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
Episcopal polity bishops came to be seen in their more traditional role as ones who delegate to the presbyterate inherited powers, act as pastors to presbyters, and holding a particular teaching office with respect to the wider church. Anglican opinion has differed as to the way in which episcopal government is "de jure divino" (by the Divine Right of Kings). On the one hand, the seventeenth century divine, John Cosin, held that episcopal authority is "jure divino", but that it stemmed from "apostolic practice and the customs of the Church...[not] absolute precept that either Christ or His Apostles gave about it" (a