The Colored Man in the Methodist Episcopal Church

by L. M. Hagood

“Having said this much respecting the alleged grounds of grievance, your committee agree in the opinion that the exceptions to the General Rule in the Discipline, referred to by the petitioners, clearly apply to official members of the Church in Virginia, according to the laws of the commonwealth, and do therefore protect them against a forfeiture of their official standing on account of said rule. In addition to the petition of the official members of Lancaster Circuit, a resolution of a quarterly conference of Westmoreland Circuit has been referred to your committee, by which it appears that the members of said conference concurred in said petition. Should the General Conference agree in the opinions stated by the committee in the report, it is respectfully recommended that, after adopting it, they cause a copy of it to be forwarded to the official members in each of the above-named circuits. All of which is respectfully submitted.

“The committee to whom were referred sundry memorials from the North, praying that certain rules on the subject of slavery, which formerly existed in our book of Discipline, should be restored, and that the General Conference take such measures as they may deem proper to free the Church from the evil of slavery, beg leave to report:

“That they have had the subject under serious consideration, and are of opinion that the prayers of the memorialists can not be granted, believing that it would be highly improper for the General Conference to take any action that would alter or change our rules on the subject of slavery. Your committee, therefore, respectfully submit the following resolution:

“Resolved, etc., That it is inexpedient to make any change in our book of Discipline respecting slavery; and that we deem it improper further to agitate the subject in the General Conference at present.

“All of which is respectfully submitted.”

The pastoral address presented to and accepted by that General Conference, at once puts forever at rest any shadow of a doubt as to any disposition of the Church to compromise with slavery. We quote the closing part touching this question, viz:

“It can not be unknown to you that the question of slavery in these United States, by the constitutional compact which binds us together as a nation, is left to be regulated by the several State Legislatures themselves, and thereby is put beyond the control of the General Government, as well as that of all ecclesiastical bodies; it being manifest that in the slaveholding States themselves the entire responsibility of its existence or non-existence rests with those State Legislatures. And such is the aspect of affairs in reference to this question, that whatever else might tend to ameliorate the condition of the slave, it is evident to us, from what we have witnessed of Abolition movements, that these are the least likely to do him good. On the contrary, we have it in evidence before us that the inflammatory speeches and writings and movements have tended, in many instances, injuriously to affect his temporal and spiritual condition by hedging up the way of the missionary who is sent to preach to him Jesus and the resurrection, and by making a more rigid supervision necessary on the part of his overseer, thereby abridging his civil and religious liberties.”

General Conference of 1840.—Test cases touching slavery were continually arising. That of Silas Comfort was among the most noted. No one will, for a moment, deny that this noted case was as complicated as noted, and was, we believe, on the whole as we now see it, settled for the best interests of the Church and the colored race. The decision was not what could have been expected; but, then, “discretion is the better part of valor.” There were, of course, two sides—two separate and distinct parties concerned. While the interests of a class within the Methodist Episcopal Church were at stake, the unity and tranquillity of the Church were on the altar. The action of Rev. Silas Comfort was an entering wedge between the two parties within the Church. Many earnest, honest men thought it a strange procedure when that General Conference declared it “inexpedient and unjustifiable for any preacher among us to permit colored persons to give testimony against white persons in any State where they are denied that privilege in trials at law.” This was passed by a vote of 74 to 46. Twenty-two members of that General Conference did not vote at all. Whether the spirit that gave birth to the Wesleyan Methodist Church three years afterward kept them from voting, is not recorded. Whether that decision hastened the organization of the above-mentioned Church or not, many believe it did. The decision, since in it the word “denied” appears, was probably the best the General Conference thought it could do under existing circumstances, coupled with the restriction to those “States where they are denied that privilege in trials at law.” The reason for rendering such a decision probably rested upon the fact that otherwise it might have led to internal wranglings in the general Church, and imposed additional hardships upon the colored man, in that masters would probably have felt it incumbent upon themselves to prohibit any slave from enjoying the benefits derivable from membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church, and thus added injury to insult, and left them a prey to “the false accuser of the brethren.” Notwithstanding the construction others put upon that decision, or what we now think of it, the colored members of the Methodist Episcopal Church were not well pleased, as a protest from Sharp Street Church declares. The author of “The Anti-slavery Struggle and Triumph in the Methodist Episcopal Church,” at page 148, says: “At the General Conference of 1840 a memorial was prepared by forty official members of Sharp Street and Asbury Churches, in Baltimore, protesting against the colored-testimony resolution. It was put in the hands of Rev. Thomas B. Sargent, and by him given to one of the bishops. Through the efforts of Dr. Bond and others the memorialists were pacified without the conference knowing anything of the document.” The Rev. Dr. Elliott declared that “the colored members of the Church were greatly afflicted. This matter had like to have done great mischief.” The document was afterward published. Among other things equally pungent, the memorialists said:

“We have learned with profound regret and unutterable emotion of the resolution adopted May 18th, which has inflicted, we fear, an irreparable injury upon eighty thousand souls for whom Christ died; souls which, by this act of your venerable body, have been stripped of the dignity of Christians, degraded in the scale of humanity, and treated as criminals, for no other reason than the color of their skin. The adoption of this soul-sickening resolution has destroyed the peace and alienated the affections of twenty-five hundred members of the Church in this city, who now feel that they are but spiritual orphans or scattered sheep. The deed you have done could not have originated in that love which works no ill to his neighbor, but in a disposition to propitiate that spirit which is not to be appeased, except through concessions derogatory to the dignity of our holy religion! And, therefore, they protest against it, and conjure you to wipe from the journal the odious resolution.”

This was strong language, prompted by a stronger feeling.