in his case, every Methodist 
 and every Christian ought to do everywhere ; for the Word of God 
 and the spirit and letter of our discipline requires it from them ; 
 it requires the abandonment of all " enslaving." Nothing is said 
 of " certain circumstances." This is a fiction of later times, unknown 
 in those better days. A state of guardianship, our Church supposes, 
 in those States in which the slave cannot obtain legal emancipation ; 
 but the real relation of master and slave she never originally in 
 tended. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 POLITICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL ACTION AGAINST SLAVERY. 
 
 PETITIONS TO THE STATE LEGISLATURES GEN. WASHINGTON ADDRESS OF 
 THE GENERAL CONFERENCE OF 1796 CIRCULATED WESLEY S THOUGHTS 
 ON SLAVERY UNITED EFFORT DURING WHICH THE CHURCH PROSPERS 
 ADVERSE INFLUENCES COTTON GIN PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA. 
 
 first efforts of our fathers for the extirpation of Slavery were 
 wholly of a religious or ecclesiastical character. They attempted 
 to bring the master and slave under the same church discipline, and 
 as in all other cases to apply the same law and the same adminis 
 tration to both classes. But in carrying out the laws of Christianity 
 they were continually coming in collision with the usages of Sla 
 very, and the iniquitous laws of the State. The requirements of 
 the one were encroaching on the other. In consequence of this, 
 and, as they were aiming to reform the continent, they began to avail 
 themselves of their constitutional privilege of petition, to remove 
 Slavery, that they might establish a consistent church discipline, 
 and a pure unmutilated Christianity. 
 
 For at this time they do not appear to have thought of engrafting 
 the Christian religion on a slaveholding community. For this pur 
 pose the conference of 1785. petitioned the legislature of North 
 Carolina, that masters who wished it might have liberty to admit 
 their slaves to civil and legal emancipation. Another, of more ex 
 tensive requirements, was presented to the General Assembly of 
 Virginia. These petitions were signed by the conference, and a 
 copy of them was placed in the hands of each preacher, to circulate 
 on his circuit and to obtain signatures to them among the people. 
 Many eminent men were not only favorable to this measure, but 
 were quite sanguine of its success. Dr. CokJs Life. 
 
 What was contained in these petitions cannot now be satisfac 
 torily known. Whether they were accidentally lost, or by some one 
 suppressed, we cannot tell. The general conference this year must 
 certainly have kept a journal, and it is remarkable that they are not 
 to be found among their papers or those of Bishop Asbury. The 
 Bishop frequently alludes to this address in his journals. The docu 
 ment itself, and the notoriety which it gained at that day, the op 
 position with which it met, and the legal enactments of which it is 
 said to have been the cause, are all by far too important features in 
 the early history of -our church to be passed over in silence, and we 
 cannot but regret their disappearance. 
 
Political and Ecclesiastical Action against Slavery. 67 
 
 But that the lost petitions contained good anti slavery doctrines, 
 is quite certain from the fact that "their majesties" burned them, 
 as Mr. Asbury called the " peers of Charleston." But although 
 South Carolina treated them contemptuously, the other southern 
 legislatures entertained them with respect. 
 
 During this year Dr. Coke and Bishop Asbury waited on Gen. 
 "Washington, who received them politely, and gave them his opinion 
 against Slavery. That he was not only favorable to emancipation 
 in general, but to the object of their petition, both ecclesiastically 
 and politically, may be inferred from a letter which he sent about 
 this time to a distinguished individual, in which he says " There 
 is no person living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see some 
 plan for the abolition of Slavery." And in another letter written 
 about the same time he said " There is only one proper and effec 
 tual mode by which the abolition of Slavery can be accomplished, 
 and that is by legislative authority ; and this, as far as my suffrage 
 can go, shall not be wanting." 
 
 These were the sentiments and the pledges of the father of our 
 country, and they were generally those of the great body of the 
 American people of that day. 
 
 In 1795, it was recommended by the traveling ministry of the 
 M. E. Church, that the first Friday in March, 1796, should be held 
 as a .most solemn day of fasting, and that in common with other 
 sins, the Church should " lament the deep-rooted vassalage that still 
 reigneth in many parts of these United States, and should pray that 
 Africans and Indians may help to fill the pure Church of God." 
 Min. 1795. And shortly after, such was the success of the efforts 
 of our Church in reference to the emancipation of slaves and their 
 conversion to God, that the conference, in their thanksgiving address 
 of the next year, thanked God " for African liberty," and goes on 
 to say, " we feel gratitude that so many thousands of these poor 
 people ai Q/ree and pious." Bound Min. p. 16i. 
 
 ADDRESSES OF THE GENERAL CONFERENCES. About the year 1796, 
 the general conference put forth an address to the Church on the 
 subject of Slavery, of which the following is an extract. 
 
 " What regulation shall be made for the extirpation of the crying 
 evil of African Slavery ? 
 
 Ans. 1. We declare that we are more than ever convinced 
 of the great evil of African Slavery which still exists in these United 
 States. The preachers and other members of society are requested 
 to consider the subject of negro Slavery with deep attention, and 
 that they impart to the general conference, through the medium of 
 the yearly conferences, or otherwise, any important truths on the 
 subject, that the conference may have full light ; in order to take 
 further steps towards the eradicating this enormous evil from that 
 part of the Church of God to which they are connected." 
 
 And again in 1800, they required the entire Church to memorial 
 ize the respective legislatures, for the emancipation of Slavery. 
 
68 Political and Ecclesiastical Action against Slavery. 
 
 " The annual conferences are directed to draw up addresses for 
 the gradual emancipation of the slaves, to the legislatures of those 
 states in which no general laws have been passed for that purpose. 
 These addresses shall urge in the most respectful but pointed man 
 ner the necessity of a law for the gradual emancipation of the slaves ; 
 proper committees shall be appointed by the annual conferences 
 out of the most respectable of our friends for the conducting of this 
 business ; and the presiding elders, elders, deacons, and traveling 
 preachers shall procure as many proper signatures as possible to 
 these addresses, and give all the assistance in their power in every 
 respect, to aid the committees and to further this blessed under 
 taking. Let this be continued from year to year, till the desired end 
 be accomplished." Discipline, 1801. 
 
 These addresses, as all must see, instituted a perfect system of 
 agitation. But the agitation did not affect the peace of the Church 
 injuriously. Perhaps it rather promoted it by giving vent eccle 
 siastically to the general feeling of abhorrence to " this crying sin." 
 So far from requiring the Church " wholly to refrain," to be still, or 
 to have a "breathing spell," the conference of 1801 said "let this 
 be continued from year to year, till the desired end be accomplished." 
 
 The object of this address was not "to regulate the practice of 
 Slavery in the M. E. Church," as a reputed history of our Church 
 intimates ; but on the contrary, to extirpate it from her, to root it out 
 as an execrable weed which the enemy had sown within her 
 sacred enclosure. They had labored with various success for 
 twenty years, almost single-handed, against this giant iniquity ; 
 much light had been diffused, and very many slaves had been eman 
 cipated, the descendants of whom have since arisen to wealth and 
 respectability, particularly in Baltimore and Philadelphia. But still 
 Slavery existed, and like the foul spirit was seeking rest even in the 
 Church of God. Yet the conference was not discouraged ; so far 
 from yielding to it, having learned more of its character, it de 
 clared they were more than ever convinced of its evil nature, and 
 resolved once more to make a vigorous effort to eradicate this enor 
 mous evil from the Church. For this purpose they called upon the 
 preachers, and other members of the church, to agitate the question, 
 that they might have full light to act wisely and efficiently in the 
 premises. 
 
 Whether this conference, or that of a recent date, which required 
 all " wholly to refrain," acted more in agreement with the spirit and 
 letter of the constitution of bur Church, we must leave our readers 
 to judge. One thing is Certain : both acts could not have been con 
 stitutional. And as the only tribunal in our Church, to test the 
 constitutionality of all the acts of the general conference, is what 
 Bishop Emory very properly called the "pious, enlightened judg 
 ment of our extended communion" every one must judge for him 
 self. And consequently, ministers and members ought to study our 
 early history, examine the principles on which our Church was 
 founded, so as to be able to resist every unconstitutional measure, 
 and to keep the Church on the true basis on which she was founded. 
 
Political and Ecclesiastical Action against Slavery. 69 
 
 And, in addition to the circulation of anti-slavery petitions and 
 addresses, there was the distribution of "That Fire Brand," as some 
 have called Mr. Wesley s " Thoughts on Slavery"* a tract that 
 did not treat its subject very gingerly. It was written before the 
 horrid character of Slavery had been disguised, or softened down to 
 " Delicate Question," the " Peculiar Institution." It was also written 
 by one who called things by their right names, and placed Slavery 
 fully and squarely in the category with other sins, or rather, by way 
 of eminence, he called it " the complicated, the execrable villainy." 
 
 Here, then, the whole Church was organized into a society for 
 anti-slavery agitation. Certainly, all this did not look like " acqui 
 escing " that Slavery might remain in the Church, or that they must 
 alter the whole frame-work of our constitution to get it out. There 
 was not one word about altering the general rules to get Slavery out 
 of the Church at that day. Her annual conferences were inviting 
 free discussion, and seeking for more light ; her preachers and other 
 officers were circulating the most thorough anti-slavery tract that 
 was ever published ; they were obtaining signatures and petitioning 
 the legislative bodies, and using every means in their power to have 
 Slavery abolished. They had at that time no " breathing spell " at 
 all, for they knew and felt that this enormous evil was ever active 
 in corrupting the Church, and in hindering the work of God among 
 them. 
 
 Nor did the early Methodists lose anything in public estimation 
 by these measures ; nor were they, except in a few cases, shut out 
 from access to the slaves. But on the contrary, the moral power 
 which they gained by these measures was immense with almost 
 every class. Even the slaveholders respected them ; the masses of 
 the people sympathised with them ; and in reference to the slaves, 
 "if it were possible, they would have plucked out their eyes to give 
 unto them." 
 
 It is one of the veriest devices of the Devil, to suppose that min 
 isters of the gospel must abate somewhat the integrity of truth, to 
 conciliate the master, that they may find access to the slave. These 
 pleas of necessity, and of certain circumstances, which seem to allow 
 the gospel a pliancy to existing evils, are easily seen through, and 
 when they are, they divest that very gospel, in the estimation of 
 those to whom it comes in this way, of nearly all its sacredness. 
 The preacher thus coming is shorn of his strength ; stript of his 
 moral power ; and appears, in many respects, less than a secular 
 man. I have heard even slaveholders speak contemptuously of such 
 ministers. And when ministers of this kind, who have been thus 
 caressed, and Jed, and feed by the master, when they come to the 
 poor slaves, how often do the latter say in their hearts, and many of 
 them out openly, u mighty unsart n what em arter." 
 
 After this last address of the General Conference, which had met 
 with some opposition, several of the preachers began to falter in this 
 
 * So late as 1803, the Hymn Books of our Church, published by Ezekiel 
 Cooper, contained advertisements of the " Tract on Slavery/ 
 
70 Political and Ecclesiastical Action against Slavery. 
 
 noble enterprise. Many of the members of the first conference, 
 who had from the beginning made battle agaist this giant iniquity, 
 had, at this time, fallen in death, or had been superannuated by in 
 firmities or years. And there were, no doubt, a few of those all the 
 while, who had never entered heartily into the spirit of emancipa 
 tion, and who, with the Rev. Jesse Lee, thought others were "going 
 too far." Our Church, however, generally maintained the spirit 
 and letter of her first position, till about the time of the organization 
 of the first delegated general conference, in 1808; although it is 
 evident there was a great diversity and remissness in the administra 
 tion of her rules, particularly in those States which did not allow civil 
 liberty to the emancipated. The conferences appear to have been at a 
 loss to frame a rule which would meet the case, and consequently they 
 left the adjustment of what was, right to the administration of the 
 preacher, and to the conscience of the slaveholder. And for this 
 purpose, in 1796, the conference required that " no slaveholder shall 
 be received into the society till the preacher who has the oversight 
 of the circuit shall have spoken to him fully and faithfully on the 
 subject of Slavery." The requirement of this conference [1796] at 
 the last general one in Indianapolis, was made a matter of pleasantry, 
 as a very easy penalty. But the pith of the whole matter lay in the 
 strong anti-slavery feeling which possessed the preachers of that day, 
 and which was deemed, by the conference, a sufficient offset on the 
 part of the Church and the slave, against the encroachment or sel 
 fishness of the master. This power vested in the administrator, these 
 modern Methodists did not, or could not, appreciate. But it was, 
 in reality, " the keys," and many slaveholders were locked out of 
 the Church by them in those days by the power conferred upon them 
 by this requirement. 
 
 Unhappily, about the time our Church began to abate her former 
 efforts, under the delusion that the leaven of the gospel would work 
 out emancipation to the slave, several new events arose to give a 
 new impulse to Slavery, and to defeat the work of emancipation 
 which our Church had begun. Mr. Whitney, a New Englander, 
 resident in Georgia, had invented the cotton gin, a machine by 
 which the labor of one hundred hands could be performed by one, 
 aided by a one horse power. Cotton, consequently, could be raised 
 .much cheaper, and the demand for it increased beyond all former 
 precedent. Millions, who had never enjoyed its benefits, could now 
 afford its use, and the demand has ever since gone on increasing 
 in proportion to the reduction in its price. So that by the general 
 laws of trade and improvement, that which brought comforts to 
 millions, for a while has protracted the bondage of the slave. 
 
 The purchase of Louisiana also opened the rich alluvial lands in 
 the lower valley of the Mississippi to the planners on the Atlantic, 
 whose lands had already become exhausted. Emigration soon be 
 gan to move westward ; slaves rose in value, and the domestic slave 
 trade soon commenced its horrid career. 
 
 Thus the prospect of sudden and immense wealth checked the 
 
Political and Ecclesiastical Action against Slavery. 71 
 
 rising indignation against Slavery, and almost entirely nullified every 
 ecclesiastical rule on the subject, and even invaded the constitutional 
 article which, after 1808, forbade the foreign slave trade. 
 
 Our Church soon felt the deleterious effect of this new impulse. 
 And another circumstance of long standing was continually lessen 
 ing the anti-slavery feeling in our Church, and was consequently 
 nullifying most of her efforts. The South made little or no provi 
 sion for married preachers, and whenever one married he was obliged 
 to locate. These marriages were generally in slaveholding families ; 
 and consequently the located preacher became interested in slave 
 property. And these located preachers, in many cases, had been, 
 the most talented and influential members of the conference ; and 
 after their location, and consequent interest in Slavery, they continued 
 to exert an immense influence over the younger and less experienced 
 traveling preachers, and afterward claimed a representation in the 
 general conference. In 1824, in form this claim was disallowed, 
 but in reality they gained more than they had asked. The door was 
 opened for their re-admission into the itinerancy without the least 
 idea that they were to do itinerant work. For how could they carry 
 their plantations, and from ten to a hundred slaves, around with 
 them to the appointments? They were then necessarily accom 
 modated ; became mighty men men of renown elected to gene 
 ral conference ; and ultimately these men directed the Church. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 SUCCESS OF FIRST EFFORTS TO EXTIRPATE SLAVERY. 
 
 GREAT REVIVAL OF RELIGION AMONG THE COLORED PEOPLE. 1780-1800 
 
 GREAT ADDITIONS TO THE CHURCH UNPRECEDENTED EMANCIPATION 
 PREACHERS TRY TO BRING MASTER AND SLAVE UNDER THE SAME RULE 
 
 FAILED SLAVERY IN THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH AND IN OURS CON 
 TRASTED MASTER S DUTY SLAVE S DUTY PRIMITIVE CHURCH HAD BUT 
 ONE LAW FOR BOTH IN EFFECT WE HAVE Two UNWRITTEN LAWS OF 
 SLAVERY CARRIED OUT IN OUR CHURCH THEY SANCTION IT THEY MORE 
 THAN NEUTRALIZE ALL WRITTEN TESTIMONY AGAINST IT. 
 
 WHEREVER the Word of God is faithfully preached, " it shall 
 never return void ; but it shall accomplish/ in some way, " the 
 thing whereunto it was sent." 
 
 The vigorous efforts which had been put forth by the early Metho 
 dists were not in vain. The storm of opposition which had been 
 raised only tended to send the doctrines of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church on the subject of Slavery more rapidly over the land, and 
 to deepen them more fully in the affections and understanding of 
 the people. These efforts fixed her character at that period. In 
 the language of Southern testimony, "Methodism at that day, 
 whether at the North or South, was identified with the most deadly 
 opposition to Slavery." The slave, and the colored people in gene 
 ral, had substantial evidence that the preachers were laboring both 
 for their temporal and spiritual benefit. 
 
 Up to this time the Church was striving to establish among all 
 the people, white and colored, the whole Gospel, a pure, unmuti- 
 lated Christianity. She had not yet attempted to ingraft the reli 
 gion that is from above on a slaveholding community. Her efforts 
 were then to extirpate the one, that she might the more fully estab 
 lish the other. How often Bishop Asbury exclaims in the follow 
 ing, or similar language : " O, when will liberty be extended to the 
 sable sons of Africa? We trust the period will come." 
 
 When about leaving South Carolina for the North, he records his 
 feelings for the poor slaves in the following tender effusions : " The 
 poor Africans brought their blessings, and their wishes, and their 
 prayers. Dear souls ! May the Lord provide them pastors after 
 his own heart." Again he says : " I am ready to conclude that we 
 are not sent to the whites of this place (the extreme South), except 
 to a very few, but to the poor Africans." 
 
Success of First Efforts to Extirpate Slavery. 
 
 73 
 
 The preachers were laboring, not so much to make them good 
 servants as to make them good, intelligent Christians. For this pur 
 pose they exhorted "our people to teach their slaves to read, then 
 they would understand preaching much better" In addition to 
 this, the conference in Charleston, 1790, " Resolved to establish 
 Sunday Schools for poor children, both white and Hack"* How 
 far this good purpose was carried into effect we have not the means 
 of knowing ; but it shows, at least, the spirit and sympathy of the 
 Southern Church at this period to benefit the slaves ; that even in 
 Charleston, the foreign slave market, the hot-bed of the whole evil, 
 and the seat of the Southern aristocracy, a Methodist conference 
 should attempt to elevate the slaves and colored people to the ad 
 vantages of Christianity and civilization. 
 
 But while the above efforts were put forth, the slaves at the South 
 regarded the Methodists, especially the Methodist preachers, as their 
 best friends. They knew them not only as non-slaveholders, but as 
 laboring for their freedom. They looked upon them almost as 
 angels sent from heaven. They passed through every obstacle to 
 hear them. The Gospel which they preached was to them truly a 
 joyful sound. It was to them life from the dead, the precursor of 
 that jubilee which was to " proclaim liberty throughout all the 
 land to all the inhabitants thereof." In no period of our history 
 was the proportional increase of the colored people in our Church 
 so great. They almost literally crowded it. The following statis 
 tics, taken from the printed minutes, will show the proportion be 
 tween the white and colored members in the slave States, and their 
 respective increase per centum, during those years in which the 
 greatest efforts were made for their emancipation. There may be 
 some inaccuracies in estimating what circuits were situated within 
 the bounds of the present slaveholding States, but the calculation 
 will be sufficiently definite for our present purpose. As there was 
 no distinction between the white and colored members until 1786, 
 we can go no further back. 
 
 Tears. 
 
 Whites. 
 
 Colored. 
 
 Annual Increase. 
 Whites. 
 
 Per Cent 
 
 Colored. 
 
 1786 
 
 16,791 
 
 890 
 
 
 
 1787 
 
 19,300 
 
 3,780 
 
 14 
 
 212 
 
 1788 
 
 26,242 
 
 6,422 
 
 36 
 
 69 
 
 1790 
 
 37,016 
 
 11,682 
 
 44 
 
 77 
 
 1793 
 
 38,413 
 
 15,308 
 
 3 
 
 34 
 
 From the above it will be seen that the increase of the colored 
 membership in seven years was more than 1600 per centum, while 
 that of the white members, for the same period, was only 128 per 
 cent. The colored people, from being a mere fraction in 1786, in 
 creased within seven years to become between one third and one 
 half, or more than 40 per cent, of the entire membership, within 
 
 #Jour. Vol. ii, p. 65. 
 6 
 
74: Success of First Efforts to Extirpate Slavery. 
 
 what at this time constitutes the slaveholding States. This un 
 exampled increase in one department of the Church was not inci 
 dental. By a careful examination of the history of these times, it 
 will be seen that it had its foundation in the sympathy and unremit 
 ting efforts of the Methodist Episcopal Church to christianize the 
 slaves, and raise them from their abject condition to the rank of 
 intelligent beings. 
 
 These labors were not lost upon them. No people under heaven 
 more gratefully appreciated the efforts of the first Methodist preach 
 ers than did the colored people at the South How eagerly they 
 drank in the balmy sound of that Gospel which was pure, peaceable, 
 full of good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. The 
 colored man may be vilified, and supposed to be incapable of dis 
 cernment, but he has always been capable of discovering who were 
 his real friends, and to determine when these friends have changed 
 their course toward him. And at no period was there such a revi 
 val of pure religion, or a greater in-gathering into the Church, than 
 the time in which there were so many emancipations, and such a 
 prospect of a general jubilee for soul and body. Opposition to 
 Slavery never hurts religion. 
 
 EMANCIPATIONS. And thus it was that while the early preachers 
 were laboring assiduously for the conversion of the slaves, they were 
 equally active for their temporal emancipation. And the one in no 
 way interfered with the other. So far from it, they mutually facili 
 tated each other. Perhaps in no period were there even so many 
 of the whites, and those too of wealth and intelligence, added to the 
 church, as at the very time in which there was so much said and 
 done in reference to the emancipation of the slaves. And while the 
 Carolinas and the extreme South were excluding the Methodist 
 preachers, burning and insulting their addresses, it was far different 
 in the Northern sections of the slaveholding states, particularly in 
 Maryland and Delaware. The agitation of the subject in these 
 parts was producing the most gratifying results. There were new 
 and frequent openings in which to preach the gospel. Religion 
 generally revived, and very many were letting the oppressed go 
 free ; so that while they were excluded by the selfish, they were re 
 ceived and strengthened by those who loved truth and justice. 
 
 There was also about this time a general inquiry awakened con 
 cerning the religious and political bearing of Slavery, and very 
 many were convinced of its unrighteousness, and at once freed their 
 slaves. Under one sermon as we have seen, twenty-three slaves 
 were known to have been set free. Bishop Asbury records in 
 Annarnessex, Maryland, in 17S8, "That most of our members in 
 these parts have freed their slaves" 
 
 There are a few yet remaining at the South, who well remember 
 the sacrifices which they or their fathers had made to the demands 
 of justice, and to gain or retain a standing in the Methodist Epis 
 copal Church. Emancipations must have been very considerable, 
 and mostly through the means of our Church, (as at that lime, we 
 
Success of First Efforts to Extirpate Slavery. 75 
 
 do not learn, that there was much effort from any other quarter), 
 for according to the census of 1790, there were in Maryland alone 
 8.043 free colored persons, besides the many who had removed out 
 of the state. 
 
 The following statistics of the state of Maryland will communicate 
 much information to those who will study it, in connection with the 
 labors of the Methodist Episcopal Church, to extirpate Slavery. 
 
 Tears. 
 
 Slaves. 
 
 Inc. & Dec. 
 Per Cent. 
 
 Free Col. 
 
 Incraase per Cent. 
 
 1790 
 1800 
 1810 
 1820 
 
 103,036 
 105,638 
 111,562 
 
 107,398 
 
 4.5 
 3.5 
 
 4.0 dec. 
 
 8,043 
 19,538 
 33,027 
 37,730 
 
 143.5 
 
 68.6 
 14.0 
 
 By the above table it will be seen that the largest increase of the 
 free colored people was in those years in which the Methodist 
 Church was putting forth the most vigorous efforts to extirpate Sla 
 very, and that emancipations lessened just in proportion as they 
 abated these exertions. Between 1790 and 1800 the increase of the 
 free colored people was 143.5 per cent. In the next decennial cen 
 sus, 1810, it had fallen to 68, more than one half; and in 1820, when 
 the colonization doctrines had begun to affect, the community, it 
 went down to 14 per cent, being less than the natural increase. 
 And further, when the ministers of the gospel refrained from op 
 posing Slavery, emancipation ceased, the domestic slave trade re 
 vived, and that very Maryland that had formerly emancipated so 
 many thousands, between the years of 1830 and 1840, sold 40,000 
 of her own native children, at the price of 15,000,000 dollars, into 
 interminable Slavery, and soon after became, I believe, bankrupt, 
 or nearly so. 
 
 What insanity was this for a state to sell off her laborers, the only 
 class who really made the property! And what an inestimable 
 blessing it would have been to that fine state of Maryland, if the 
 second generation of Methodist preachers had never receded from 
 the position of their fathers. If, instead of receding, they had fol 
 lowed up the emancipations which the latter had so happily begun, 
 in a few decades that state would have become free ; and from her 
 central position, fine soil, delightful climate, splendid bays and ca 
 pacious harbors, she would soon have become one of the first states 
 in the Union. But that favorable season was lost. Our Church 
 lost the honor of a great moral achievement, and the state generally 
 the advantages arising from free labor, free speech, and a full and 
 a free gospel. 
 
 But in admitting the slaves and colored people to all the blessings 
 and immunities of the Christian Church, the preachers soon found 
 themselves in close collision with the unscriptural usages and the 
 unrighteous laws of the State. And further, they found that the 
 demands of Slavery were pressing upon the rules of the Church, 
 
76 Success of First Efforts to Extirpate Slavery. 
 
 and that there was unhappily a disposition in some of the more 
 wealthy to make the discipline quadrate with Slavery. To check 
 this tendency, and maintain the purity of the Church, the Conference 
 of 1787 put forth the following solemn injunction in reference to the 
 colored people : 
 
 " We conjure all our ministers and preachers, by the love of God 
 and the salvation of souls, and do require them, ~by all the authority 
 that is invested in us, to leave nothing undone for the spiritual 
 benefit and salvation of them within their respective circuits or dis 
 tricts / and for this purpose to embrace every opportunity of inquir 
 ing into the state of their souls, and to unite into society those who 
 appear to have a real desire to flee from the wrath to come, and to 
 meet such in class, and to exercise the whole Methodist discipline 
 among them" 
 
 No w, why the necessity of this most solemn injunction, particu 
 larly in reference to the colored people? We conjure you by the 
 love of God by all the authority vested in us to exercise among 
 the colored people the whole Methodist discipline. The mystery of 
 iniquity was now beginning to work ; that fell evil which has brought 
 Caste and Slavery into our Church, and is continually sending its 
 blighting and disturbing influence over our beloved Zion. Our 
 fathers had their apprehensions ; but O, how fully have their fears 
 been realized in subsequent concessions ! The whole Methodist dis 
 cipline has not been exercised in reference to the slaves. Had it 
 been, it would have extirpated Slavery long since, The moral dis 
 cipline of Christianity destroyed Slavery in the Roman Empire, and 
 it would have done the same for our country if the ministers of the 
 gospel had only enforced it. We want no better abolition book than 
 the Bible, and no better " plan for emancipation " than simply that 
 of the Christian discipline. Let these be fully recognized and ap 
 plied, and Slavery would necessarily die, without the possibility of 
 a resurrection. And farther, the continued observance of these 
 would always keep Slavery out of the Church. 
 
 THE CONTRAST. Condition of Slaves in the Present and Primi 
 tive Churches contrasted. We purpose to show the great difference 
 between the primitive churches and those in our own country, in 
 reference to their respective administrations of Christian discipline 
 among slaves. And in the showing, we think every one must see 
 at once how widely the latter has departed from the former ; and 
 consequently from the Scriptures. And they will further see, the 
 utter impossibility of abolishing Slavery while the present ecclesias 
 tical administration shall continue as it is. Before the peaceful 
 removal of Slavery, there must be a return to the primitive and 
 scriptural mode of administration in regard to slaves. 
 
 The primitive Church recognized the converted slaves as full 
 and acceptable members of the body of Christ. Whatever their 
 civil or social condition might have been among the heathens, when 
 they came into the Christian Church they came in just as other con- 
 
Success of First Efforts to Extirpate Slavery. 77 
 
 verts, and like them were entitled to all the rights and immunities 
 of the new relation. They were " one in Christ : where there was 
 neither Greek, nor Jew, Barbarian, Scythian, bond or free ; but 
 Christ was all, and in all." There is not the least intimation in the 
 New Testament, or during the first two centuries, that there was any 
 difference ecclesiastically, by special rule or administration, between 
 the bond or the free members of the Church. 
 
 To tho se who were under the yoke in Slavery to heathen masters, 
 the Apostle and the Church enjoined obedience. Not that the mas 
 ter had any right to this service, but for another reason ; a reason, 
 in passing, which was wholly inapplicable to Christian masters, 
 viz. : " that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed." 
 In a word, that the Christian slave should act to his heathen master 
 on the principle of doing good for evil on the same principle of 
 " turning the other cheek," which our Saviour had enjoined. That 
 in this way he might give to his heathen master such a splendid ex 
 hibition of Christian morality, contrasting generosity on the one hand 
 with covetousness on the other, that the master s opposition to Chris 
 tianity might be broken down, so that he might not only embrace 
 the truth, but that he might ultimately give the slave his liberty. 
 
 But, on the contrary, the directions given to those who had " be 
 lieving masters," were altogether of a different character. They 
 could not have been enjoined upon the above principle, for the mas 
 ters were already Christians, and they did not need this reflective 
 influence to make them such. And further, as we shall show, the 
 directions given were really such as were wholly inconsistent for the 
 relation of master and slave. Thus, 
 
 The servants in the Apostolic Church were not " to despise " 
 their former master not to think ill of them on account of anything 
 which had taken place in their heathen state. The past was to have 
 been forgiven and forgotten. " Old things now were to be done 
 away, and all things to^become new." 
 
 u But rather do them serviced rather serve them still, than to 
 work for others, perhaps heathen masters. Here there is certainly a 
 choice, or a preference between employers. The choice is obvious 
 in our version, but still more so in the original [aXXa jxaXXov]. Web 
 ster defines rather, " in preference" Now this would have been 
 tantalizing, to have told the Christian servant to do service, rather 
 in preference to his former master since he had now become a 
 Christian, if the former were yet really a slave and consequently 
 had not the least choice in the matter. But on the contrary, the 
 apostle went on so far as to reason with those who had believing 
 masters, in reference to their staying with them, since they had now 
 become Christians. 
 
 Because they are brethren, "beloved" and they belonged to 
 the same household of faith with themselves, and are equally be 
 loved by the same common Saviour. 
 
 "Because they are faithful" and they will consequently do 
 an honest part towards them, which perhaps heathen employers 
 
78 Success of First Efforts to Extirpate Slavery. 
 
 might not do, in giving them full fair wages for their work. And 
 finally, 
 
 They are <k partakers of the benefit" joint partakers. Schre- 
 velius renders the original word " to receive in turn, as a kindness ; 
 to assist. Parkhurst translates it " to take hold on the opposite side. 77 
 And Piscator says the word denotes properly a bundle or a burden, 
 through which a stick in passed, and each one on the opposite side 
 takes hold of the ends of if, and thus they mutually benefited each 
 other. Now this view would not at all suit the respective parties in 
 a state of Slavery. For in this case the burden would have been 
 all on the one side, and the slave would have had to work for 
 another, without getting anything more for it than the horse gets, 
 which is simply enough to keep him in working order. 
 
 Nearly the whole of the above may be deemed a digression, but 
 it should be remembered that this verse, I. Tim. vi. 2, is regarded 
 as the main pillar on which Slavery rests in the New Testament. 
 It was upon the words "believing masters," that Dr. Wilbur Fisk 
 spread out his celebrated " demonstration," that there were slave 
 holders in the Apostolic Church ; a demonstration, or imaginary one, 
 as we humbly think, which was soon endorsed by nearly all our 
 chief ministers, and which certainly, without the intention of the 
 learned and excellent Doctor, has done perhaps more to rivet Sla 
 very in our Church and in our country, than the direct arguments 
 of any other man living or deceased. It was actually received by 
 millions as oracular. Arguments against it were deemed unworthy 
 of notice. Locke has truly said " that authority keeps in ignorance 
 and error more people than all other causes." But to return 
 
 . So also when the master who had been recently converted from 
 heathenism, presented himself for admission into the Apostolic 
 Church, he was required to " give unto his servants that which is 
 just and equal." From this there could have been no departure in 
 the Apostolic Church. The first word just, is a legal term, and 
 must refer to some law, rule or usage. When we say a thing is just, 
 we immediately compare it in our minds with some standard. Now 
 what was the standard to which the apostle must have referred ? 
 
 It could not have referred to any slave code specifically re 
 vealed from heaven for the government of slaves, as a distinct 
 class, from free men. Because no such specific code can be found 
 in the bible. The precepts of the New Testament are given to the 
 whole race, without granting anything to any one class in particular. 
 And further, they are all founded on the principles of substantial 
 equity to every individual. 
 
 It could not have referred to any law or rule among the heathen 
 Romans, for the slave was in their hands without law, and by 
 custom their masters might torture, starve, and even kill them to 
 fatten the fish in their ponds. And further, any reference to such 
 usages would prove too much. It would prove 1. That the gospel 
 sanctioned the above Koman system, with all its atrocities and mur- 
 
Success of First Efforts to Extirpate Slavery. Y9 
 
 ders. 2. That it allowed their continuance. 3. That they were the 
 pattern after which succeeding Christians were to copy. 
 
 Now in the absence of all such suppositions, we believe that 
 "just" has a reference in this, as in all other cases, to the common 
 law of heaven, to keep judgment and do justice, for God is no 
 respecter of persons ; and that this, the eternal and the all-pervading 
 law of God was then to be applied to the slave as to any other per 
 son : and that it is just as applicable at this moment to every 
 slave in the rice swamps or on the cotton fields of the South, as it 
 is applicable to any other human being in God s creation. And 
 what an impious assumption, to say that this standing law of God 
 does not apply to slaves ! But if you apply it to slaves, as the 
 primitive Christians did, you necessarily make them free. You 
 cannot avoid the consequence. And this application of God s law 
 to the slave is the plan of the gospel for his immediate emancipation. 
 And it was just in this light that the Southern Methodists, in our 
 last general conference, viewed the application of this law, "the 
 giving that which was just and equal;" "for the doing of this," they 
 said "would make free men of them." 
 
 Their eloquent leader objected to the proposed rule, which, he 
 says, " provides for giving them [the slaves] such compensation as 
 shall be just and equal," and for their proper treatment. That 
 makes a new test, and why ? It changes entirely the relation of 
 master and slave. " It makes the slave a free man," he affirmed. 
 So it would, and so it did in the primitive Church. And so God 
 designed that it should in every church, and in every age and 
 country. And thus, the requisition of the aposMe upon every mas 
 ter when becoming a Christian, to give what was just and equal, 
 was, according to Southern showing, the very thing that made the 
 slave a free man. And what an effective and beautiful plan of 
 emancipation was this ! It was God s plan, and we need no other. 
 
 The second requirement of the master for admission was to 
 give the slave that -which was equal. This, like the other word 
 just, refers not to what heathens gave, or to any supposed inferior 
 class, but on the contrary, it referred to the masters themselves, and 
 to the great law of reciprocity. That the converted master (know 
 ing that God was no respecter of persons ; that the slave was or 
 might be his brother) was therefore not to take any advantage 
 which the civil law might allow him over another ; but that, on the 
 contrary, he should concede to his former slave an equal right with 
 himself, to use those talents which God had given the slave for his 
 own, and not for his master s peculiar benefit." And this again would 
 a free man of him. So it would, and so it was intended. 
 
 The third item in the master s duty. "And ye masters do the 
 same things unto them" These words must refer more to the cha 
 racter of the action than to any particular item in it. That is, the 
 actions of the master and servant were both to partake equally of 
 the same moral qualities. The servant was to act " in singleness of 
 heart." So the master, having no sinister motives in his conduct 
 
 O 
 
80 Success of First Efforts to Extirpate Slavery. 
 
 towards the servant, having no selfish regard to his own profit or 
 pleasure above that of the servant, much less to secure the former 
 at the entire destruction of the latter. 
 
 The servant was to do the will of God in reference to the mas 
 ter, from the heart, fully, liberally. So also the master to the ser 
 vant, doing the will of God in the same manner to the slave heart 
 ily and fully. The will of God most evidently is, that every one 
 should have an opportunity of cultivating and elevating his moral 
 nature ; that he should have the liberty of improving those tal 
 ents which God had given him, in that way in w r hich he who is ac 
 countable for them should think the best. But what master can be 
 said to do the will of God in the above manner, while he keeps his 
 fellow-creature a prisoner for life, for every slave is a prisoner ; while 
 he takes from him all his earnings ; and while he debars him from 
 the means by which he might become enlightened and intelligent? 
 
 The fourth and last item in the master s duty ; "forbear threat 
 ening" Threatening is the setting forth of pains and penalties to 
 intimidate, as a means to force one to do something. There are two 
 elements in government : one operates on its subjects by fear, and 
 it has not been improperly called "brute government ; the other 
 by an appeal -to the consciousness of right and wrong, and it is called 
 rational government. Jn every species of slave government there 
 must be an appeal to fear, which fear can only be sustained by 
 threatening and its consequent punishment the very thing which 
 is forbidden to the master. We do not say that the master is always 
 threatening, but we do say that punishment on disobedience is al 
 ways understood, without which there could be no Slavery. 
 
 God has implanted in our nature an appropriate incentive to 
 work, which is, the fruits of our labor ; but when this is taken away, 
 and Slavery always takes it away, then there must be some other 
 incentive applied, which is the very thing the Apostle forbids. It 
 is madness, fanaticism, to imagine that we can change the laws of 
 mind, or invert the laws of God. God has given to every man, of 
 whatever nation, color or condition, an instinctive desire to direct 
 himself, to enjoy his liberty, and to have his own earnings ; and no 
 system of man call ever change this constitution of our being. 
 
 Now, we think, in analysing these parts of the master s duty, that 
 we have established the position, that the duties which the Apostolic 
 Church required from all masters are such, that if they were car 
 ried out, they must necessarily make every slave in the world a 
 free man. And then, consequently, that the astounding fact, that 
 there are in our country nearly two millions slaves yet held by the 
 professed members of the Christian Church, is in itself an alarming 
 evidence that the true Christian discipline, in reference to slaves, 
 has never yet been carried out in those churches. They must be 
 criminally negligent before God and in the estimation of Christen 
 dom. We have dwelt for some time on the nature of Apostolic 
 discipline, from a conviction of its importance. The simple appli 
 cation of the principles of Christianity to church membership, is 
 
Success of First Efforts to Extirpate Slavery. 81 
 
 the gospel plan for emancipation, and like all God s works, it is at 
 once effective, beautiful, and harmonious in all its operations. 
 
 We now return to the contrast, and present some other views in 
 this matter. When the slave comes into the Church at the South, 
 and on our slaveholding border, he comes in as a slave. And he 
 brings with him into this new relation, all the disabilities, or more 
 properly, the entire state of chattelship which the secular law has 
 fastened upon him. And so the master, when he comes into the 
 Church, comes as a slaveholder, and he brings with him into it all 
 the unscriptural powers and assumptions, which the slave laws have 
 conferred upon him. And now the respective parties are not brought 
 together under the same gospel discipline, as the apologists for the 
 present continuation of Slavery appear to claim, that is, under "the 
 one law for the home-born and the stranger," or under the great law 
 of reciprocity of the New Testament ; but they are recognized in 
 the Church as under a wholly different code. The usages, the non- 
 scriptce leges of Slavery, which these churches have already adopted, 
 baptized, and virtually recognized as their ecclesiastical law in this 
 matter, place the parties in very dissimilar relations. The one pos 
 sessed of unbounded right over the other. And the other possess 
 ing no right whatever, receiving whatever he may receive from the 
 Church or his master as a mere gratuity. And thus, these usages, 
 by the. means of this double administration, has really, in reference 
 to the slave, all the force of written and positive law. 
 . Perhaps no Southern church has had the effrontery to write out 
 a slaveholding discipline in form ; but all slaveholding churches, both 
 on our border and everywhere else, must have such a one in fact ; 
 that is, they have such a one through their two-fold administration, 
 one according to the written, and the other according to the un 
 written discipline ; or in other words, one for the master and one 
 for the slave, or otherwise Slavery could not exist in the Church for 
 a single day. 
 
 Now, all such churches, and ours with them, may have ten 
 thousand " testimonies against Slavery " on the statute book, or in 
 the discipline ; but while they adopt slave usages, and administer the 
 affairs of the Church by them, such testimony might just as well be 
 in the Koran as where they are. And such churches really give 
 to Slavery the best authentication of which they are able a far 
 far better one than mere statutory law. The one ist only in the 
 book, or discipline ; but the other is an open sanction, and a visible, 
 demonstrable acknowledgment of the legal existence of Slavery in 
 the Church by action, which can be easily seen and known of all 
 men. And thus, this open saction of the legality of Slavery in the 
 Church, is much stronger than any verbal declaration can be against 
 it, inasmuch as actions are always stronger and more convincing 
 than mere words. 
 
 Thus, according to these unwritten laws, or- slave usages 
 
 The slave member has no ecclesiastical rights. He has no right 
 of suit against his master, or any free man. His master may 
 
82 Success of First Efforts to Extirpate Slavery. 
 
 beat him, wrest from him all his earnings, and do what else he 
 pleases with impunity. And if, according to our Saviour s rule, 
 (Matt, xviii. 18-15), he were to expostulate with him about his 
 wrongs, he might get a flogging for doing so. If he were to take 
 another slave brother with him, they both might get the same ; and 
 if he were to tell it to the Church, the slave usages, or the double 
 administration, now steps in, and the Church is not obliged to hear 
 him, or to receive his testimony. This was not so in the Primitive 
 Church, and this is an awful stumbling block to every slave wanting 
 to be a Christian. 
 
 He has no right of testimony. His wife or daughters may be 
 abused by any white ruffian, or he may be cognizant to the grossest 
 wickedness among the members in the church where he has his 
 quasi membership ; but the church will not receive his word. He 
 is nullus, nobody. And so the iniquity must run on ; for the Church 
 will not receive the means which God has ordained to keep herself 
 pure. 
 
 The Primitive Church had lut one law for marriage. Not so, 
 the slaveholding churches, which in effect have two. The Christian 
 law for the free, and the slave usage for the slaves, whether they 
 are white or black for some slaves are as white as their masters. 
 Hence, the slave has no legal or ecclesiastical recognition of his mar 
 riage. Most of them " take up together," while they live in the 
 same place. Those who wish to be Christians have a quasi mar 
 riage, by a slave preacher, or a white minister, changing, I am told, 
 the word in the discipline, " while you both shall live^" into, " till 
 the providence of God do you part." And this providence is the 
 mere will, profit, or pleasure of the master. And thus many in this 
 way may have a dozen or more whom they have recognized as 
 husbands and wives, in the many places in which they have lived. 
 
 The^ApostoLic Church recognized the slave s individual respon 
 sibility, and his direct accountability to God. But slaveholding 
 churches, in some anomalous way, attempt to merge both these into 
 the keeping of the master. And casuistically they say, as the slave 
 has no freedom of action, but is bound unlimitedly to obey his mas 
 ter, therefore, in obeying his master he can do no wrong. So the 
 master is the higher law to the slave. They might as well Jay the 
 blame of every sin upon the Devil, because he tempts to its com 
 mission, and in this way they would exonerate not only the slave, 
 but every sinner on earth. 
 
 Now the truth in this matter is, God holds every man, slaves and 
 all others, directly and immediately accountable to himself. There 
 can be no tranfer of responsibility from the slave to the master. 
 The Church, as in primitive times, should have taught the slave to 
 obey God at all events. He should have been taught the first prin 
 ciples of Christianity, to obey God rather than man. To fear not 
 them that kill the body, but to fear Him who hath power to cast 
 soul and body into hell." But slaves are never taught this first prin 
 ciple of our religion. When the slaves unite with the Church, as 
 
Success of First Efforts to Extirpate Slavery. 83 
 
 
 
 they did in primitive times, they should be required to keep the 
 Sabbath, attend public worship, and perform other religious duties, 
 whether their masters allowed it or not. That Christian women, as 
 in the Apostolic Church, should keep themselves pure; to resist, if 
 need be, even unto death, their licentious masters, and other white 
 ruffians. And so in regard to all other sins. But these duties are 
 not taught the slaves of our country, and sever can be without com 
 ing in deadly collision with Slavery itself. 
 
 Now it is obvious that such a position, to obey the command 
 ments of God rather than those of men, would be in itself the very 
 germ of enfranchisement, and it would be high treason against the 
 supreme divinity of slavery; it would be a fatal blow at the very 
 root of this upas of oppression. But would the slaveholder brook 
 it ? AYould he approve of a Christianity like this ? Such a Christ 
 ianity as the Saviour and his apostles taught ? Never ! for he well 
 knows that such doctrines would sever the chain that binds the hu 
 man chattel to himself, and that the recognition of any power supe 
 rior to his own, would immediately annihilate all his own impious 
 assumptions. And in such case we would not have it announced 
 in the Missionary Report, " that the Christian ministers and mis 
 sionaries still retain the approbation and confidence of. the planters " 
 or slaveholders. 
 
 But the slaves are not thus taught in slaveholding churches, nor 
 anything like it. Practically and really, the master s will is the 
 higher law to the slave. And consequently, nearly every one of 
 them, Christians and all others, must succumb to almost every sin 
 at the bidding of their masters; and the Church also succumbs with 
 them, whenever God s law comes in collision with the supreme law 
 of the master; then it is that God s law is set aside to accommodate 
 his. And what kind of Christianity ca*n that be in which there is 
 so often no Sabbath, no marriage, no resistance to any sin at the 
 biddings of the ungodly slaveholder ? A Christianity in which the 
 Bible is overthrown, and the master s will reigning supreme ? Is 
 that Christianity ? 
 
 Thus we have endeavored to contrast the administration of 
 Christian discipline in the primitive Church with that of our own. 
 Our fathers, in suspending for a while the prohibitory rule on Sla 
 very, no doubt thought, with many others, that the gospel which 
 had been preached would soon leaven the nation, and so influence 
 the master and slave that this enormous evil would entirely cease. 
 But here was the error into which they fell, and into which thou 
 sands have since fallen. Most persons seem to take for granted 
 what is not the case. They suppose that in slaveholding countries 
 the whole gospel is preached, and that the moral discipline of the 
 New Testament is duly administered. But this is not the fact, and 
 never can be, by a Church and ministry who allow the continuance 
 of Slavery among them. There can be no better plan for the im 
 mediate abolition of Slavery than the carrying out of Christian dis 
 cipline. 
 
84: Success of First Efforts to Extirpate Slavery. 
 
 
 
 Now there is but one outline of moral discipline to be found 
 in the New Testament, and this is to apply substantially to the 
 whole household of faith, for in it they are all recognized as 
 brethren. If, then, this one rule or discipline were to be exercised 
 in reference to master and slave immediately on their entrance into 
 the Christian Church, Slavery could not survive the administration 
 one hour. But as we have already shown, to accommodate Slavery 
 there are in effect two: one for the privileged order, and another for 
 the unprivileged, or rather no privileged, class of those whom they call 
 church members. And it is not a little surprising that those who 
 suppose the New Testament recognizes the relation of master and 
 slave, should have forgotten to hunt up a corresponding discipline 
 to sustain such a relation, for without such a Church discipline the 
 relation must necessarily cease. The one administration would 
 kill it. 
 
 This double manner of administering Christian discipline will 
 will never abolish Slavery to the end of time ; so far from it, it be 
 comes, in fact, the bulwark and support of it; it gives a full and 
 well-understood ecclesiastical sanction and recognition to the whole 
 system. And further, it is a solemn and awful truth, that this kind 
 of Christianity, coming to the slave through this loathsome system, 
 presented and administered by slaveholding ministers, and those 
 who countenance Slavery, makes millions of these poor creatures 
 " abhor the sacrifice of the Lord," and think that the whole of reli 
 gion is a cunningly devised fable between the minister and his mas 
 ter to keep him in bondage to work for both of them. This is a 
 startling consideration, and not half sufficiently thought of by the 
 churches in our country. We never can know the real sentiments 
 of the slave in regard to Christianity, until we allow him freely to 
 express his own views. "We ere continually hearing but one side 
 of the whole matter. 
 
 In conclusion, we are fully persuaded that Church privileges 
 would have removed this curse from our land if the ministers of the 
 gospel had only admitted the slaves to them. But they have not ; 
 Christian institutions have been set aside to accommodate those of 
 Slavery. O, how lamentable, to see ministers of the gospel strike 
 the banners of the cross, which ought to float fearlessly and tri 
 umphantly over every system, and to see them basely retreat before 
 the foul fury of Slavery, or surrender to its impious assumptions the 
 institutions of heaven, the Sabbath, marriage, ,and nearly every 
 Church privilege! Such a partial, mutilated administration of 
 Christian discipline vitiates everything within its reach. And such 
 a base succumbing to Slavery is a reproach to our common Christ 
 ianity, and it is not only a stumbling block to millions of poor 
 slaves, in reference to their reception of the gospel, but it is filling 
 the entire South, and indeed all our land, with infidelity. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 FELLOWSHIP WITH SLAVEHOLDERS. 
 
 THE CHURCH THE EMBODIMENT OF CHRISTIANITY Two WAYS TO SUSTAIN AN 
 EVIL THE SCRIPTURAL RULE THE COVETOUS THE RAILER THE EX 
 TORTIONER MORAL HERESIES NOTHING COHESIVE IN SLAVERY IT CAN 
 NOT STAND WITHOUT OUTWARD SUPPORT. 
 
 THE Church should be the visible embodiment of Christianity ; 
 her members should be the light of the world, reflecting that which 
 was to chase away the world s darkness ; she should be " the pattern 
 of the heavenly," attracting and assimilating the whole world to 
 herself. Hence it was that the apostles were so careful to keep the 
 Church pure and separate from sin and sinners. 
 
 For two hundred years Slavery has taken refuge in the Bible; 
 and to this day it leans upon the Church of God as its main support. 
 There is nothing cohesive or self-supporting in Slavery ; it is an un 
 natural state of society, and it cannot stand of itself. Take away 
 the extraneous props which surround it, and it necessarily falls to 
 pieces ; and consequently every one should examine whether he is 
 giving any support to it or not. 
 
 There are two ways by which one -may sustain and perpetuate 
 an evil. By either directly practicing it themselves, or indirectly, 
 by supporting or countenancing those who do practice it ; and the 
 latter, in many cases, can really give the more efficient and abiding 
 support to the evil. Thus Jehoshaphat sustained Ahab, and Ahab 
 sustained idolatry. The axiom is, things which are equal to one 
 and the same thing, are equal to each other, and so it is in reference 
 to Slavery. 
 
 Abolitionists, however, do not set in judgment on the souls of 
 slaveholders. They can tell, according to God s Word, what is right 
 or wrong, for the boundaries of these are fixed in the Bible ; but 
 they cannot tell the amount of invincible prejudice, invincible 
 ignorance, or many other causes which may obstruct the moral vision 
 of other men. To their own Master all such must stand or fall. 
 
 But this avowal is no reason why they should fellowship with slave 
 holders, and by so doing, give to Slavery its most efficient support. 
 They regard the holding and the using of a fellow-being in the con 
 dition of a slave as prima facie evidence of sin, and as such, they 
 are bound in conscience to bear their testimony against it, and to 
 withdraw their support from it. And this procedure is neither new 
 
86 Fellowship with Slaveholders. 
 
 nor fanatical ; it is as old and as orthodox as the practice of the 
 primitive Church. St. Paul says, "If any man that is called a 
 brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a 
 drunkard, or extortioner; with such an one not to eat." 1 Cor. 
 v. xi. Here are six kind of persons with whom the Christian Church 
 should have no fellowship, and of whom it is said, in the next 
 chapter, that such " shall not inherit the kingdom of God." And 
 three out of the six we think most evidently include the slaveholders. 
 
 THE COVETOUS. The lexicographers say the original word means 
 "to have more;" and Parkhuret, more than one s due, or share. 
 Webster defines it to desire inordinately, in a had sense, Now 
 the slaveholder not only desires, but actually takes the fruits of 
 another s labor without compensation, and appropriates it to his own 
 exclusive benefit. In the text, the desire, the very state of mind, 
 is condemned ; but to carry out that state of mind, and to continue 
 in it must certainly be worse ; this must be the highest grade of 
 covetousness. If it is wrong to covet our neighbor s ox, it must 
 certainly be worse to covet the neighbor himself, ox, and all that he 
 hath. NOW T , I defy the world to produce a greater embodiment of 
 covetousness than that which is concentrated in the slaveholder, who 
 not only cherishes this forbidden state of mind, which desires that 
 which belongs to another, but who actually holds and uses it, and 
 finally takes and transmits it to his children after him. Nothing 
 can go beyond this. 
 
 THE RAILER " Who uses reproachful language" Oat of the 
 heart the mouth speaketh, and such speaking shows the moral turpi 
 tude of the heart. Allow Thomas Jefferson to become bibical com 
 mentator, in this case. " The whole commerce," he says, " between 
 master and slave, is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous pas 
 sions, the most unremitting despotisms on the one part, and degrad 
 ing submissions on the other." It is folly to deceive ourselves ; the 
 element in slave government is fear, excited and kept up by threat 
 ening, railing, reproachful language, the very thing which is forbid 
 den by the apostle : and if these are not successful, they are followed 
 by pain and punishment. 
 
 THE EXTORTIONER " Who wrests any thing from a person ~by 
 force, duress, or authority? Webster. Thus the pseudo Christian 
 slaveholder takes the advantage of an iniquitous law a law in vio 
 lation of every principle of justice, as recognized by civilized or 
 savage men and extorts, twists out from the slave, as the word im 
 ports, the hard earnings of a poor defenseless man, and then appro 
 priates them to his own exclusive benefit. Jacob took advantage of 
 the starvation of his brother, and extorted from him his birth-right; 
 but Esau himself was spared, and he bravely recovered himself. 
 But not so the slaveholder ; he spares nothing ; he makes a clean 
 sweep ; he plucks down " the image of God," converts him to chattel- 
 ship, and makes him a mere tool, subsidiary to his own gratification. 
 Is not this extortion ? and what a giant extortion is that of the 
 300,000 slaveholders, many of them church members, who taking 
 
Fellowship with Slaveholders. 87 
 
 the advantage of a bad law, are continually extorting, wresting, 
 twisting out the sweat, the blood, (and in thousands of instances, the 
 very lives) of nearly 4,000,000 human beings, that they may live on 
 their hard earnings ! Are such fit persons to be fellowshiped with 
 as members of Jesus Christ ? Who can bid them God speed, and 
 not be partakers of their evil deeds ? 
 
 Again, St. John, in his Second Epistle, says, " If there come any 
 unto you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your 
 house, neither bid him God speed ; for he that biddeth him God 
 speed is a partaker of his evil deeds." These words, no doubt, pri 
 marily referred to our Saviour. But by amplification or implication, 
 they may refer to what our Saviour taught. Now, these are moral 
 heresies, as well as theological ones ; and if Slaveholding, the holding 
 and the using of a human being, one made in the image of God, is 
 not moral heresy, I know of none there can be none. 
 
 Dr. A. Clarke says, " He that acts towards him as if he considered 
 him a Christian brother, and sound in .the faith, puts it into his power 
 to deceive others by thus apparently accrediting his ministry " or 
 Christianity. 
 
 And further, he is also an actual partaker with him in his evil 
 deeds. Like Jehoshaphat, " he helps the ungodly, and loves them 
 that hate the Lord ; " and as sure as it resulted in the one case, it will 
 in the other, " therefore is wrath upon thee from before the Lord." 
 "Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but 
 rather reprove them." Those who fellowship with slaveholders, 
 do, in effect, fellowship with Slavery do really give it a better 
 support than the slaveholder himself. 
 
 . I verily believe that the Methodist Episcopal Church can no 
 longer be idle in this matter of Slavery, and be innocent. More than 
 thirty years ago we spent the whole of the real anti-slavery capital 
 which our venerated fathers had left us. And at present, notwith 
 standing our ever and anon repetition of anti-slaveryism, the ten 
 dency and influence of our Church is for Slavery, for its quiet, 
 peaceful continuance in the Church, under present circumstances. 
 Why, the veriest traders in the souls and bodies of men can desire 
 nothing more than this. To let them alone is just what they 
 want what the devil wanted in our Saviour s time, when they were 
 in full possession. "Let us alone, what have we to do with Thee?" 
 
 Our Church should cease to countenance or tolerate any longer 
 this enormous evil. She should cease to hold fellowship with those 
 Churches in the South, on the border, or in any country which will 
 not obey the laws of Christ. Until at least they shall have enforced 
 upon their own communicants, the observance of what Christ re 
 quired ; the practice of the most common, self-evident principles of 
 justice between man and man ; the recognition of Christian mar 
 riage; the keeping of the holy Sabbath; the privilege of reading 
 God s word, together with the right of suit and testimony to all their 
 members, so that the integrity and moral purity of our common 
 Christianity may be maintained. Those who do not observe these 
 
88 Fellowship with Slaveholders. 
 
 laws of Christ, are not " Constitutional Methodists." They are " not 
 of us ;" and if every slaveholder on the border should go out from 
 us, the Church would gain immensely by their absence. 
 
 But who are they who are thus " troubling our Israel ? " Rev. A. J. 
 Phelps, at Indianapolis, calculated them at a minority of 1 to 700. 
 " But," he said, it seems " this inferior minority must be sustained 
 at any expense. The moral force of the whole Church must defend 
 oppressors. Church authorities and Church papers must apologize 
 for the nefarious villainy. The press must be muzzled, and every 
 expedient seized upon to hold the 700 in check, and to give the 1 
 the ascendancy." 
 
 As we have already said, remove the extraneous supports from 
 Slavery, and it falls to the ground. All history confirms this state 
 ment. When the French Revolution took away the army and navy 
 from St. Domingo, Slavery fell at once in that beautiful island. 
 "When the Peninsular War in Europe required the concentration of 
 all the Spanish forces, for the defence of the mother country, almost 
 immediately society reverted again to its natural form in Mexico ; 
 and consequently, in that country about 50,000 negro and 2,000,000 
 Indian slaves obtained their liberty. The same event took place in 
 most of the South American states. The British navy for a long 
 while upheld Slavery in the West Indies, by continually crushing 
 the frequent risings of the slaves, who, but for this naval power, 
 would have soon rid themselves of their effeminate and luxurious 
 masters. And in our own country, it is the various influences at the 
 North, which at this day sustains Slavery in the southern states. 
 
 The North indirectly hold the slaves ; while the South directly 
 use them, and live upon their earnings. And as soon as the views 
 and sympathies of the former are corrected, both politically, eccle 
 siastically, socially and commercially, this curse and blight of our 
 country will cease in the latter ; but never, until then, unless it 
 ceases by a civil war. 
 
 History cannot furnish an instance of an entire slaveholding coun 
 try unconnected with any one that was free, which ever perpetuated 
 Slavery within itself, for any considerable length of time. The thing 
 is impossible ; for in a state of slavery, all the elements of a good 
 government, such as confidence, integrity, and mutual interest, are 
 entirely wanting. In 1814, how easily the British took the city of 
 Washington, our slaveholding capital ! And how easily, too, they 
 could have retained it, and subdued all the southern states, if it had 
 not been for the fear of northern soldiers. Could such a small arma 
 ment as this, at any time, have penetrated so far into any other state 
 of the Union, than a slaveholding one? Yes, it is the North which 
 continues Slavery ; and it is heart-sickening to estimate at what an 
 expense. O ! it is lamentable to contemplate the thousands of lives, 
 and the millions of treasure, which are every year swallowed up in 
 this infernal maelstrom, for the support of Slavery ! 
 
 Now, as this scourge of our race cannot sustain itself, but is de 
 pendant for its continuance on exterior support, it becomes every 
 
Fellowship with Slaveholders. 89 
 
 one who fears God, and regards the good of his fellow being, to 
 examine narrowly what assistance he may ~be giving to it. And for 
 this support, whether it be direct or indirect, every individual is 
 answerable to God ; for every one who allows himself to be a vehicle 
 for the transmission of this evil to the next generation, sins not only 
 against God and his own soul, but against posterity. He transmits 
 to unborn millions an accumulating curse, and necessarily leaves the 
 world worse than he found it. 
 
 And here again, as in the case of slaveholding, w^e bring in that 
 great efficient reformatory principle, individual responsibility. Let 
 no one wait until the State or the Church moves in this matter. God 
 holds every one accountable, not through the Church, the State, or 
 the community in general, but directly and immediately to himself. 
 This individual responsibility was the leading idea of the Eeforma- 
 tion, and soon shook the power of Papacy throughout Europe. And 
 this individual responsibility must be the efficient principle in every 
 reformation. There can be no thorough and lasting reform without it. 
 
 In the anti-slavery enterprise, ingenuity has exhausted itself in 
 planning devices to destroy the impulsive efforts of this reformatory 
 principle. The figments of "expediency, circumstances, organic 
 sins,* and various other incomprehensible mystifications, have labor 
 ed long and hard to change the issue, to transfer the blame from the 
 individuals to some impersonality, or to quiet the conscience, by at 
 tempting to prove that individuals could do nothing in this matter. 
 These anodynes have, for years, stupified or paralyzed the moral 
 sensibilities of the Church and nation ; but, thank God, their influ 
 ence is passing away ; the spirit of slumber is giving place to that 
 of vigilance and activity. The public conscience is waking up for 
 a movement, in despite of all these sophisms, and the minister or 
 the politician who will place himself in the breach, to arrest its 
 progress will be prostrated by it as by a whirlwind. 
 
 As a Christian, let him withdraw fellowship from all those who 
 are slaveholders ; by not communing with them, nor hearing their 
 ministers preach, nor inviting slaveholders into our pulpits. 
 
 But the most common pretext for holding fellowship with slave 
 holders, is that there are some good Christians among them. So 
 there may be many among the Romanists who go weekly to the con 
 fessional and bow before the crucifix ; but this is no reason that we 
 should hold religious fellowship with them, and endorse their spu 
 rious creed and idolatrous worship. Abolitionists do not sit in judg 
 ment on the guilt or innocence of slaveholders. They believe that 
 Slaveholding is prima facie evidence of that which is forbidden in 
 the word of God ; that it is outward visible evidence of the existence 
 of covetousness, extortion, and other concomitant sins in those who 
 practice it, and consequently that with such Christians they should 
 not eat. But in regard to the heart they do not judge; God only 
 searches it and knows it. They cannot pronounce in reference to it, 
 nor concerning the invincibility of prejudices, nor the want of informa 
 tion which may be with the slaveholder. Whether guilty or inno- 
 
 7 
 
90 Fellowship with Slaveholders. 
 
 cent, he has put himself in a wrong position ; in a position in which 
 he gives his name, his influence, and the whole weight of his moral 
 and religious character, to the support of that entire system which 
 the close-thinking and far-seeing John Wesley called emphatically 
 " the sum of all villanies." 
 
 And in his case, the better the man the worse is the deed. The 
 more moral worth he has, in the estimation of the world, the better 
 support he can give to Slavery ; and consequently they who sustain 
 him in his wrong position, sustain the position itself, with all its con 
 comitant sins. 
 
 We would say, in the next place, to every man as a citizen : with 
 draw your support from Slavery, by refusing to vote for any man 
 who is a slaveholder, or for any other man that upholds Slavery. In 
 this way every voter can most effectively reach the very strongholds 
 of Slavery in our country. And we conceive it to be every man s 
 duty to do it. Every consideration arising from the past and pres 
 ent, urges him to do it ; his duty to his God, to humanity, to his 
 country, and to the unborn millions who are to come after him, call 
 upon him to exercise the power now in his hands, to arrest the con 
 tinuance and progress of this scourge of the human race. It was a 
 maxim among the ancients, that he who had it in his power to save 
 life and did not do it was himself guilty of murder. 
 
 Let none suppose that individual efforts can do no good. The 
 preaching of a few Galilean fishermen overthrew the religion of the 
 pagan world. During the last twelve or fifteen years, much light 
 has been diffused. It is now collecting, and will soon shine forth to 
 destroy this foul lump of deformity with the brightness of its coming. 
 At the creation, light was created*and existed some days before it 
 was collected and shone out. Public sentiment is in a state of tran 
 sition. It is coming around right. Many who were once violently 
 opposed to anti-slavery measures, have already become their warm 
 and active friends. And very many others who imagine that they 
 still retain their former opinions and practices, are in reality advanc 
 ing with almost railroad speed to the full standard of abolition or 
 thodoxy. Like the passenger in the car, they imagine that every 
 thing is moving and coming to them, while in truth they are rapidly 
 .going forward themselves. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 FUTURE ACTION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 UNDO WHAT HAS BEEN DONE UNCONSTITUTIONALLY REPEAL THE CHAPTER ON 
 SLAVERY No CHANGE OF THE GENERAL RULE NECESSARY THE REQUISI 
 TION TO EXCLUDE SLAVERY IS IN THE CONSTITUTION OF OUR CHURCH ALREADY 
 
 GENERAL CONFERENCE SHOULD RE-AFFIRM THE DECLARATION OF 1780 
 GIVE A JUDICIAL DECISION IN REGARD TO THE MEANING OF THE RULE PRO 
 HIBIT THE OBSERVANCE OF THE UNWRITTEN LAWS OF SLAVERY IN THE 
 ADMINISTRATION OF THE CHURCH ALLOW TO EVERY MEMBER THE RIGHT 
 OF SUIT RIGHT OF TESTIMONY RECOGNITION OF MARRIAGE To REQUIRE 
 ALL MEMBERS, BOND OR FREE, TO OBSERVE THE LAWS OF CHRISTIANITY, 
 
 WHETHER IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE SLAVE LAWS OR NOT. 
 
 BUT ROW, in conclusion, what is to be done ? No one should find 
 fault who is unable to point out a better way. It was esteemed a 
 Roman virtue never to despair of the Republic. Great evils have 
 been suffered to come into the Methodist Episcopal Church, yet we 
 do not despair. No Church, from first to last, has done more 
 for the colored man in North America than ours has done. The 
 evils, however, of which we have spoken, will never cure them 
 selves ; but on the contrary, if not arrested, they will go on increas 
 ing until they ruin all connected with them. The crisis must 
 be met. By a series of concessions our Church is put in a false po 
 sition. Although constitutionally anti-slaveiy or abolitionist, her 
 present bearing and influence are almost altogether on the other 
 side. The slaveholding and extreme conservative portion of the 
 Church, at present, will not move in the matter, for they are con 
 tented with our present ecclesiastical attitude. They have the pos 
 session, and they can desire no more. If anything is done to change 
 our present position and influence, it must be done by those who are 
 opposed to Slavery. Now we say that our Church must be brought 
 back to the true foundation, to the anti-slavery basis on which she 
 was originally founded, ^g^^, 
 
 In the accomplishment of this object, we have only to pursue a 
 plain, obvious course ; no theories, no experiments, no transcendent 
 alism. All that is necessary, is simply to undo that which has been 
 unconstitutionally done. Our position is, that in her constitution, 
 the Methodist Episcopal Church is anti-slavery or abolitionist. This 
 constitutes our entire creed on this subject. From this belief all 
 our measures should emanate ; this conviction should animate our 
 hope, as it will clothe our words and doings with authority. And 
 
92 Future Action of the Church. 
 
 this belief, that Slavery is a sin, must influence our plans, regulate 
 our fellowship, and direct us in the selection of all general church 
 officers. In this discrimination we injure no one; we invade no 
 rights ; we disfranchise no real member of the Church. We em 
 brace all within the constitutional pale, as brethren beloved, equally 
 entitled to a community of rights and privileges. 
 
 It seems to us that the next general conference should separate 
 our Church wholly from all connection with Slavery, and present 
 her before Christendom in her true and real anti-slavery character. 
 And for this purpose she should, in the first place, repeal and re 
 move forever from the discipline the entire chapter on Slavery. It 
 legalizes Slavery in the membership. It is a dishonor to our Church 
 where it now stands. Slavery cannot properly be the subject of 
 law, for it is in itself essentially the abrogation of all law. 
 
 Secondly, it is not necessary to change the general rule on Slavery. 
 There is really no need of it.* It is sufficiently anti-slavery or 
 abolitionist as it now stands ; only execute it. For, 
 
 1. The requisition of the Scriptures, "To give that which is just 
 and equal," that is, an honest and adequate compensation to ser 
 vants, and to all other persons, for services rendered, and for value 
 received, is already in the moral constitution of our Church. And 
 it is there stronger and more authoritatively than any ecclesiastical 
 enactment of the general conference could possibly make it. For 
 the observance of the most obvious duties of justice and honesty, 
 we need no special rule. We might as well have one against gam 
 bling, and another against robbery. The carrying out the above 
 divine requisition is only carrying out the essential and indispensa 
 ble principles of our Christianity ; the very abnegation of which 
 would unmake Christianity itself. It would subvert the entire basis 
 of our holy religion. But, says the South, " that would make the 
 slave a free man." So it would, and that is what we want, and con 
 sequently there is no need for a change of the rule to accomplish it. 
 
 2. But further, it would be wholly unnecessary, even ecclesiasti 
 cally, for it would be a mere actum agere the doing of that which 
 is already done. For our rule on Slavery as it now stands, consid 
 ered either grammatically, morally, or historically, prohibits all 
 enslaving, without any regard whatever to inheritance or circum 
 stances. And what more could a special enactment or an amend 
 ment do ? 
 
 3. The attempt to change our constitutional law on this subject 
 would be making a false concession. It would be conceding that 
 our Church is now, and always has been, constitutionally a slave- 
 holding one. And that the vigorous efforts which her founders put 
 forth, during the first thirty years of her existence, to root out 
 Slavery, stem and stalk, from her border, were nothing more than an 
 unmeaning ado. And that her subsequent and continuous calls, 
 through the ten thousand disciplines which she is sending out every 
 year, have ever been, to say the least of it, a palpable contradic 
 tion, or something which looks too much like hypocrisy. 
 
 * See Addenda. 
 
future Action of the Church. 93 
 
 And finally, an attempt to change our organic law, in the present 
 state of matters, would be wholly useless. For the same captious- 
 ness which construes the present rule as legalizing Slavery, would 
 equally misconstrue the meaning of the restrictive rule itself, when 
 its object was to abolish Slavery. This is not theoretic. For already 
 Southern construction to the rule has been given to this effect. The 
 restrictive rule requires for the change of any one of the general 
 rules, a vote of " three fourths of all the members of the several an 
 nual conferences." Now the construction referred to is this : " the 
 three fourths of the members of several annual conferences does not 
 mean," say they, " three fourths of all the members in the aggre 
 gate, but three fourths of the members of each and every annual 
 conference separately and singly." 
 
 Thus, should 4,000 traveling preachers, out of the 4,788, which 
 constitute the whole body, vote to change the rule, any one of 
 the forty conferences say, for illustration, the Arkansas conference 
 of 26 members gives but 17 votes, out of her 26, for a change then 
 again, for the want of the one vote in this conference, the judgment 
 and the will of the thousands in the other conferences would be set 
 aside, and the entire Church would be wedded indissolubly to Sla 
 very forever. 
 
 Yet if, for the sake of form, or to meet the views of objecting 
 brethren, or to cut off the very possibility of litigation in civil law, 
 the conferences, in their wisdom, should go through the process 
 of removing the restriction to change the rule, let it be done 
 with the understanding that the process was for something like the 
 above reasons, and not because they believed that we had been 
 constitutionally a slaveholding Church. 
 
 And now, thirdly. Having repealed the chapter on Slavery, and 
 having left the general rule on it untouched, the next general con 
 ference should 
 
 Re-affirm the declaration of sentiment which was known and 
 acknowledged by the whole Church at the time she was founded, 
 viz.: that Slavery is contrary to the laws of God, man, and nature; 
 hurtful to society ; contrary to the dictates of conscience and pure 
 religion, and the doing that which we would not that others should 
 do to us and ours. And that we do still hold in the deepest abhor 
 rence the PRACTICE of Slavery, and shall not cease to seek its de 
 struction by all wise and prudent means. 
 
 As the general conference is a judicial, as well as a legislative 
 body, let it in its judiciary capacity give an exposition or an authori 
 tative decision in reference to the rule on Slavery. They can do 
 this with great propriety; for the rule was not one of their own 
 making, and they are the highest judiciary in our Church to whom, 
 consequently, the ultimate decision of the law must come. They 
 might, at least, according to our views, affirm something like the 
 following : 
 
 1. " That the buying and selling of men, women and children with 
 the intention to enslave them," was never intended, and never should 
 
94: Future Action of the CJiurcJi\ 
 
 be so construed as to set aside the requirements of justice and equity 
 which are contained in God s written word ; which word, the Church 
 receives as the only rule, and the sufficient rule both of faith and 
 practice. That the above rule was never meant to release any of 
 our members, or any other person from the moral obligation to give 
 that which is just and equal, a full, fair equivalent, wages, or com 
 pensation for work done or value received, to every child of man,, 
 wholly irrespective of his color, country or condition.* 
 
 3. That every good and acceptable member in our Church, with 
 out regard to color and condition, shall have the right, according to 
 Matthew xviii, 6, 15-18, of private expostulation; for the redress 
 of grievance ; and that in case this fail, he shall be allowed an eccle 
 siastical suit, according to the discipline. 
 
 4. That the testimony of every person, without regard to color or 
 condition, who is accredited for veracity, shall be received in all our 
 ecclesiastical courts. 
 
 5. That there shall *be no distinction in the administration of the 
 law of marriage, between those members who are bond and those 
 who are free. 
 
 6. That no person who is a Sabbath-breaker, or who is in any 
 other way a violator of other laws of Christianity, shall be continued 
 in the Church ; and that in all those cases in which our members are 
 coerced by ungodly masters, or by unscriptural laws to do so, that 
 they be taught in those cases to obey God rather than man, and to 
 endure the consequences as did the primitive Christians ; and that 
 
 * Although the general conference has no right to change the words, or to alter 
 the sense of the general rules, yet in cases of disagreement in the construction 
 of them, in its judicial capacity it has a right, and for the sake of peace, in many 
 cases, it ought to give an authoritative decision in regard to the meaning of the 
 law. For, 1. Everyone does this for himself in regard to the Scriptures. 2. 
 The general conference did this in effect when it required baptism and a confes- t 
 sion of faith as tests of membership. 3. These rules are general, and certainly 
 the highest judiciary in the Church should have the right to direct their applica 
 tion and to expound their meaning. 
 
 For instance, we have a rule against "buying and selling goods which have 
 not paid the duty." Now suppose one, or ten thousand, of our members* should, 
 by inheritance or otherwise, get thousands of such uncustomed goods into their 
 possession for their own use ; and suppose, in bar of the general rule, they should 
 plead that the receiving, holding and using of such goods, were not buying or 
 selling them, and that it was only the latter that the rule prohibited. In this 
 case, and it is a perfect parallel to the one on Slavery, would not the general con 
 ference have a right, and should they not exercise it to decide something like 
 this. That the object and design of the rule was to prevent any one from cheat 
 ing the government, and that the receiving, holding and using of such goods are 
 clearly within the prohibition ; that they abhorred the practice of cheating the 
 government, and that it must be immediately discontinued. Who in this case 
 would think that the conference had transcended its constitutional bounds ? Or 
 that, to prevent the members of the Church from defrauding the government, 
 that it would be necessary to change the whole constitution of the Church, and 
 to alter the general rules so as to make it read, "the buying, selling, holding or 
 using goods that have not paid the duty." Now we do most religiously think 
 that the cases are parallel, and there is just as much necessity to change the 
 general rules in regard to smuggling, as there is in regard to slaveholding. 
 
Future Action of the Church. 95 
 
 the entire Church sympathise with them in their sufferings, and that 
 the said Church shall use all the means in her power to obtain re 
 dress for these sufferings; and to secure for them and all other Chris 
 tians in slaveholding states, the unrestricted liberty of conscience, 
 and the right of public worship. 
 
 Finally, that according to the requirement of our Church in 
 1787, "that the whole Methodist discipline be exercised among 
 them," the slaves and the people of color, as it is among other mem 
 bers. This, then, is all that we need ; and all this the Church of our 
 choice must have. This in itself is amply sufficient for the entire 
 abolition of Slavery ; for we can have no better abolition book than 
 the bible, and no better plan for the emancipation of Slavery, than 
 the enforcement of Christian discipline. 
 
ADDENDA. 
 
 Since writing the above, it has been suggested that it would be better to pass 
 through the Disciplinary process by changing the general rule on Slavery. Al 
 though we do not believe that this is really necessary for we are fully of the 
 opinion, that the simple execution of Christian Church discipline, would effectu 
 ally extirpate Slavery ; yet we do not object to this process, if it be passed through 
 pro forma, with the understanding that the Methodist Episcopal Church is not 
 now, and never has been constitutionally slaveholding. 
 
 This constitutional difficulty is really an " after thought. Our fathers never 
 thought of it. The same rule was in the discipline at least in 1789, and while they 
 were making every effort to "extirpate this abomination," they never appear to have 
 imagined that they were infringing on any constitutional law in driving Slavery 
 out of the Church. Evn the delegated conference of 1812, w^hen they " author 
 ized each annual conference to form their own regulations relative to buying and 
 selling slaves," seem never to have thought that they were violating the constitu 
 tion, or that it was necessary to send the above around to the annual conferences 
 for their concurrence. In fact, "the constitutional bar" is a new doctrine, 
 sprung up about twenty-eight years ago by some of our chief ministers, on the 
 present agitation of the slave question. Yet, for the sake of form, this process 
 may be passed through. 
 
 1. It may be well to accede to the views of those who think that the constitu 
 tional process is necessary. 
 
 2. It may simplify the whole matter by removing at once every issue of a 
 doubtful character, and by keeping the main question fully in view. And 
 
 3. As there is ample time to send the recommendation to the several annual 
 conferences, it will afford opportunity to comply with the requisition of the gen 
 eral conference of 1796, who, among other matters, enjoined the following: " The 
 preachers and other members of our society are requested to consider the subject 
 of negro Slavery with deep attention, till the ensuing general conference : and 
 that they may impart to the general conference, through the medium of the yearly 
 conferences, or otherwise, any important thoughts upon this subject, that the 
 conference may have full light, in order to take further steps towards the eradi 
 cating this enormous evil from that part of the Church of God to w r hich they are 
 united." His. Dis. p. 276. 
 
 4. And lastly, in case of secession or of any appeal to courts, the process may 
 be well by cutting off the plea of unconstitutionally. For, from the Supreme 
 Court of our country, as it is unhappily constituted, this plea may be fairly antici 
 pated. For at present, and for many years past, a majority of the judges have 
 been slaveholders, and their proclivities have been already sufficiently manifested 
 in their decisions between the M. E. Church and the M. E. Church South. So 
 that pro forma, and for the above reasons, it may be, perhaps, best to have the 
 general rule changed ; but always, however, with the understanding, that we 
 never admit that the Methodist Episcopal Church is now. or ever has been con 
 stitutionally slaveholding. 
 
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