Laboring through the War of Independence mainly in the Southern States, it publicly declared, in the conference of 1780, "that slavery is contrary to the laws of God, man, and nature, and hurtful to society; contrary to the dictates of conscience and pure religion, and doing that which we would not that others should do to us and ours." The discipline of the body of itinerants was conducted rigorously in accordance with this declaration.
It must not be supposed that the instances here cited represent exceptions to the general course of opinion in the church of those times.

They are simply expressions of the universal judgment of those whose attention had been seriously fixed upon the subject.

There appears no evidence of the existence of a contrary sentiment.

The first beginnings of a party in the church in opposition to the common judgment of the Christian conscience on the subject of slavery are to be referred to a comparatively very recent date.
Another of the great conflicts of the modern church was impending.

But it was only to prophetic minds in the middle of the eighteenth century that it was visible in the greatness of its proportions.