But now it appeared as if the crisis had been reached. Just what action that General Conference could or would take now on the question of slavery in general, and the bishop’s case in particular, was hard to imagine. The natural supposition with the Abolitionists was that the same vituperation and obloquy would be manifested against slavery as of yore; that the rules relating to slavery would be adhered to, even where it involved a popular bishop of that Church. It was a trying situation. Others declared it impracticable and irrational for the great Methodist Episcopal Church to interfere with the personal rights of the bishop by declaring that he was in the wrong, when he did not claim the slaves as his property. Some declared the Church would now back down, and thus verify the allegations of the Wesleyan brethren. If it had not been for the confidence the Church had in the bishop, and in many others who professed to believe slavery right, they could easily have concluded that a trap had been set to catch the General Conference, because the bishop was not the only one involved. A member of the Baltimore Annual Conference had also, by marriage, become a slaveholder and refused to manumit his slaves. In the State of Maryland emancipation was possible. After the Baltimore Conference had carefully considered his case, he was suspended from the ministry of the Church. He appealed from the decision of his conference to the ensuing General Conference. When the case came up on the appeal, the decision of the lower court was sustained by a large majority. In the meantime the Committee on Episcopacy waited upon Bishop Andrew. He informed the committee that he had married a wife who inherited slaves from her former husband; that her husband had secured them to her by a deed of trust; and that she could not emancipate them if she desired to do so. The committee, however, aware of the fact that it was possible for the bishop to remove from the State of Georgia where emancipation was not possible, to a State where it was possible, took the case under consideration.
Here were two factions—one in favor of standing up for the emancipation of slaves, supported by thousands of influential Northern and Eastern men and money; the other, supported by not less than fifty thousand members, institutions of learning, and the slaveholding States and slaveholding sympathizers from the Atlantic to the great West, from the Lakes to the Gulf, and every slaveholding country in the entire world. Speeches, noting these facts, and declaring a bitter unwillingness to crouch before the spirit of freedom, manifested by that part of the Church which opposed the holding of slaves, began to make a breach in the Church that eternity alone, we fear, can only close. The Board of Bishops were divided on the question. From North to South, from East to West, the Church of God was disturbed. Not only this, but the world knew that if the Methodist Episcopal Church split then and there on that question, and any respectable portion opposed slavery, it would be the beginning of the end of slavery on American soil. Therefore, even the political and mercantile worlds were anxiously waiting, as well as earnestly working, either to reconcile the affair or compromise it. Any way in the world not to divide on that question at that time. God only knows how many colored people in this country sent up prayers from the rice-swamps of the Carolinas, the cotton-fields of Mississippi, and the cane-brakes of Louisiana, that “the God of Elijah, who answered prayer by fire,” would bow the gentle heavens and visit New York City with a baptism of the Holy Ghost, that that General Conference—the men of God therein—might have victory in favor of the Church, suffering humanity, and God. If there was ever any time at which more prayers besieged the throne of grace than another, it surely must have been during the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1844. It is not an exaggeration to say the eyes and ears of the world were turned toward that General Conference. And why not? Were not even then the interests of every Methodist in the known world, of every colored man, woman, and child, and children of the race then in the womb of the future—aye, the future destiny of him who pens these lines, with that of our holy Christian religion at stake? Most assuredly it was so.
Some declared that Bishop Andrew would have willingly yielded to the opinions of the General Conference had not his brethren in the slaveholding States and others persuaded him that it was his duty to stand by them on this question, involving their personal rights. While we do not stop to express a doubt as to whether, indeed, this was uppermost in his mind, we are glad to note that, notwithstanding the interests at stake, and that the Church at that time could have saved itself much trouble, filled its coffers with “golden ducats,” increased its popularity, and the sound of its applause would have resounded on earth from sea to sea and from shore to shore, after a protracted discussion, that General Conference, by a vote of 110 to 68,
“Resolved, That it is the sense of this General Conference that he [Bishop Andrew] desist from the exercise of his office so long as this impediment remains.”
At this action the Southern conferences felt deeply aggrieved. A clap of thunder from a clear sky could not have spread greater consternation and excited more feeling than did this action. Like wildfire the news began to spread. So far as the United States mails could carry it, the news was spread before a fortnight. What was to be the outcome but few hesitated to say. What could it be but that which had been repeatedly predicted, the separation of the Southern conferences from the Methodist Episcopal Church?
At once meetings were called by the Southern delegates, and steps were taken looking to the organization of a Church in the South. The following year the organization was accomplished, showing that the matter had been thoroughly canvassed, and a conclusion reached by the slaveholding element that was not to be surrendered. Is he a philosopher who sees in this a counterpart to the drama of Pharaoh and the Hebrews? Is it not possible to trace the finger-marks of Providence all along the pages of every resolution offered by the Methodist Episcopal Church on this question from 1796 to date? Does not it appear in all this that our God,
“Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never-failing skill,
Treasures up his bright designs
And works his sovereign will?”