The Colored Man in the Methodist Episcopal Church

by L. M. Hagood

The following are the resolutions above referred to, enacted by the General Conference of 1836:

“Whereas, Great excitement has prevailed in this country on the subject of modern Abolitionism, which is reported to have been increased in this city recently by the unjustifiable conduct of two members of the General Conference in lecturing upon and in favor of that agitating topic; and WHEREAS, such a course on the part of any of its members is calculated to bring upon this body the suspicions and distrust of the community, and misrepresent its sentiments in regard to the point at issue; and WHEREAS, in this aspect of the case, a due regard for its own character, as well as a just concern for the interests of the Church confided to its care, demand a full, decided, and unequivocal expression of the views of the General Conference in the premises; therefore,

“Resolved, by the delegates of the annual conferences, in General Conference assembled, That they disapprove, in the most unqualified sense, the conduct of two members of the General Conference, who are reported to have lectured in this city, recently, upon and in favor of modern Abolitionism.

“2. That they are decidedly opposed to modern Abolitionism, and wholly disclaim any right, wish, or intention to interfere in the civil and political relation between master and slave, as it exists in the slaveholding States of this Union.

“3. That the foregoing preamble and resolutions be published in our periodicals.”

The report of the Judiciary Committee is here given also, touching this question at another point:

“The Judiciary Committee, to whom was referred the petition of the official members of the Methodist Episcopal Church on Lancaster Circuit, Baltimore Conference, report, that the petition referred to them is an able document, drawn up in the most respectful language, and signed by twenty-nine individuals, who claimed to be official members of the Methodist Episcopal Church on Lancaster Circuit.

“The petitioners first invite the attention of the General Conference to the section of the Discipline which states that ‘no slaveholder shall be eligible to any official station in our Church hereafter, when the laws of the State in which he lives will admit of emancipation, and permit the liberated slave to enjoy freedom,’ etc. They then produce an extract of the laws from the commonwealth of Virginia, showing their extreme rigor in this matter, ‘That any emancipated slave (with exceptions too rare to be looked for in one case out of many) remaining in the commonwealth more than twelve months after his or her right to freedom shall have arrived, contrary to the provisions of this act, shall be sold by the overseers of the poor, in any county in which he or she may be found, for the benefit of the literary fund.’ In view of this act they claim that they, as official members, are protected by the Discipline of the Church, as they deem it to be precisely one of the exceptions to the General Rule provided for in the Discipline; and especially as under the existing laws of the commonwealth to emancipate their slaves would, in many cases, be an act of cruelty to the slaves themselves. The matter of complaint by the petitioners is, that the construction put upon this rule by the Baltimore Annual Conference, in certain acts respecting individuals connected with this section of the work, is subversive of their rights and oppressive in its bearings; that they require the same submission to the rule of persons in that State as of those in sections where the legal disability to comply with it does not exist, regardless of the exceptions. And they respectfully solicit the interference of the General Conference, either to revise the rule, or give it such construction as to afford them relief in the premises; or, finally, if neither be done, to cause them to be set off to the Virginia Conference.

“It is due to the Baltimore Conference to say that the cases referred to as evidence of their improper application of their rule, are stated in terms too vague and indefinite to authorize the inference drawn by the petitioners. It is represented that a young man applying to be received into the itinerancy is prevented by application of this rule; that it is in vain for him to urge upon a majority of the conference the impracticability of his complying with the rule, in consequence of the laws under which he lives, or any other consideration in favor of his being received; because he will not comply with the rule, he must be rejected. The same, it is assumed by the petitioners, is done with respect to those who apply for ordination. And it is inferred by them, that if the conference act consistently, stewards and leaders may be expected soon to be called upon to comply with the rule, or forfeit their official standing in the Church.

“Your committee view this subject in a very different light. In admitting a preacher to travel, or electing one to orders, a conference must have the right to act freely; and in cases which are not successful, it is wholly an assumption, on the part of the applicants or their friends, to say what particular considerations dictated the vote, unless such considerations be distinctly avowed by a majority of the conference. And it is known to all conversant with the transactions of an annual conference, that no person applying to be received or ordained ever enters as a party before the conference, pleading his own cause, and hearing and answering the objections which may be urged against his application. Any act of conference, then, in these cases, can not be justly urged as evidence that the conference denies the party concerned the benefit of the special provision in the rule. A conference or other deliberative bodies possess, and in the nature of the case must possess, the right to determine its own course, and vote freely in all such individual cases. Your committee, therefore, can not see that the privileges claimed by the petitioners have been contravened by an act of the Baltimore Conference.