ence.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE GENERAL CONFERENCE OF 1796.

HE Second Quadrennial General Conference met in Baltimore, Thursday, October 20, 1796; though the preceding Conference had inserted in the Discipline that this session should begin November 1.* The change of date was, however, authorized by the Annual Conferences.† Bishop Coke arrived from Europe two days before the opening and Bishop Asbury joined him the next day. "About a hundred preachers," he says, "were met for General ConferThe Conference rose on Thursday, the 3d of November: what we have done is printed." "We present to you in a separate tract from our form of discipline the result of our deliberations,"§ say the Bishops in an address to the Church on behalf of the General Conference, thus, once more, affording an intimation that the Minutes of 1792 had not been published apart from the Discipline. The sole legislative prerogative of the General Conference, in contrast with the ordinary executive business of the Yearly Conferences, under the laws prescribed for them, is, in this same prefatory address, brought out clearly: "We have, therefore, on a former occasion [1792] confined solely to the General Conference the work of revising our form of discipline, reserving for the Yearly Conferences the common business of the connexion, as directed by the form."||

According to Lee, the number present increased to a hundred and twenty. The district bodies disappear, and the General Conference for the first time defines the boundaries of the Annual Conferences, ordaining six at this session:

*Discipline, 1792, p. 15; Emory, Hist., p. 111. † Minutes, ed. 1813, p. 162. ‡Journal, II. 267. § Discipline, 1797, p. 59; Gen. Conf. Journals, I. 7. || Discipline, 1797, pp. 59, 60; Gen. Conf. Journals, I. 7.

*

New England, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Virginia, South Carolina, and Western. The Bishops, however, were empowered to create others if necessary. The "chartered fund" is established.† There had been nothing on the subject of slavery in the Discipline of the Church for more than ten years, since the Conferences of 1785 annulled the legislation of the Christmas Conference, except the General Rule, of uncertain parentage, inserted (some say "interpolated") in 1789. This General Conference asked "What regulations shall be made for the extirpation of the crying evil of African slavery?" and enacted the following elaborate legislation:

1. We declare that we are more than ever convinced of the great evil of the African slavery which still exists in these United States, and do most earnestly recommend to the yearly Conferences, quarterly meetings, and to those who have the oversight of districts and circuits, to be exceedingly cautious what persons they admit to official stations in our Church; and, in the case of future admission to official stations, to require such security of those who hold slaves, for the emancipation of them, immediately or gradually, as the laws of the states respectively and the circumstances of the case will admit. And we do fully authorize all the yearly Conferences to make whatever regulations they judge proper, in the present case, respecting the admission of persons to official stations in our Church.

2. No slaveholder shall be received into our society till the preacher who has the oversight of the circuit has spoken to him freely and faithfully on the subject of slavery.

3. Every member of the society who sells a slave shall immediately, after full proof, be excluded the society. And if any member of our society purchase a slave, the ensuing quarterly meeting shall determine on the number of years in which the slave so purchased would work out the price of his purchase. And the person so purchasing shall, immediately after such determination, execute a legal instrument for the manumission of such slave at the expiration of the term determined by the quarterly meeting. And in default of his executing such instrument of manumission, or on his refusal to submit his case to the judgment of the quarterly meeting, such member shall be excluded the society. Provided, also, that in the case of a female slave, it shall be inserted in the aforesaid instrument of manumission, that all her children who shall be born during the years of her servitude, shall be free at the following times, namely: every female child at the age of twenty-one, and every male child at the age of twenty-five. Nevertheless, if the member of our society, executing the said instrument of manumission, judge it proper, he may fix the times of manumission of the children of the

*Gen. Conf. Journals, I. II. † Ibid., I. 20-22.

female slaves before mentioned, at an earlier age than that which is prescribed above.

4. The preachers and other members of our society are requested to consider the subject of negro slavery with deep attention till the ensuing General Conference: and that they impart to the General Conference, through the medium of the yearly conferences, or otherwise, any important thoughts upon the subject, that the Conference may have full light, in order to take further steps toward the eradicating this enormous evil from that part of the church of God to which they are united.*

At the request of the General Conference, Coke and Asbury appended their "Notes on the Discipline," to the edition of 1798. "It may be worthy of remark," says Emory, "that this is almost the only section upon which the bishops make no notes." †

On temperance this Conference was also decided:

If any member of our society retail or give spirituous liquors, and anything disorderly be transacted under his roof on this account, the preacher who has the oversight of the circuit shall proceed against him as in the case of other immoralities.

Asbury says, "At the Conference, there was a stroke aimed at the president eldership," § but nothing of its nature can be gathered from the official Journal or contemporary sources. The election of presiding elders by the Annual Conferences became a subject of debate in the General Conference of 1800 and continued a burning question until 1828, when it was finally put to rest.

But aborted measures are not recorded. The Journal says nothing of "strengthening the episcopacy" at this Conference, yet this question furnished matter for earnest and protracted debate. At first, a committee was raised, to which the subject was referred; but objections were urged, and it was dissolved. 66 They agreed to a committee," says Asbury, "and then complained; upon which we dissolved ourselves." || Pending the discussion, Asbury stated to the Conference his fears of an imprudent selection and

*Gen. Conf. Jour., I. 22, 23; Disc., 1797, pp. 76, 77; Emory, Hist., pp. 275, 276. Hist. of Discipline, p. 276, footnote.

Discipline, 1797, p. 81; Gen. Conf. Journal, I. 28.

§Journal, II. 267.

Ibid., II. 267.

expressed a desire for a colleague established in the doctrines and discipline of Methodism. "This threw a damper on

all present, and seemed to paralyze the whole business." The resolution before the Conference was then amended, "to strengthen the episcopacy in a way which should be agreeable to Mr. Asbury.' It was then almost unanimously requested of Mr. Asbury to make the selection himself, which he appeared very unwilling to do. At this juncture, Coke, who occupied the chair, "begged that the business might be laid over till the afternoon." "When we met in the afternoon," continues Jesse Lee, "the doctor offered himself to us, if we saw cause to take him; and promised to serve us in the best manner he could, and to be entirely at the disposal of his American brethren, and to live and die among them." *

Of the debate which followed, the Rev. John Kobler, who was present, gives an account, in a letter to Dr. L. M. Lee, written, however, as late as 1843:

This unexpected offer, and to many an unwelcome one, opened the way to a large and spirited debate. A number present were warmly in favor of accepting the offer, and as many were against it. Mr. Lee was decidedly against and he warmly opposed it. In fact, I believe he never liked the Doctor anyway, from his first entering among us in 1784, to the last. He could not endure the absolute spirit and overbearing disposition of Dr. Coke, as a high officer in the Church. Mr. Lee was a candid man, and in no wise disposed to give flattering titles to any, and, as such, he opposed the offer with great zeal and eloquence from first to last. He was a man of great penetration, and could see through circumstances and read men well. He was the best speaker in the Conference. He first showed that there were several members in our Connection who were well qualified to fill the office, having been long and well proved; who were natives of the country, one of ourselves, and were well acquainted with the rules by which our civil and religious privileges were regulated. But his most powerful argument, I well remember, was this: "That the doctor was a thoroughbred Englishman; and an entire stranger abroad in the country (out of the Church); that the deep-rooted prejudice against British oppression, which by our arduous Revolutionary struggle we had so recently thrown off, still hung heavily, and was operating powerfully upon the public mind; and that to select a high officer to govern our Church from that distant and tyrannizing nation, whose spirit and practice were held in abhorrence by the American people, would, in his judgment, be a very impolitic step, and would tend to raise the Hist. of Methodists, pp. 247, 248; cf. Dr. L. M. Lee, Life of Jesse Lee, pp. 325-330.

suspicions and prejudices of the public against us as a Church. He further said he had frequently heard the same objections made against us as an American Church for having a native of England (Bishop Asbury) at our head; and now to add another, who, in many respects, had not the experience, prudence, nor skill in government that Bishop Asbury had, would operate very materially against the best interests of the Church."

The debate lasted two days, and was incessant; and during the time the Doctor was secluded from the Conference room. Mr. Lee and his party evidently had the better of the cause in debate, and were gaining confidence continually. In one of his speeches, Mr. Lee said he was confident the Doctor would not fill the high office, and perform the vast amount of labor attached to it; that England was his home, his friends and best interests were there, and without doubt he would spend most of his time in going to and fro between England and America, and leave the Episcopacy and the Connection as void of help as they were before. When Bishop Asbury saw how the matter was likely to go, he rose from the chair, and with much apparent feeling said: “If we reject him it will be his ruin, for the British Conference will certainly know of it, and it will sink him vastly in their estimation." Here the debate ended. I well remember during the debate, the Doctor came into Conference and made a speech. Among other things, he said, "he never was cast upon such a sea of uncertainty before." This, I expect, made Bishop Asbury say, "If we reject him, it will be his ruin." The discussion was now stopped, and the whole matter submitted (though by many with reluctance) to Bishop Asbury's judgment-for they had, previously to the Doctor's offer, urged him to make his own selection. I have often wondered at Bishop Asbury's implicit confidence in Dr. Coke. Whether he felt himself bound, in conscience, to submit to one who ordained him to the office of Superintendent, or whether it was because he was Mr. Wesley's representative, I am at a loss to say. But the Doctor's conduct, in a short time, fully proved that Mr. Lee's opinions of his course were founded in a wise discrimination of character-for in a few months he went to England, and never appeared among us till four years afterwards.*

Jesse Lee says, however, that "the Conference at length agreed to the Doctor's proposal" and concluded that they could do with two bishops. The Doctor then gave the following paper to the Conference:

I offer myself to my American brethren entirely to their service, all I am and have, with my talents and labors in every respect, without any mental reservation whatsoever, to labor among them, and to assist Bishop Asbury; not to station the preachers at any time when he is present, but to exereise all episcopal duties, when I hold a Conference in his absence, and by his consent, and to visit the West Indies and France when there is an opening, and I can be spared.

(Signed)

Conference Room, Baltimore, October 27, 1796.†

THOMAS COKE.

* Letter in Life of Jesse Lee, pp. 327, 328. † Lee, Hist. of the Methodists, p. 248.