Methodist Episcopal Church, South and South and was criticized for holding slaves. The 1844 General Conference voted to suspend Bishop Andrew from exercising his episcopal office until he gave up the slaves. Southern delegates to the conference disputed the authority of a General Conference to discipline bishops. The cultural differences that had divided the nation during the mid-19th century were also dividing the Methodist Episcopal Church. The 1844 dispute led Methodists in the South to break off and form a separate denomination, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (MEC,S). The statistics for 1859 showed the MEC,S had as enrolled members some 511,601 whites and 197,000
Cognitive authority historiography for White [1973] generates no more objective knowledge of the past than does speculative philosophy of history or the historical novel." What is considered "cognitive authority" in a given field of knowledge is thus relative and depending on the "paradigm" of the information seeker. An argument about what should be regarded "cognitive authority" is in the end an epistemological argument. The concept of cognitive authority was developed in library and information science and has attracted a lot of attention in this field. Its importance for this field is related to questions such as: What criteria should be used for