Conference of 1855.--The New Departure.--Mission Committee.--The Slavery
Controversy.--Triumph of Freedom.--Wisconsin Conference Rule. Conference
Report.--Election of Delegates.--Appointed to Racine.--Detention.--The
Removal to the New Charge.--Stage, Dray, and Steamboat.--New Bus Line.
The Conference for 1855 was held at Racine on the 29th day of August,
and was presided over by Bishop Janes. During the session I was
quartered with Rev. Moses Adams, a superannuated member of the Black
River Conference.
The business of the Conference was transacted with the usual dispatch,
and there were only two items which engrossed unusual attention. These
were the distribution of the missionary appropriations and the election
of delegates to the General Conference.
As to the first, a new departure was made in the organization of the
Committee on Missions. The Presiding Elders of the Conference had been
hitherto appointed on this Committee. But now a few restless spirits,
who fancied that, as seen from their limited opportunities to judge
correctly, the appropriations had not been judiciously made during the
past few years, determined to appoint this Committee from among the
Pastors. The Elders, well knowing that the farcical proceeding would in
time come to naught, concluded to offer no opposition to the movement.
The Committee was accordingly appointed and proceeded to the discharge
of its duties. At the first meeting, however, it was found that the
Committee was unable to proceed for want of information. At the next
meeting, to remedy this difficulty, the brethren who had occupied
Mission fields the previous year were invited to be present. This
measure was found to afford only a partial relief, as these brethren
knew nothing of the border territory that ought now to be organized into
new fields. The next move was to ask all the Pastors to meet the
Committee at the next session. To afford room to accommodate the
Committee and its invited guests, the audience room of the Church was
appropriated for an entire afternoon. Here the great work of the
Committee was entered upon in right good earnest, with the special
champions of the movement as managers of the exhibition.
But now, alas! for the success of the meeting, there was too much light.
At once a large number of fields that had been supposed to be
self-supporting was brought forward, and their respective
representatives were so successful in setting forth their feeble and
helpless condition, that many of them were entered upon the list by the
Committee as Missions. The question as to the number of Missions having
been settled, the next thing in order was the amount of money that
should be given to each.
From the information already received, the amounts were jotted down
briskly until the entire list had been gone over. The footings were now
made, and to the Committee the result was appalling. They had
appropriated three times the amount of money at their disposal. Then
came the rub, which had been so often experienced by the Presiding
Elders. The Missions must be cut down in two ways. First, all that could
possibly manage to get through the year without aid must be struck off
the list, and then such as remain will need to be cut down to the
lowest possible figure. But still brave, our Committee would not see
their impending defeat, and proceeded at once to the labor of
cutting down.
One of the champions had been a surgeon in his time, and had cut human
flesh with becoming recklessness, but now he, as well as the entire
Committee, struck a new experience. To strike Missions off the list, and
cut down the appropriations to others, is comparatively an easy task in
the quiet and secluded confines of a committee room, but to do either in
the presence of the very men who expected to occupy those fields the
coming year, and who knew the poverty of the people, was quite another
thing. The flood-gates of speech-making had been opened by the
Committee, and it was now impossible to close them. The balance of the
afternoon was given to stormy debate, and into what disorder the meeting
might have drifted, if the coming evening had not made its appearance,
it is impossible to conjecture.
The next day the Committee took another new departure, and invited the
Presiding Elders, who had studied these matters and looked the ground
carefully over for a whole year, before them. The Committee were now
able to complete their labors and make such a report as had usually been
presented to the Conference. But the Conference became fully satisfied
that this experiment needed no duplicate, and, for years after, the
mention of the "Committee of the Whole on Missions," did not fail to
excite mirth.
Early in the session, the election of delegates to the General
Conference occurred. As I was too young to be thought of in that
connection, I was permitted to sit quietly and take notes. The only
issue of any great importance in the election was the slavery question.
And as this institution had already been put in issue in the general
elections of the country, it could not well be left out on this
occasion. So it was made the chief subject of discussion. To be a
thorough-going anti-slavery man was the stubborn test of qualifications
for a delegate. And that there might be no mistake on this point, it was
deemed advisable to have an able committee present to the body as a
platform a report that should make the absolute prohibition of slavery
its chief plank. But before I make further reference to the report it
will not be amiss to refer briefly to the subject of slavery in its
relations to the Church.
At the organization of the Church in this country, and for years
thereafter, the testimony she gave against American Slavery was distinct
and unequivocal. Both the Ministers and people were agreed that the
Institution was, as Mr. Wesley was pleased to call it, "The sum of all
villanies." Agreeing in this, they further believed that, as a relic of
barbarism, it would soon pass away. Under this conviction they hardly
deemed it necessary to enter up any very stringent enactments against
it, save that it might be well as a temporary arrangement to provide
that there should be no traffic in slaves. Under such a regulation
matters passed on for a term of years. But in due time it was found that
the tendency of events was not altogether satisfactory.
At the outset, the Church had been planted in the central portion of the
Atlantic States, and had then grown rapidly southward, giving the
balance of power to the Conferences where slavery existed. At this
juncture, also, by a remarkable change in the commercial affairs of the
country, the cotton crop of the South began to find an increasing demand
and appreciate in value, thereby giving an increased value to slave
labor. With this change came at once the multiplication of slaves and
large returns. To own slaves and cultivate cotton now became the ruling
inspiration of the people.
At the first the Church stoutly opposed the insetting tide, but as the
waves of commercial life grew strong and swept around her, the power of
resistance grew more feeble from year to year, until finally some of her
own people began to plead extenuation and even tolerance. The conflict
was now open, and the result seemed questionable. With the conscience of
the Southern portion of the Church asleep or dormant, the anti-slavery
side of the issue came finally to depend upon the Church in the North
for statement and defence.
At this stage of the conflict the controversy became sectional, the
South upholding and the North seeking to remove the evil. Thus the
contest raged for years, until the South, growing strong on her
ill-gotten gains, and arrogant from her success with the supple-kneed
politicians of the North, put the Church in the North upon the defensive
by demanding toleration, if not actual adoption. The issue was made in
trying to foist upon the whole Church a slave holding Episcopacy. This
last act was the feather, if such it might be called, that broke the
camel's back.
The effort was thwarted by the North only through the timely aid of a
few of the Central Conferences. At this the South took offence, as is
well known, and seceded, carrying with them more than half a million of
members and a portion of the Church property. To secure the latter, it
is true, long and bitter litigations followed the separation. And it is
generally accepted in the North that the decision which gave it to the
South took its shape from the political complexion at the time of the
Supreme Court of the United States.
It was now thought that the question of slavery was put to rest. But
alas! for human foresight. It still remained that the General Rules,
which permitted members to hold slaves, provided they did not "buy or
sell," had not been changed. And it was soon found that the awakened
conscience of the North could not rest until the last vestige of the
nefarious institution was swept from the Church. Agitations, therefore,
followed, and each succeeding General Conference found this question to
be still the troubler of Israel. Nor was the question left alone to the
care of the General Conference. Each annual Conference was also
agitated by it.
But it was evident to all that a serious embarrassment must be overcome
to secure a change of the General Rules. The Constitution of the Church
has a provision which, to effect a change, requires a two-thirds vote in
the General Conference, and a three-fourths vote in all the Annual
Conferences. To obtain the requisite vote with these provisions, it will
be seen, can only be realized on such questions as can command great
unanimity of sentiment. If the entire South had gone off in the
separation, the trouble would have been at an end, but, as we have seen,
the border Conferences remained with their brethren of the North, and
aided them in fighting the first battle with the slave power.
But now, when the question of a change of rule was brought forward, they
took the other side, and in doing so were able to furnish enough votes
to defeat the proposed measure. And the question, which was now
agitating the Annual Conference, was the framing of such a rule as would
meet the approval of the great body of the Church, and pass it along the
line of the Conferences to secure their favorable consideration before
taking it to the General Conference.
At the preceding session of the Wisconsin Conference such a rule had
been framed and sent on its way to the several Conferences to obtain
their approval. This was called the "Wisconsin Conference Rule," and
read as follows: "The buying, selling, or holding of a human being as a
slave." This rule received very general favor among the Northern
Conferences, but was rejected of course by those lying along the border.
At the Conference now in session in Racine, as before stated, a report
was submitted touching this matter. And it was intended to so set forth
the sentiment of the Conference as to make it a test of eligibility in
the election. I subjoin an extract from the resolutions adopted:
"<i>Resolved,</i> That we contemplate with feelings of deep humility and
sorrow before God, that the M. E. Church has any connection with the
system of American Slavery, and that we will not cease our efforts for
extirpation until the last ligament is severed."
"<i>Resolved,</i> That we record with gratitude, the favor with which the
'New Rule,' proposed by our Conference at its last session, has met in
so many of the Conferences in which it has been acted upon, and we
believe that the principle involved in it is the standard at which the
Church should and will soon arrive."
"<i>Resolved,</i> That whether or not the next General Conference adopt it as
a substitute for our present General Rule on Slavery, we earnestly
request that body to so modify the Chapter on Slavery as to prevent the
admission of any slaveholder into the M. E. Church, and secure the
exclusion of all who are now members, if they will not, after due labor,
emancipate their slaves."
This report was adopted with remarkable unanimity, but when the vote was
taken for delegates, it so happened that at least two of the men who had
been most clamorous in its support, failed to secure an election. This
result, however, did not come from a real difference in sentiment on
the main question, but from a desire to send to the General Conference a
delegation that would not defeat the desired end by a manifestation of
zeal without prudence. The Chairman of the Committee, however, was
elected to lead the delegation. The Delegates were P. S. Bennett, I. M.
Leihy, Edward Cooke, Elmore Yocum and Chauncey Hobart.
During the session of the Conference, a meeting of the principal members
of the Church and congregation at Racine was held, to take into
consideration the condition and wants of the charge. The deliberation
had resulted in laying before the Presiding Bishop a request for the
appointment of the writer. The appointment was accordingly made. But a
removal to the charge was attended with no little difficulty.
During the latter part of the spring term of the Lawrence University,
the typhoid fever appeared among the students, and in several instances
proved fatal. To prevent the like result in other cases, the inhabitants
opened their doors to receive sick students who could not be suitably
cared for in the dormitories of the College. Four of these were taken by
Mrs. Miller, and, in every case, it was believed that their lives were
only saved through her kind intervention and care. This kindness to
others, however, proved disastrous to her and the family. Before her
charge was well off her hands, she was herself attacked by the same
malignant disease. Then followed weeks of suffering on her part, and not
a little interruption of my work as Presiding Elder, especially
unfortunate in the closing part of the year. She passed down to the
borders of the grave, and on two occasions the beating of the pulse
seemed to cease, but in the good providence of God she was spared. Her
return to health, however, was slow, and meantime her sister, now Mrs.
Gov. C. K. Davis, of Minnesota, who resided with us at the time, was
taken with the same disease. This latter case was also a severe one, and
for several weeks delayed our removal to the new charge. But as soon as
it would do to attempt the journey, we were on our way. Unable to walk,
I was obliged to carry the invalid from the house to the carriage, and
from the carriage at Menasha to the steamboat. We reached Fond du Lac in
the evening and tarried for the night. The following morning we took the
stage for Sheboygan. The roads were excellent and the coach comfortable,
but it was necessary to carry the invalid literally in my arms the
entire distance. On arriving at the shore end of the pier at Sheboygan,
the steamboat, at the other end, gave a signal for her departure.
Hastily leaving the coach and sending the family forward with all
possible dispatch, I chartered a common dray, the only conveyance at
hand, placed a trunk upon it, took the invalid in my arms, seated myself
on the trunk, and bade the driver to put his horse on his best speed.
The race was a most creditable one, and before the boat had time to get
under way, we were nicely on board, to the great merriment of all
concerned.
But out of one trouble, we were soon into another. We had hardly reached
the open lake before the boat encountered a heavy sea, which brought
sea-sickness to all of the company for the balance of the journey. But
in this misfortune we were not alone. Rev. E. S. Grumley, the newly
appointed Presiding Elder of the Racine District, and his family, had
also come on board at Sheboygan, and were now our companions in travel,
as also in misery. Tossing amid the waves, the progress of the steamboat
was slow, and we did not reach Racine until after midnight. We were
happy to gain a landing, but we found ourselves without a conveyance to
the hotel. Not even the common dray was at hand. But, nothing daunted,
we groped amid the darkness until we came upon the buggy of the
Presiding Elder, which fortunately had been landed from the same boat.
The invalid was soon placed in it, and, adopting a style of travel that
might have seemed unusual by daylight, in due time we were at the hotel.
The following morning we were sought out by the good people and kindly
cared for, being assigned to quarters with my late host and his
obliging family.