“And in respect to the produce and profits, such share or part as the number of Annual Conferences which formed themselves into the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, bore at the time of said division in May, A. D. 1845, to the whole number of Annual Conferences then being in the Methodist Episcopal Church, excluding the Liberia Conference, so that the division or apportionment of said produce and profits shall be had by Conferences, and not by numbers of the traveling preachers.
“7. That said payment of capital and profits, according to the ratios of appointment so declared, shall be made and paid to the said Smith, Parsons and Green, as Commissioners aforesaid, or their successors, on behalf of said Church, South, and the beneficiaries therein, or to such other person or persons as may be thereto authorized by the General Conference of said Church, South, the same to be subsequently managed and administered so as to carry out the trusts and uses aforesaid, according to the Discipline of said Church, South, and the regulations of the General Conference thereof.”
CHAPTER V.
FROM THE DIVISION OF THE CHURCH, IN 1845, TO THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR, IN 1861.
Provisions of the Plan of Separation—Time of Division—The Missouri a Border Conference—Vote on Adhering North or South nearly Unanimous—The Disaffected—Covenant Breakers—The M. E. Church in Missouri after the Division—Her Ministers and Members—How Regarded—Relative Strength of the Two Churches in Numbers and Property—Sympathy—Persecution—Tenacity in Spite of Opposition—Success the only Revenge—The Class of Northern Methodist Preachers—Their Connection with Clandestine Efforts to Free the Slaves—Their Condemnation and their Secret Service—Character of the Old Missourians—Their Vindication—Northern Methodists Condemned for being Secret Political Partisans, and not for Preaching the Gospel—The Anti-Slavery Element in Missouri Ten Years before the War—Lawful vs. Clandestine Means—“Underground Railroad” and other Nefarious Schemes to Run off the Slaves of Missouri—These Things Condemned by the Anti-Slavery Party—Public Meetings of Citizens in the Interest of Order and Peace.
The “Plan of Separation” adopted by the General Conference of 1844, to which attention is given in the preceding chapter, fixed the line of separation along the line of division between the free and the slaveholding States, for the most part, and provided as follows, to-wit:
“1. That, should the Annual Conferences in the slaveholding States find it necessary to unite in a distinct ecclesiastical connection, the following rule shall be observed with regard to the northern boundary of such connection: All the societies, stations and Conferences adhering to the Church in the South, by a vote of a majority of the members of said societies, stations and Conferences, shall remain under the unmolested pastoral care of the Southern Church, and the ministers of the Methodist Episcopal Church shall in no wise attempt to organize churches or societies within the limits of the Church, South, nor shall they attempt to exercise any pastoral oversight therein: it being understood that the ministry of the Church, South, reciprocally observe the same rule in relation to societies, stations and Conferences adhering by vote of a majority to the Methodist Episcopal Church; provided, also, that this rule shall apply only to societies, stations and Conferences bordering on the line of division, and not to interior charges, which shall in all cases be left to the care of that Church within whose territory they may be situated.”—General Conference Journal, vol. 2, p. 135.
The Missouri Annual Conference was one of the Conferences “bordering on the line of division,” and the question of adhering North or South was thoroughly canvassed and decided almost unanimously in favor of the South. Those ministers favoring the North were allowed to adhere North “without blame,” by the “Plan of Separation.” They were seven out of one hundred and thirty-six.
Prior to the session of the Conference in Columbia, in the fall of 1845, when the vote was taken, the “societies and stations,” along the border particularly, were asked to decide by a vote of the members whether they would adhere North or South. The vote was so nearly unanimous in favor of adhering South that not a single “society or station” in the Conference gave a majority in favor of adhering North, and in very few of them was there a division at all. In a few societies along the border, such as St. Louis, Hannibal, Lagrange and some others, and a few scattering societies in the interior, there was a small minority in favor of adhering North. These were generally men recently from the Northern States, or mal-contents who rejoiced in the occasion thus afforded to seek notoriety or revenge in a contentious faction. Such persons are found, more or less, in every community, and unfortunately for the peace of society some sections of Missouri unwittingly offered special inducements to that class of immigrants, and received quite a large surplus of them from the older States. Amongst the few disaffected of Missouri Methodists who would not go with the majority in this division may have been some honorable exceptions, but they were few and far between, and only prove the general rule.
The vote to adhere South was so general in the State that no one thought of accepting the “pastoral care” of the ministers of the M. E. Church, North, until after that Church had pronounced the “Plan of Separation null and void,” and had proceeded to violate their plighted faith and disregard every “binding obligation in the premises.”
The right and authority of one party to set aside and declare “null and void” a solemn contract or covenant entered into by two parties, without the consent of the other party, is not debatable. The failure of the sixth restrictive rule, according to the decision of the United States Supreme Court, did not vitiate the covenant, nor had the M. E. Church, South, up to 1854, by act or deed, according to the same high authority, forfeited the covenant to the other party by any failure to comply with its provisions.