May 1, 1845. The Triennial Convention approved the (Executive) Committee’s recommendation that if a slave holder wanted to be a missionary, he or she had to be approved by the whole convention. In the previous December, the Alabama Convention had sent a question about this, which the Committee answered. This vote supported the Committee’s answer that it would be against their conscious to appoint a slave holder. This was the reason that the southern churches withdrew and formed the Southern Baptist Church and their own Foreign Missionary Society.
