In 1808 the general conference of the Methodists provided that the annual conferences should form their own regulations relative to buying and selling slaves, thus making it possible for the body of preachers to act efficiently in one direction against slavery, even should the general conference choose wholly to refrain. This rule was abrogated in 1820, however, and the only important changes made thereafter with reference to the Negroes were some rules adopted in 1824, one of which provided that all preachers should prudently "enforce upon their members," the necessity of teaching their slaves to read the word of God, and to allow them time to attend upon the public worship of God on our regular days of divine service. Another rule provided that Negro preachers and official members should have all the privileges which are usual to others in the district and quarterly conferences, where the usages of the country did not forbid it, and that the presiding elder might hold for them a separate district conference, when the number of Negro local preachers would justify it. The annual conferences might employ Negro preachers to travel and preach, where their services were judged necessary, provided that no one should be so employed without having been recommended according to the form of discipline. The Presbyterians had tried to evade the Negro question but it was again brought up in view of the cruelty practiced in the traffic of slaves during the first decade of the nineteenth century. The General Assembly was forced to take some action again in 1815. It then referred to its previous resolutions on the subject and expressed regret that slavery of Africans existed, hoping too that such measures might be taken as would secure religious education at least to the rising generation of slaves as a preparation for their emancipation at some time in the future. As to the transfer of slaves necessary in the economy of the slave States the General Assembly regarded this as unavoidable; but it denounced the buying and selling of slaves by way of traffic and all undue cruelty among them as inconsistent with the spirit of the Gospel, recommending it to the presbyteries and sessions in their care to make use of all measures to prevent such shameful conduct. In 1818 there came before this General Assembly a resolution to the effect that a person who should sell as a slave a member of the church, who should be at the time in good standing in the church and unwilling to be sold, acted inconsistently with the spirit of Christianity and ought to be debarred from the communion of the church.