ates in
Louisville. After a nineteen-days' session they decided to set up an
organization of their own to be known as the "Methodist Episcopal
Church South" and to have their first meeting at Petersburg, Virginia,
in May, 1846.[414]

The Kentucky Methodist Conference met at Frankfort on September 17,
1845, and the entire attention of the meeting was given over to the
question of whether they would adhere to the general conference or
would pledge themselves to the newly formed southern organization.
Bishop Andrew appeared at Frankfort at the crucial moment and stated
all the facts concerning himself and the action which the Louisville
Conference had taken as a result of the trouble in the previous
General Conference. By a vote of 146 to 5 they then declared that
henceforth they would adhere to the Methodist Episcopal Church South,
and that all proceedings, records and official acts would thereafter
be in the name of the "Kentucky Conference of the Methodist Episcopal
Church South."[415]

At its annual conference in 1858 held in Hopkinsville the Louisville
Conference held a very heated debate over the rules of the church
regarding slaveholders. Finally they voted to expunge from the General
Rules the one which forbade "the buying and selling of men, women and
children, with the intention to enslave them."[416] The regulation
thus repealed, although it was a part of the rules of Methodism, was
just another indication of the sentiment in Kentucky at that time to
resent more and more the encroachments of the North on the slave
system of the South and to hang on to the institution with a grim
determination. But they were not willing to go to unwarrantable
lengths, for at the Kentucky Conference held in Germantown in March,
1860, a proposition submitted by the sister conferences to the South
with a view to further altering the rules on slavery was denied.[417]

The churches of Kentucky for the most part pursued a policy of
benevolent neutrality in the struggle which the slave forces of the
State were having with their neighbors to the North. The Baptists and
Methodists within the commonwealth officially never made any positive
contribution to the forces of either side, and they took no definite
stand until the whole southern division of their general national
organization withdrew from membership in the national conventions and
set up an organization of their own. When this much had been done
both the Methodists and Baptis