COLORED PASTORATE.
“(1.) Our colored members, ministers, and laymen feel that the times are auspicious to the development of their mental and moral power, and request from us the facilities necessary to this end.
“(2.) A colored pastorate they recognize as among the most important of these facilities, securing to them a ministry adapted to their wants, encouraging their young men to enter the ministerial field, and offering motive and opportunity for general ministerial advancement.
“(3.) They do not, however, propose to secure this by—indeed, they are utterly opposed to—separation from our Church, either with a view to a union with another, or to independent organization. With such a feeling on their part, the General Conference can not consistently with its own responsibility, with their constitutional rights, or with any decent recognition of their loyalty to our Church in all the troubles through which, on their account, she has passed, adopt any measure which shall, even indirectly, look to such a result.
“(4.) Conference organization is asked for from two quarters; other memorials urge that the requests should be granted. The local ministers who have been before us have shown deep solicitude in this direction....
“(7.) From this exhibit of facts two convictions are natural, namely: We must retain the oversight of this people; we must give them efficient colored pastors.
“To retain these pastors as mere local preachers, subject to appointment by white presiding elders, will impair rather than increase their efficiency; will promote congregationalism among them rather than itinerant missionary enterprise.
“To propose their incorporation with the existing annual conferences will be attended with difficulties too formidable every way to be readily disposed of, and the delay incident to such a proposition is incompatible with the urgent requirements of the times.
“In view of these considerations, we recommend to the General Conference for adoption the following preamble and resolutions:
“Whereas, In the present circumstances of our country, the colored people occupy a position of peculiar interest, appealing to our Christian sympathy, and inviting our missionary enterprise; and