506 History of Methodism 



against the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, since the period of 

 division. The struggle that led to the separation was brought on by 

 Southern defense against Northern invasion of the Discipline. 



By a law of the Church, made in 1840, it was 'declared that "the 

 simple holding of slaves or mere ownership of slave property in 

 States or Territories where the laws do not admit of emancipation 

 and permit the liberated slave to enjoy freedom, constitutes no 

 legal barrier to the election or ordination of ministers to the various 

 grades of office known in the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal 

 Church, and cannot, therefore, be considered as operating any for- 

 feiture of right in view of such election and ordination." Although 

 under the direct protection of this law, which in substance has been 

 in existence in the Discipline of the Church since 1816, Bishop 

 Andrew, of unimpeachable name, was deposed from the episcopacy, 

 and the Rev. F. A. Harding, of unblemished character, was divested 

 of his credentials by a majority of the General Conference of 1844. 

 In review of this extraordinary transaction, it was remarked by- 

 one of the ablest jurists of our country that "in the whole history 

 of jurisprudence, in its actual administration throughout the civil- 

 ized world, where duty is inculcated by law and rights are pro- 

 tected by law, this is as clear and palpable an infraction of law as 

 is to be found disgracing any of the pages of the books which 

 illustrate the utter regardlessness of law in the early and dark and 

 tyrannous ages of English jurisprudence." This palpable violation 

 of the Discipline and consequent invasion of the rights of the min- 

 istry guaranteed to them by the law of the Church Avas a prom- 

 inent cause which impelled the Southern Conferences to the sepa- 

 ration. The institution of slavery was the occasion, not the cause, 

 of this unfortunate event, by developing a dangerous principle of 

 action on the part of the majority of the General Conference of 

 1844, which might as well have manifested itself in connection witli 

 some other affair of State about which the Church essayed to legis- 

 late in opposition to the law of the land, but which, as carried out 

 in the case actually occurring, did, in fact, place the Southern Con- 

 ferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church in a position directly 

 antagonistic, on a question of civil policy, to the authorities of State 

 in contravention of the twenty-third article of religion, and of the 

 New Testament Scriptures. 



Among the many weighty reasons, also, which influenced the 

 Southern Conferences in seeking to be released from the jurisdiction 

 of the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, as 



