“1. If any member of our Society shall buy or sell a slave or slaves in order to make gain, or shall sell to any person who buys to sell again for that purpose, such member shall be called to an account as the Discipline directs, and expelled from our Church; nevertheless, the above rule does not affect any person in our Society, if he or she make it appear that they bought or sold to keep man and wife, parents and children, together.
“2. No person, traveling or local, shall be eligible to the office of a deacon in our church, unless he assures us sentimentally, in person or by letter, that he disapproves slavery and declares his willingness and intention to execute, whenever it is practicable, a legal emancipation of such slave or slaves, conformably to the laws of the State in which he lives.”[37]
This report was adopted and ordered to be copied into the Steward’s Book of the Circuit.
The Conference of 1817 dealt very extensively with slavery.[38] It made provision for the buying and selling of slaves. It prohibited the selling of slaves into perpetual bondage on penalty of forfeiture of membership in the church. The quarterly conference was given the power to regulate the term of slavery for which a member of the church could sell his slave. The preacher of each congregation was empowered to appoint a committee of three to judge of the length of service that slaves purchased by members could be required to render. All of these requirements were conditioned on practicability, the consent of the state, violation of justice and mercy, and assumption of financial responsibility against charge of emancipated slaves. The conditions of the execution of these regulations show what a travesty the whole procedure was.
The case of Hardy M. Cryer, which came before the conference of 1817, illustrates the difficulty that the church faced in trying to enforce its policy. Mr. Cryer was secretary of the conference of 1817. He had failed to emancipate his slaves according to a promise made the previous conference. He had in the meantime bought a negro boy. He was able to make satisfactory explanation of his conduct to the conference, and was appointed elder. In other words, he was able to show the conference that his conduct had been consistent with “justice and mercy” and that its requirements as to emancipation were “impracticable.”[39]
One of the most eminent of Tennessee historians made the following comment on the action of the church in the conference of 1817:
Such was the legislation of a body of ministers with reference to a subject over which they had no control, provided the laws themselves did not admit of emancipation, which they themselves assumed to be the fact. Hence, the adoption of a proviso which in every case, taking things as they were, either nullified the rule or made it easy for a member or a minister to retain his slaves; for whenever he determined to own slaves it was easy to make it appear that it was in accordance with justice and mercy to retain those already in possession, or that under the law it was impracticable to set them free. Such legislation would seem to be sufficiently absurd, but it is amazing that an intelligent body of men should gravely attempt to compel a preacher or member to emancipate a slave at an expiration of a term of years after having surrendered ownership and control of same. The only theory conceivable that can relieve the conference of the accomplishment of a solemn mockery is the supposition that they, having confidence in the justice of the future, must have believed themselves to be anticipating civil legislation—that the legal emancipation of the slave was an event which the immediate future must produce. However, the attitude of the conference on this subject is of great historical value, bringing into clear relief, as it does, the strong conviction of the Methodist body of Christians that slavery was a great moral evil, the existence of which was deplorable, and to be opposed by every means attached to which there was any hope of its gradual abolishment.[40]
The conference of 1818, which met at Nashville, repealed the regulations of the conference of 1817, and decided that the “printed rules on slavery, in the form of discipline” was full and sufficient on that subject.[41]
The conference of 1819 also met at Nashville and decided “that no man who is known to hold slaves is to be admitted to the office of deacon or elder.”[42] Peter Burum and Gilbert D. Taylor, who were recommended for admission to the ministry, were rejected by this conference because they were slaveholders.[43] Several applicants for deacon’s orders were rejected for the same reason.