Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1856-07-12


pulse throbbed with interest. The world moves!
The Church will magnify herself. Thank God.
But soon the special details-the exceptional
qualihcatiohs-the palpable Inconsistencies of the
proposed chapter on slavery, disturbed the Illusion.
And the subsequent clamoring about a Minority
Report; the exception made by one Of the Com.
mittee, who lad voted for the Majority Report,
but would not now be bound by it; with the mur.
murings and criticisims that Goated to the surface
when the reading had ceased, all persuaded me
that the appearance was not q reality. For long
years 80 come it will be Methodism and slavery,
identified and inseparable, as they have been for
half a century that is past.
The influences at work to defeat this Report are
so numerous and powerful that there is no du6s
ton of the result. 1t is deemed a ~foregone con
conclusion. | will not anticipate any Further than
| have in previous remarks. To morrow the dis
cussion begins in good earnest. The pros and
cons caucus tonight and prepare for it. My next
will note the progress of the discussion, which
some expect will be Of indefinite length.
May 22.-My remarks yesterday were written
in view OF the sound Of the Report on Slavery.
To-day, | saw it and read it with close attention
twice over. l hoped that l might have occasion to
qualify my criticisms. But they must be made
m IRE stringent.
Not only is the change of the chapter on slavery
defective, coming short of the result promised by
the antl-slaverv ministers, ana expected by the
people, but the preliminary temen of the com
mittee do most palpably falsify the history of the
Church. 1t would be much to the credit Of the
Church II these atemen were correct. But
they are not. And no man familiar with the ar
ton OF the Church in the past will venture to peril
his reputation for intelligence or integrity by re-
peoting those declarations, in view of the testimony
| shall now adduce.
rereat my statement in other words. Honesty
required n frank confession of wrong action; an
acknowledgment of shameful neglect Of the slave,
and atrocious persec utlons of The friends of the
! OpnrpGSp1 That &c &c bclietnry ~ tIo mast yunS
canvassed at all. What have we here, however?
why, in short it stands thus: 'The Church is
right. The spirit of the Discipline is true. The
administration also has been always and every
where right. There is nothing wrong, save and
except the mere wording of the discipline! All
that Is ne 'essary is to SO revise the statutes of the
Church as to make them express our real senti-
ments and indicate our practice as it is" Such
are its plain, unequivocal statements. ] will now
point out the utter inconsistency of this Report
with the facts. 1t contains, indeed, eight false
statements.
l. The Methodist Episcopal Church has, in
good faith, in al periods Of its history, proposed
to itself the question, What shall de done for the
extirpGtion Of the evil of slavery"
:. at has never ceased, openly and before the
world, to bear its testimony against the sim"
3. And to exercise its disciplinary powers to
the end tina. its members might be kept unspotted
from criminal connection with the system"
4, "And that the evil might be removed from
among men,"
5. THE Methodist Episcopal Church have done
more to diffuse anti-slayery sentiments, to mitigate
the evils Of the system, and to abolish the %institu-
ton, than any other organization, political, social
or religious"
6. The true position of our Church always has
been, that the buying and selling, and, by in.
ference, the holding, of q human being as property
is a sin against God and man."
I. THAT connection with slavery is prima face
evidence of guilt"
s. 'That in all cases of immortality of this
kind, the burden of proof should rest upon the
accused"
These statements are now briefly offset with con-
tradictions, the evidence in support of which we
will give in detail if any one denies.
l. The tack of good faith" is manifest in the
fact that, from the earliest period of its history,
that Church has pursued in its legislation a con-
tlnual series of changes; each succeeding one be-
ing less stringent than the other. until, in the pro-
cess of developing a bad faith, the dilution and
change for the worse has embodied itself in the
present chapter on slavery, which is an acknowl-
ed ged burlesque on common sense. And its utter
t unfitness is declared by the fact that this commit
tee wish to displace it wholly by inserting a new
3 chapter.
2. There is not any testimony upon record for
Q forty-eight years past, in the language of the
. Church, declaring slavery a "sin"-not one word.
e 3. Dr.Emory, in his his history of the Discipline
e published by the Methodist Episcopal Church,
= obl vi ldA "a tilN tlllC ~
ing among private members was struck out in
B 1903" That is now forty-eight years ago.
4. The General Conference OF 1886 said, "We
f wholly disclaim any right, with or intention to in
%terfere in the civil and political relation between
master and slave as it exists in the slayeholding
States of the Union"
5. That Church has retreated, step by step, for
half a century-relaxing its ~displine, muzzling its
! ministry, suppressing discussion and prescribing,
as 10 "Other organization, political, social or reli,
gious," ever dared to dol
6. No such declaration was ever made by the
Church. And the allowing of her membership,
T without let or hindrance, to do all this for forty
eight years shows the position of the Church to be
directly the opposite.
7. So far from being true, the General Confer.
f ence Of 1910 even said that "The simple holding
of slaves. n II constitutes no legal barrier
to the election or ordination of MINISTER'S to the
various grades of Office known in the ministry of
the Methodist Episcopal Church"
8. There is not even the suspicion of wrong
doing attached to slaveholding since 1903, when
all prohibition thereof among private members
was struck out of the Discipline. And no provis-
ion is made for accusation or proof, for the very
sufficient reason that it is no offence against the
Discipline as it is, and is has been for nearly fifty
years.
The Report is a failure. 1t fails to meet the
necessity of the case. 1t fails to state the facts of
the past. 1t will fail to pass. My desire to see
the efforts to defeat it fail was expressed before |
heard the numerous falsifcatious of fact that its
preamble contains. ! now think it deserves to
fail 70 pass it would be to endorse the pro.slave-
ry statements OF twenty years past. Nor am /
surprised that DR.. Bowen repudiated the thing in
committee, and left for home.
But in order to avoid the offence that a plain,
unequivocal statement might give-to secure the
promise of a plausible sophistry, by which their
conclusion would have the semblance Of a logical
d5duction-men who know better consented to the
presentation of The thing. Already has its weak
ness become transparent. The opposite party see
it, and are prepared in their Minority Report to
take advantage of it.
The adoption Of the thing as a remedy for slave
holding, and as a rebuke Of the system of slavery,
will be judged of by the following fact.
During the reading of the Majority Report. a
Kentuckian was observed listening with deep in
terests, in common with others. When it conclud.
ed, he turned to the one next him: There, sir,
that's a Report for you. There is some sense in
that now, | tell you'll But tomorrow when the
r -Abolitionists bring in their Report, you'll
40 N c,oa.cfD