The Daily Dispatch: January 3, 1861., [Electronic resource]

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Methodist Episcopal General Conference and the slavery question.

--The act of the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, which assembled at Buffalo in May last, in regard to slavery, has caused a great diversity of opinion throughout the country, especially in some of the Border Conferences, some believing it to be a new rule, and more stringent than the old one which is suspended, while, on the other side, it is thought to be without any legal or binding effect. So far did the difficulty prevail within the bounds of the Baltimore Conference, that a Convention of Laymen was recently held at Baltimore to take the matter into consideration, the result of which was the adoption of resolutions recommending the Baltimore Conference to withdraw from the General Conference. It may not, perhaps, be generally known to our readers, that the Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church are the sole expounders of all laws passed by the General Conference.--Now, this question, whether the recent act in regard to slavery is binding on membership of the Church, is set at rest by a resolution passed by the House of Bishops at their meeting held a few days since at Cincinnati. The resolution which follows was unanimously adopted:

Resolved, That in our judgment there was no action of the late General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church which changed the terms of membership in said Church.