494 History of Methodism 



adopted by the Conference, and the proceedings of numerous Quar- 

 terly Conferences and other meetings in all parts of our Annual 

 Conference district, respectfully offer the following report: 



It appears to your committee, on the evidence of numerous docu- 

 ments, and the testimony of the preachers in open Conference, that 

 in all the circuits and stations of this Conference district the people 

 have expressed their minds with respect to the action of the Gen- 

 eral Conference, and the measures proper to be adopted in conse- 

 quence of that action. Resolutions to that effect have been adopted 

 by the Quarterly Conferences of all the circuits and stations with- 

 out any exception, and in many, perhaps in most of them, by other 

 meetings also, which have been called expressly for the purpose, and 

 in some of them by meetings held at every preaching-place where 

 there was a society. And on all these occasions there has been but 

 one voice uttered — one opinion expressed — from the sea-board to 

 the mountains, as to the unconstitutionality and injurious character 

 of the action in the cases above-named ; the necessity which that 

 action imposes for a separation of the Southern from the Northern 

 Conferences, and the expediency and propriety of holding a conven- 

 tion at Louisville, Ky., and of your sending delegates to it, agree- 

 ably to the proposition of the Southern and Southwestern delegates 

 of the late General Conference. 



Your committee also have made diligent inquiry both out of 

 Conference and by calling openly in Conference for information 

 from the preachers as to the number, if any, of local preachers or 

 other official members, or members of some standing among us, who 

 should have expressed, in the meetings or in private, a different 

 opinion from that which the meetings have proclaimed. And the 

 result of this inquiry has been that, in the whole field of our Con- 

 ference district, one individual only has been heard to express him- 

 self doubtfully as to the expediency of a separate jurisdiction for 

 the Southern and South-western Conferences ; not even one as to 

 the character of the General Conference action. Nor does it appear 

 that this unanimity of the people has been brought about by popu- 

 lar harangues, or any schismatic efforts of any of the preachers or 

 other influential persons, but that it has been as spontaneous as uni- 

 versal, and from the time that the final action of the General 

 Conference became known at every place. Your committee state 

 this fact thus formally that it may correct certain libelous imputa 

 tions which have been cast on some of our senior ministers in the 

 Christian Advocate and Journal, as well as for the evidence which it 



