power is delegated, and limited by the will and design of their constituents. These propositions, we presume, are indisputable.

The powers conferred on the Board are partly defined, and partly discretionary. The constitution clearly prescribes the qualifications of missionaries. As amended and passed, May, 1826, it contained the following article. "Such persons only as are in full communion with some church of our denomination, and furnish satisfactory evidence of genuine piety, good talents, and fervent zeal for the Redeemer's cause, are to be employed as missionaries." These qualifications are essential in missionaries; and, in the judgment of the General Convention, none other is. The qualifications not included in this enumeration are, by a fair construction of the article, pronounced unessential. All who possess these qualifications are eligible to be appointed as missionaries, and none others. are. The Board has no right, nor shadow of right, to declare any thing to be an essential qualification in a missionary, which the Convention has not declared to be

so.

To exercise such a right, is to render the constitution nugatory. For the Board to decide that no slaveholder shall be appointed a missionary is, not to observe, but to change the constitution. This any man must perceive whose mind is unperverted. The amended constitution would read, "That such persons only, as are in full communion with some regular church of our denomination, and who furnish satisfactory evidence of genuine piety and good talents, and fervent zeal for the Redeemer's cause, and are not slaveholders, are to be employed as missionaries." And what, we inquire, would be the value of an instrument which might be thus changed to suit the interests or caprice of a Board?

I quote from the Review, p. 494, "The Convention has nowhere said what should not be a disqualification; there is not one word in the constitution or by-laws as to disqualification." The writer blinds himself by the use of words. Neither the term qualification, nor disqualification, is found in the article under discussion; and yet it does provide, beyond all cavil, that the want of genuine piety, good talents, fervent zeal, and connection with a Baptist church, shall be disqualifications for appointment as a missionary. The Convention did not, in their

wisdom, deem it proper to prescribe other disqualifications. What then becomes of the sovereign claim set up on behalf of the Board, that, "what should be a disqualification in one who should offer himself for a missionary, was left entirely to the decision of the Acting Board?" It has not even "a slight show of authority."

To the Acting Board, thus constituted, and with its powers thus defined, was committed the duty of selecting missionaries. This power is discretionary. Among those qualified as the constitution prescribes, the Board is authorized to choose such as, from their age, measure of piety and talents, adaptation to the field of labor, and promise of usefulness, are most likely to promote the great object of their appointment. This power was plainly implied in its organization; was indispensable to the prosecution of the missionary enterprise; and was such as similar Boards usually exercised. It was the intent-the known and undeniable intent-of the Convention to confer on the Board this power, and no more, in the selection of missionaries. But, surely, it was not the purpose of the Convention to confer on the Board the power of multiplying, at their own discretion, the qualifications or disqualifications of missionaries-to decide that no man shall be appointed a missionary who has red hair, or a white skin, or was born south of the fortieth parallel of north latitude. To affirm that such a decision would be an abuse of power is erroneous. The Convention has conferred on the Board no such power, either express or implied. It would be an assumption of power not granted by the constitution.

What the South demanded of the Board was, not as the Reviewer intimates, that they should "never refuse for any cause to appoint any one who possesses these qualifications,"-those prescribed in the constitution. Such an addition to the article would be preposteroussuch a claim, derogatory to the South. Nor did the South require that the Board should appoint many slaveholders, or even any slaveholders, as missionaries. They claimed, and most rightfully, that slaveholders, qualified according to the express provision of the constitution, should not, as a class, be proscribed-declared ineligible— unfit to be appointed missionaries. But the Board, in the exercise of "general and unlimited authority," and

resolved "to manage that whole business according to the dictates of their own consciences and understandings," and finding that there was nothing to restrain them "from requiring other and additional qualifications," pp. 488, 492, did adopt, in December, 1845, a new qualification for missionaries-"If any one should offer himself as a missionary, having slaves, and insist on retaining them as his property, we could not appoint him."

Let us examine this new law. It proscribes all slaveholders. They may be constitutionally qualified-may be men of fervent piety and shining talents-may be eminently fitted for missionary service-but if they insist on retaining their slaves as their property, no matter from what motives, of humanity or legal necessity, they could not be appointed missionaries. Slaveholders do not belong, in the judgment of the Board, to the class from which missionaries are to be selected.

The question returns, Has the Board the constitutional right to adopt this proscriptive rule? Did the Convention delegate to them this power? The import of the constitution must be ascertained by the circumstances of its formation, and the known sentiments of those who framed it. The debates on the adoption of the federal constitution. have been held by all sound lawyers as the best.commentary on its meaning. The constitution of the Baptist General Convention was framed by slaveholders, and non-slaveholders. They met, and coöperated, on terms of perfect equality. "There was no concession of the South to the North, or of the North to the South. Nothing was settled in regard to slaveholding, nor was the subject referred to in any manner whatever." p. 485. Can the Board, or the Reviewer, believe that the Southern men in the Convention, some of whom were slaveholders, and all of whom were associated in the strong bonds of Christian affection with ministers whose lot it was to own slaves, intended to confer on the Board the unlimited power claimed for them? In any of the changes since made in the instrument, was it designed to invest the Board with such authority? Certainly not. If such power was given, it was bestowed unintentionally, ignorantly, and, therefore, not at all. The intent of the Convention is the limit of the authority of the Board; and all beyond that point is usurpation.

If any doubt existed as to the import of the constitution, in reference to the appointment of slaveholders as missionaries, the history of the Convention furnished ample means of removing it. If the Convention appointed slaveholders to offices equally sacred and responsible with the office of missionary, it is a decisive proof that they did not design to proscribe this class from appointments as missionaries. What are the facts? Slaveholders were appointed to preach introductory sermons-to serve on important committees-to be members of the Boardto be Vice Presidents-to preside over the deliberations of the Convention-and a slaveholder was requested to represent the Convention in the English Baptist Union. These appointments were made by the votes of Northern members; and, though we do not know the fact, we doubt not, by the votes, in part, of the members of the Acting Board themselves. These appointments furnished no equivocal indications of the views and wishes. of the Convention. Had the Board taken counsel from these indications, they could have had no difficulty in rightly interpreting the constitution. It could not have been the purpose of the Convention to confer on the Board, either directly or by implication, the power of proscribing from office a class of men trusted, honored, and exalted by the Convention itself. Acting simply as agents, the Board should have been willing to learn the import of the constitution from the actions of those who framed it, and gave it all its authority.

The past action of the Board itself shows decisively the interpretation placed on the constitution by the framers of it. It was affirmed by the committee of the Southern Convention, after a careful inquiry into the subject, that slaveholders had been appointed missionaries by the Board. This fact was stated by the committee to prove that the decision of the Boston Board was an innovation; and most conclusively did it prove it. But we now mention the fact, for the purpose of showing the interpretation placed on the constitution by the fathers -by those who penned it, and weighed every expression in it. Surely, their judgment was entitled to respect-the precedent, uncensured by the Convention, was an authoritative exposition of the instrument. "The argument, says the Reviewer, seems to be, that because some such

persons, no matter how small a number, at some time, no matter when, have been appointed missionaries, no matter whether known or not known to be slaveholders, when so appointed, that then the Board is bound at all times, and under any and all circumstances, to appoint slaveholders applying for appointment.” p. 492. No, this is not the argument; nor does it to us even seem to be" the argument. The argument is, that as some slaveholders have been appointed missionaries, some slaveholders might be properly appointed again; at any rate, that the refusal to appoint any such "is an innovation and a departure from the course hitherto pursued by the Triennial Convention." The Reviewer seems to call in question the correctness of the statement that slaveholders have been appointed missionaries. "If the Southern Convention," says he, "intended to set up a usage on this subject, they have surely wholly failed to make out any such usage. On the contrary, we think the facts clearly show that no such usage exists." p. 492. The committee of the Convention did not deem it necessary to enter into detail. It came within the knowledge of some of them, that slaveholders had been appointed missionaries by the Board. We remember that brother Ranaldson was mentioned as having received such an appointment. But did the Board know that he was a slaveholder at the time of his appointment? If they did not, it was because freedom from slaveholding was not then classed among the essential qualifications of missionaries. Mr. R. married in the south, and there was no concealment of the fact that he owned slaves. "But the seat of operations of the General Convention was first in Philadelphia, then Washington." That a Board, claiming "general and unlimited authority; and who, in the interpretation of constitutional law, instead of seeking for the intent of the framers of the instrument in their known views and recorded actions, and abiding by the qualifications which the constitution has made essential in missionaries, claim the right of "requiring other and additional qualifications," on the ground that, "there is nothing restraining the Board," from doing so, (p. 492) should consider all precedents not set by themselves, worthless, is not surprising. The Board in Philadelphia or Washington, though composed of the very men who