“_Resolved_, That it is the sense of this General Conference that no trustees of churches, schools, colleges, or universities, nor any pastor, principal, president, or any other person in authority of church or school property, belonging to or under the control of the Methodist Episcopal Church, should exclude any person or persons from their churches, schools, colleges, or universities, of good moral character, on account of color, race, or previous condition of servitude.” This was the beginning of a conflict. At the General Conferences we all understand that the “fighting” is all done in the committee-room. That the spirit of this resolution was opposed in the committee-room no member of “the Committee on the State of the Church” will deny. To one who was at a great distance from the scene of action it appeared that the forty-three colored delegates in that General Conference could easily be seen to belong to the two elements that usually make up our General Conferences, the radical and conservative; but not equally divided. Indeed, there were not more than five “conservative” of the forty-three. Now I have used the words “radical” and “conservative,” and mean by these terms just what they have meant in every General Conference of our Church since, if not before, 1840. The former believe in “hewing to the line, let the chips fall where they may.” The other believes it better, for policy’s sake, to be lenient to the extreme of compromise in some instances. In that General Conference the radicals desired to march into the field against caste prejudice, floating “the black flag.” The conservatives wanted to be all things to some men that they might not lose any, and, at the same time, “save some.” It is easy to see how the thirty-eight could go home and look their black constituents squarely in the face and say: “No timidity or other inducement persuaded me to depart from the wholesome teachings of common sense and race pride.” Before the intended import of that last sentence is _misconstrued_ we add, the others, returning home, could easily have said to their constituents: “We have adopted a policy for future action that we hope will bring peace out of confusion.” The ardent desire of the conservative faction to change the name of the Freedmen’s Aid Society was closely connected, as all can easily see, with the question of caste prejudice—whether for or against we do not stop now to say. The question of mixed or separate schools among our members in the South had been discussed during the quadrennium.