In 18oi this body entered into a Plan of Union with the Gen eral Association of Connecticut, for the purpose of a more effi cient joint performance of their home missionary duties. This scheme, did, indeed, promote aggressive missionary work, and in the next half-century most of the existing theological seminaries of the Presbyterian Church were established to furnish ministers for the ever-expanding task : Princeton, 1811; Auburn, 1818; Union at Hampden-Sidney, later at Richmond, Va., 1824; Alle gheny, 1827; Columbia, S.C., 1828; Lane, at Cincinnati, 1829; McCormick at Chicago, 183o; Union at New York, 1836; Du buque, Ia., 1856. But while most of the Puritan migration from New England to the west was identified with the Presbyterian Church, these great gains in number were to a large extent offset by troublesome irregularities in polity, laxity in discipline and novelties in theology, all of which presently led to another division of the main Presbyterian body. To increase the embarrassments that grew out of the plan of union, there was the administrative question as to the best method of conducting the general benevol ent and missionary work of the church. The supporters of the old order ("Old School"), deeply alarmed, charged their oppon ents ("New School") with doctrinal aberrations in 16 counts; with errors in church order in ten; and with mistakes in discipline in four.
After several years of bitter controversy, culminating in re peated but vain efforts to remove offending ministers by due process of law, the Old School Assembly of 1837, realizing that it once more had a majority—only the second time in seven years —abrogated the Plan of Union and then exscinded the Synod of Western Reserve in Ohio, and the Synods of Utica, Geneva and Genesee, in New York. The New School met in convention at Auburn, N.Y., in Aug., 1837, and adopted a "Declaration" setting forth the "True Doctrines" of their party as against the "Errors" charged on them by their opponents. When the Assembly met in 1838, the New School commissioners were denied legal standing in the court ; whereupon they withdrew, organized their own Assembly, with the same title as the other body, and brought suits in the civil courts of Pennsylvania to determine the property issues involved. The first decision favoured the New School (1839) but the court en bane set aside this verdict on grounds that made another trial useless. After the division was completed the New School embraced about four-ninths of the ministry and member ship of the Church, but in spite of its being almost as large as the other body, its growth was slow. It continued to co-opeiate with the Congregationalists for some time, but in 1852 it decided, in view of the ever-increasing doctrinal defection among the Congre gationalists, to accept the proposal of the latter for the abolition of the Plan of Union. In the course of a few years, moreover, the strong anti-slavery sentiment among New School leaders led to the voluntary withdrawal of nearly all the Southern churches connected with this Assembly and to their organization as the United Synod of the Presbyterian Church. The Old School As
sembly also was rent asunder during the Civil War. The occasion was the adoption of the "Spring Resolutions" (1861), which de clared it the duty of the church "to promote and perpetuate . . . the integrity of the United States, and to strengthen, uphold and encourage the Federal Government in the exercise of all its functions. . . ." During the summer of 1861, 47 Southern presby teries of the Old School renounced their General Assembly and formed the Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States of America.
Another important division in the main body of Presbyterians during this period was that of the Cumberland Presbyterians. Kentucky and Tennessee, at the beginning of the 19th century, were particularly affected by the revival of religion which spread over most of the Eastern States. To accommodate the large crowds that wanted to hear the Gospel, "camp meetings" were much used in these frontier regions. The religious excitement became intense. Even children again and again preached with powerful effect. The demand for ministers far exceeded the supply. Under these circumstances the Presbytery of Transyl vania, and then the Cumberland Presbytery—set off from the former in 1802—began ordaining a number of zealous young men who, in the judgment of the Synod of Kentucky, had not had an adequate training for the office and were unsound in doctrine. The Synod, in 1806, dissolved the Cumberland Presbytery, which in a few years organized itself into a new denomination (i8i 0). It grew rapidly in numbers, as well as in its respect for, and its insistence upon, an educated ministry. The Synod of Cumber land, established in 1813, adopted as its standard the Westminster Confession, but in revised form, the alterations being designed to eliminate what was called the "fatalism" of this symbol. In 1829 a General Assembly was formed.
In 1822, under the influence of John M. Mason, the Associate Reformed Synod undertook a union with the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, but most of the ministers opposed the project and organized three independent presbyteries. In 1858 the Associate Synod and the General Synod of the Associate Reformed Church effected a union under the style of the "United Presbyterian Church," the basis being the Westminster Con fession (slightly altered) and a "Testimony" in 18 articles. the last of which declared that "it is the will of God that the songs contained in the Book of Psalms be sung in His worship, both pub lic and private, to the end of the world ; and that in singing God's praise, these songs should be employed to the exclusion of the devotional compositions of uninspired men"—a requirement now left to the discretion of the individual church.