ch they have given to the cause of treason and
insurrection." "Resolved, That we deeply sympathize with our people in
the Southern States, who, maintaining their proper Christian loyalty,
have in consequence been compelled to suffer persecution and wrong,
and we hail with pleasure the near approach of their deliverance and
restoration to our Christian and ecclesiastical fellowship." (31.) As
these resolutions practically amounted to an expulsion, the five
Southern synods felt justified in withdrawing and organizing, at
Concord, N.C., May 20, 1863, "The General Synod of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in the Confederate States of America." In 1869 the
General Synod appointed a committee to correspond with the Southern
synods on the propriety of returning to their former connection. (64.)
And in 1877 Synod declared: "The action of former General Synods was not
intended to compromise the Christian character of the ministers and
churches of the General Synod South, and is not so interpreted by us;
and if there be anything found therein that can rightfully be so
construed (_i.e._, as compromising the Christian character of said
ministers and churches), we hereby place upon record our belief that
such is not the sentiment of this body." (27.) The result was mutual
acknowledgment and an exchange of fraternal delegates.

73. The Fort Wayne Rupture.--The last and, by far, severest blow, the
separation of the synods which afterwards organized as the General
Council, came as an aftermath of the admission of the Franckean Synod
and the consequent withdrawal of the Pennsylvania delegation, in 1864,
which the General Synod construed as the act of the Ministerium of
Pennsylvania. However, since the Ministerium, reassured by the adoption
of the York Amendment and Resolution, had already resolved to maintain
its connection and to send a delegation to the next convention of the
General Synod, the Fort Wayne schism could have been averted. And
probably the break would have been avoided if the hasty establishment of
the Philadelphia Seminary (as such, an act altogether justified,
especially in the interest of the growing German element) had not caused
suspicion and chagrin within the General Synod. As it was, the
resolution of the Pennsylvania Synod, May 25, 1864, at Pottstown, to
establish a new seminary at Philadelphia, and the subsequent election,
on July 27, of Drs. C.F. Schaeffer of Gettysburg, W.J. Mann, and C.P.
Krauth as the first