No one will doubt that these utterances were directed against the Northern Methodist preachers as political partisans, and not as ministers of the gospel, and that the cry of persecution for righteousness’ sake failed of its sympathy where it failed of the truth.
The first resolution advises these men to “desist from visiting and preaching among us.”
The second is a declaration of rights, and amongst them the following: “When the law fails to protect, we claim to have the natural right, as a community, to resort to the use of such means as will afford us protection.”
The third affirms that “Northern fanatics have forced the question of slavery into all the churches,” and claims protection under the Constitution and laws of the United States government for the institution of slavery thus endangered.
The fourth affirms the unity of Methodist doctrine and worship, the validity of the Plan of Separation, and “protests against the M. E. Church, North, sending ministers among us, and respectfully requests such ministers to make no more appointments in this vicinity.”
The fifth is as follows: “That, as we are situated contiguous to Quincy, a city containing some of the vilest abolition thieves in the Mississippi Valley, and as we have already suffered so much at the hands of these incendiaries we regard it as absolutely necessary to the protection of our slave interests that we close our doors against abolition and free-soil influences of every character and shade, and that we shall, therefore, esteem it highly improper for any citizen hereafter to countenance or encourage the preaching or teaching in this community of any other minister or teacher, person or persons, the representatives of, or in any way connected with, any church or churches, any association or society, whether religious or political, or of any character whatsoever, who have heretofore or shall hereafter take ground, directly or indirectly, expressly or impliedly, against the institution of slavery.”
That resolution is both special and general. It may apply to Mr. Sellers, and it may apply to Dr. Elliott, and a hundred others, as abolitionists and not ministers, or as abolitionists and ministers.
A similar meeting was held in Rochester, Andrew county, in June, 1856, at which resolutions of a similar character were passed. In a few other places, too, the people assembled peaceably and expressed their disapprobation of their course and asked them to desist. But whatever may be said to the contrary in partisan publications, the page of unerring history will affirm three facts of the people of Missouri in these meetings:
1. That the M. E. Church, South, as such, had nothing whatever to do with them; while her members, as citizens, were only equally interested and implicated in them with the members of other churches.
2. Whenever these meetings denounced the preachers of the M. E. Church, North, it was not because they were ministers of the gospel, as such, but because they abused the privileges of their profession, and were secret, active political partisans and abolition emissaries.