History of the M.E. Church, Vol. IV - Media Sabda Org

With such men, led by such commanders, we are not surprised that western Methodism triumphed
all over the settled regions of the Mississippi Valley; that the one Western Conference with which
we began this period had increased to five by its close, each of them bearing the names of now
mighty states -- Ohio, Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, and Mississippi that its six presiding elders'
districts were now twenty-seven, many of them individually comprehending the territory of a modern
Conference; that its thirty-nine circuits were now two hundred, striking the waters of the great lakes
on the north, and of the Gulf of Mexico on the south, winding among the Allegheny fastnesses on
the East, and threading the Indian trails to the farthest log-cabins on the West; and that its
seventy-two preachers had increased to three hundred and forty, and its communicants from fifteen
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thousand three hundred and fifteen to ninety-eight thousand six hundred and forty-two. Largely
more than one third of both the ministry and membership of American Methodism was now within
the Valley of the Mississippi. Western Methodism had now also its Book Concern at Cincinnati,
with Martin Ruter, from New England, at its head.
It was a powerful "temperance" organization, battling with the most menacing vice of that new
country. It was also decidedly and practically an anti-slavery society. I have cited some of its
anti-slavery records; one of these documents (the original manuscript of which now lies under my
eye) is the "Address from the Quarterly Meeting Conference, in Livingston Circuit, Kentucky, to the
Bishops and Members of the Western Conference," 1806, signed by McKendree and James T. White.
It reads like a modern "radical" production: "Isaiah saith, 'Undo the heavy burdens, let the oppressed
go free; break every yoke, and thou shalt be like a watered garden, a spring of water which faileth
not; yea, thou shalt be the restorer of the paths to walk in.' This day our official brethren voluntarily
submitted all their slaves to the judgment of the Conference, whether bought with their money before
or after Joining society, given or born in their houses, and we thereby had the unspeakable pleasure
of decreeing salvation from slavery in favor of twenty-two immortal souls." It proceeds to state
examples. William Code gave up thirteen; Josiah Ramsey "offered up six on the altar of love;" James
T. White one, "which was his all." Another case is deferred to the next meeting, and it is added that
"when this is done we shall, as far as we know, be free from the stain of blood in our official
department. Glory, halleluiah! Praise ye the Lord!" "If it is consistent with your authority, and it
seemeth good unto you, we should be glad of liberty to exclude buying and selling [of slaves] from
our Church, and to require of all slave-holders who may hereafter become members of the Church,
to submit their slaves to the judgment of the Conference," etc.
Similar memorials were sent from other quarterly Conferences to the Western Conference, and
at the session of 1808, held at "Liberty Hill," Tenn., and comprising about fifty preachers, Burke read
such petitions from Hinkstone and Limestone Circuits, and also "an Address" to the Annual
Conference, "stating the necessity of a rule on the subject of buying and selling slaves, signed by
James Gwyn." Collins and Parker moved "that the subject of slavery be considered, and some
decisive rule made on that subject." The Conference appointed Sale, Lakin, and Burke to "draft a rule
on the subject." Their report was adopted, subjecting to trial in the quarterly Conference, and to
expulsion from the Church, any member who should buy or sell a slave, except in a clear case of
humanity. Asbury and McKendree were both present, and both signed these proceedings, McKendree
having been elected bishop, a few months previous, by the General Conference. We trace this
determined anti-slavery sentiment for years in the West. As early as 1805 Sale wrote from Lexington
Circuit, Ky.: "My soul still abhors the infernal practice of slavery a much or more than ever. My wife