the benefit of traveling, supernumary, superannuated, and worn-out
preachers, their wives, widows, and children, amounted, in 1845, when
the division in the Church took place, to about $750,000. It was under
the charge of the General Conference, with the restriction that they
should appropriate it to no other purpose than that above specified,
except by a vote of two-thirds, upon the recommendation of three fourths
of the members of the Annual Conferences. In 1844, when it seemed
apparent that the diversities of opinion in the Church on the subject of
slavery, would render a separation advisable, the General Conference
recommended to the Annual Conferences to pass resolutions authorizing it
to make proper arrangements as to the Fund; and in anticipation of such
authorization, appointed a committee to meet one from the South, to make
the necessary arrangements for an equitable division. But the
separation, thus amicably proposed, did not take place without great
exasperation on both sides. In the Annual Conferences the vote
authorizing the division was 2135 out of 3205, lacking 269 of the
requisite majority of three-fourths. The Northern Commissioners,
therefore, decided that they had no authority to act. The separation was
formally effected in 1845. In May, 1848, the General Conference, held at
Pittsburgh, authorized the Book Agents in New York and Cincinnati, to
submit the matter to arbitration, provided that, upon consultation with
eminent counsel, they should be satisfied they had the legal power so to
do, when clothed with all the authority the General Conference could
confer. If the Agents should find that they had no such legal power,
they were authorized, in the event of a suit being instituted by the
Southern Church, to submit the claims to a legal arbitration, under the
authority of a competent court. And in case no suit should be commenced,
the General Conference recommended to the Annual Conferences so to
suspend the "restrictive clause" as to authorize a voluntary
arbitration. Previous to the commencement of this suit, the Bishops had
begun to lay the above recommendation before the Annual Conferences.
When, however, in June, 1849, a suit was instituted, this proceeding was
suspended. The suit came on, upon the 19th of May, in the United States
Circuit Court, before Judges NELSON and BETTS. It lasted eight days,
four of which were occupied with the arguments of counsel--Messrs.
DANIEL LORD and REVERDY JOHNSON