The Cumberland Presbyterian, of Nashville, mother organ of the Church, said in 1835: “We proclaim it abroad we do not own slaves. We never shall. We long to see the black man free and happy, and thousands of Christians who now hold them in bondage entertain the same sentiments.”[123] It will be shown in the chapter on abolition that a change of attitude toward slavery followed the action of the Convention of 1834. The Cumberland Presbyterian Church was no exception to this rule. The action of a Pennsylvania Synod in 1847 precipitated the issue. This Synod met and rescinded its action at a previous session declaring that the relation between it and American slavery to be such as to require “no action thereon,” and adopted the resolution, “That the system of slavery in the United States is contrary to the principles of the Gospel, hinders the progress thereof, and ought to be abolished.”[124] The General Assembly of the Church of 1848, which met at Memphis, appointed a committee to review the action of the Pennsylvania Synod. This committee in its report regretted the action of the Synod and disapproved “any attempt by jurisdiction of the church to agitate the exciting subject of slavery,” closing with the observation that “the tendency of such resolutions, if persisted in, we believe is to gender strife, produce distraction in the church, and thereby hinder the progress of the Gospel.”[125] The General Assembly of 1851, which met at Pittsburg, received six memorials on slavery from Ohio and Pennsylvania with about one hundred and fifty signatures.[126] The committee to whom these memorials were referred made the following report, which was adopted: The Church of God is a spiritual body, whose jurisdiction extends only to matters of faith and morals. She has no power to legislate upon subjects on which Christ and his apostles did not legislate, nor to establish terms of union, where they have given no express warrant. Your committee, therefore, believe that this question on which you are asked by the memorialists to take action, is one which belongs rather to civil than ecclesiastical legislation; and we are all fully persuaded that legislation on that subject in any of the judicatories of the church, instead of mitigating the evils connected with slavery, will only have a tendency to alienate feeling between brethren; to engender strife and animosities in your church; and tend, ultimately to a separation between brethren who hold a common faith, an event leading to the most disastrous results, and one which we believe ought to be deprecated by every true patriot and Christian. But your committee believe that members of the church holding slaves should regard them as rational and accountable beings, and treat them as such, affording them as far as possible the means of grace.