yet they view the final remedy as alone belonging to the
civil powers; and also do not think that they have sufficient
authority from the word of God to make it a term of Christian
communion. They, therefore, leave it to the consciences of the
brethren to act as they may think proper; earnestly recommending
to the people under their care to emancipate such of their slaves
as they may think fit subjects of liberty; and that they also
take every possible measure, by teaching their young slaves to
read and give them such other instruction as may be in their
power, to prepare them for the enjoyment of liberty, an event
which they contemplate with the greatest pleasure, and which,
they hope, will be accomplished as soon as the nature of things
will admit.[399]

In the year 1797 the same organization decided that slavery was a
moral evil but on the question of whether those persons holding slaves
were guilty of a moral evil they decided in the negative. As to what
persons were guilty they were unable to decide and the matter was
postponed for future action.[400]

As early as 1800 the West Lexington Presbytery pointed to the trouble
and division which slavery was likely to cause among the churches, but
they were unable to come to any decision upon the exclusion of
slaveholding members from church privileges and in a letter to the
Synod of Virginia they asked for the judgment of higher ecclesiastical
authorities.[401] In 1802 the same body decided on a policy of
non-interference with the rights of the slaveholding members of the
church.[402]

Beginning in 1823 the Synod of Kentucky advocated the cause of the
American Colonization Society. Their general attitude on the slavery
question was an open one as late as the year 1833 when they adopted a
resolution to the effect that "inasmuch as in the judgment of the
Synod it is inexpedient to come to any decision on the very difficult
and delicate question of slavery as it is within our bounds;
therefore, resolved, that the whole matter be indefinitely
postponed."[403] The vote on this resolution stood 41 to 36.

The enactment of the law of 1833 forbidding the importation of slaves
into Kentucky seems to have induced the Synod to take a step in
advance, for when they next met in 1834 at Danville they adopted by
the decisive vote of 56 to 7 a resolution calling for the appointment
of a committee of ten to draw up a plan f