to represent the laity, nor was it ever suggested that it was desirable
that they should; so that the intention of the law-maker could never
have embraced this design--the design of bringing women into the General
Conference. I leave that.

Now, I claim that the General Conference has no legal authority to admit
them here. We are not an omnipotent body. I know that the Supreme Court
of the United States, in that contest between the Northern Church, or
the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the Church South, decided that the
General Conference was the Methodist Episcopal Church. I used that
argument myself upon the Conference floor in 1868, that the General
Conference could, without any other process, by mere legislation,
introduce the laity into this body. I claimed there and then that,
according to that decision, the Methodist Episcopal Church was in the
General Conference. The General Conference refused to accept that
endorsement of that Court, or that proposition concerning the
prerogatives of this body. And through all the processes that have
been ordered concerning the introduction of lay delegation that
interpretation of the constitution of the Church has been repudiated.
The Church herself rejected the interpretation that the Supreme Court
placed upon her constitution, and as a loyal son of the Church I
accepted her interpretation of her own constitution, so that now I claim
that the General Conference has no authority whatever to change the
_personnel_ of the General Conference without the vote of the Annual
Conferences. Before it can be done constitutionally, you must obtain the
consent of the brethren of the Annual Conferences, and I am in favor of
that, and of receiving an affirmative vote on their part. But until this
is done I do not see how they can come in only as we trample the organic
law of our Church under our feet. And to do this, there is nothing but
peril ahead of us.