As the 1888 General Conference approached, the California Conference delegation felt it wise to caucus. They anticipated certain subjects would arise at the conference. Chief among them would be the law in Galatians 3.
The delegates met at "Camp Necessity," near Oakland, on June 25-26, 1888. Those present were E. J. Waggoner, A. T. Jones, C. H. Jones, manager of the Pacific Press; W. C. White, son of E. G. White, a member of the General Conference Executive Committee; and some others.
W. C. White took notes on the discussions. On June 26, 1888, they discussed Galatians 3:23 and 4:21. Specifically the "added law" of Galatians 3:19 was determined to mean "spoken" comparing Deuteronomy 5:22 and Hebrews 12:19. These texts were "both referring to Moral Law the same in original of Gal. 3:19. . . . No instance where it is applied to the ceremonial law." It was brought out that J. N. Andrews had taken the same position on the moral law in Galatians in his early writings in the Review. Support was also derived from Wesley's sermons.
Elder White later recalled the "Camp Necessity" meeting in writing to Dan Jones, secretary of the General Conference:
. . . It was proposed that the editors of the Signs, C. H. Jones, and myself, and as many of the California ministers as we could get to join us should go out into the mountains and spend a few days in Bible study. . . . Eld. McClure was with us part of the time. We spent . . . one day in the examination of Eld. Butler's law in Galatians, and other topics bearing on that question, at the close of which Eld. Waggoner read some MS which he had prepared in answer to Eld. Butler's pamphlet. . . . At the close of our study, Eld. Waggoner asked us if it would be right for him to publish his MSS and at the next Gen. Conf. place them in the hands of the delegates, as Eld. Butler had his. We thought this would be right, and encouraged him to have five hundred copies printed. We made no secret of this, nor did we take any pains to make it public.
E. J. Waggoner did prepare his letter of response to Elder Butler's The Law in Galatians, it was entitled, The Gospel in Galatians.
Much later Elder A. T. Jones provided his recollections of that retreat in writing to C. H. Holmes in 1921.
Some time before starting to that institute, C. H. Jones, general manager of the Pacific Press, W. C. White and some others asked Bro. Waggoner and me to go with them for a few days outing and we all study together the Scriptures on these "heretical" questions that were certain to come up in the institute and conference. Wind of this little innocent thing wafted to the brethren in Battle Creek as further confirmation of their settled view that Bro. Waggoner and I in furtherance of our scheme to revolutionize the doctrine of the denomination were working other brethren into our scheme so as to come to the institute and General Conference at Minneapolis so strongly fortified as to carry our scheme. We did not know till after the institute and conference were all over that the General Conference men in Battle Creek held these things concerning us, and we never in our lives having thought of any such thing came to the institute and conference as unknowing of what the other men were thinking as we were ourselves of what they thought that we were thinking. And so in all innocence we came to the meeting expecting just nothing but plain Bible study to know the truth.
Then something unexpected happened at the California campmeeting in September 1888. According to Elder White:
. . . A very bitter spirit was manifested by some toward Elds. Waggoner and Jones, instigated partly, I presume, by the personalities in Eld. Butler's pamphlet, and arising partly from an old family grudge against Eld. Waggoner, Senior. We had a ministers Council in which almost every utterance of these brethren bearing directly or remotely on the Gal. question was criticised, but the brethren who opposed their teachings would neither consent to a fair examination of the subject nor would they let it alone. They preferred the piecemeal picking process, . . . .
The "wind" that "wafted" the report of this "minister's council" to the General Conference men in Battle Creek was later revealed by W. C. White and Ellen White.
W. M. Healey was a minister and evangelist in the California Conference. Elder W. C. White wrote:
What Eld. Healy [sic.] wrote to Eld. Butler, I do not know, but it seems to have given the impression that we were secretly working up a scheme, whereas, as we supposed, we were working in perfect harmony with Eld. Butler's plans.
Ellen White wrote to Elder W. M. Healey:
Your suppositions regarding the position and work of Elders A. T. Jones and E. J. Waggoner were incorrect. Your letters to Elder Butler, to warn him against something, were entirely misleading. He burned these letters, so that no one should learn the source of his light. These letters resulted in retarding the work of God for years, and brought severe and taxing labor upon me.
One such experience as that we had in Minneapolis, as a result of your unwise letters, is sufficient. This experience has left its impress for time and for eternity. O my brother, I beg of you for Christ's sake to be careful how you plant in other minds the seeds of unbelief, to bring forth results as sad as those we have seen in the past.
She told Healey on an earlier occasion: "Because I came from the Pacific Coast they would have it that I had been influenced by W. C. White, Dr. Waggoner, and A. T. Jones." She explained that as a result of Healey writing to the General Conference president she was suspected of being influenced by the trio.
This led to the belief among Butler and Smith that Ellen White was being influenced by E. J. Waggoner, A. T. Jones, and her son. Thus, doubt was cast upon the source of her counsel for the church. By this means, the brethren in Battle Creek were led to believe there was a California conspiracy.
Ellen White confirmed that this feeling existed at the time of the Minneapolis Conference and prior to it.
I was represented as telling things untrue, when I made the statement that not a word of conversation had passed between me and Brethren Jones and Waggoner nor my son Willie upon the Law in Galatians. If they had been as frank with me as they were in talking with one another against me, I could have made everything plain to them in this matter. I repeated this several times, because I saw they were determined not to take my testimony. They thought we all came to the conference with a perfect understanding and an agreement to make a stand on the Law in Galatians. Galatians.
Her appeals, for investigation of Scripture and open discussion at the future General Conference, fell on deaf ears at headquarters. From the information they were getting they assumed she was being influenced by the Pacific Coast brethren.
The General Conference brethren were trying to exclude discussion of the law from the session. It seemed to them that Ellen White's calls for openness were playing right into the hands of Waggoner, Jones, and W. C. White. The latter had been writing Elder Butler about having an institute in which doctrinal matters would be discussed. Now everything seemed to be falling into place. The church leadership was convinced that a concerted effort would be made to doctrinally sabotage the conference.
Minds were made up. They believed the conspiracy theory. Said Ellen White of the Battle Creek brethren, . . . they thought the law in Galatians would come up and they would go armed and equipped to resist everything coming from those men from the Pacific Coast, new and old.
Uriah Smith confirmed this was his state of mind going into the 1888 Conference. He later (1890) wrote of this to Ellen White:
The next unfortunate move, I think, was when the brethren in California met, just before the Minnesota Conference, and laid their plans to post up, and bring their views on the ten horns and the law in Galatians into that Conference. We were only informed of this by letter from California, a few days before it was time to start for Conference. I could hardly believe that it was so, but the report was soon confirmed after reaching that place. Brother Haskell came to me and asked how I thought those questions had better be introduced. I told him I thought they had better not be introduced at all; that they would only bring confusion into the Conference, and do only harm and not good. But he said the California brethren were decided on having them presented; and so they were introduced, and nearly ruined the Conference, as I feared they would. Had these disturbing questions not been introduced, I can see no reason why we could not have had as pleasant and blessed a conference there as we have ever enjoyed.
A. T. Jones said he had no idea all of these suspicions were in the minds of the brethren. ". . . In all innocence we came to the meeting expect-ing just nothing but plain Bible study to know the truth."
W. C. White said,
When I went to the Minneapolis meeting, I was as innocent as a goose, and while my old friends at B. C. [Battle Creek] and even my own relatives were saying the bitterest things against me. . . .
Elder White went to Minneapolis thinking things had been arranged with Elder Butler for a discussion of the law in Galatians at the institute.
Elder Waggoner came prepared with his "reference books." What they met with was decided opposition. As Elder White put it, . . . why our brethren from B. C. [Battle Creek] should oppose the matter, and claim that the proposition to discuss these questions was all a surprise, when we could see from their very actions that it was not a surprise, we never could understand.
"Several hundred" copies of Elder Butler's pamphlet The Law in Galatians were distributed among the delegates by Elder Rupert. So discussions must have been anticipated by the Battle Creek brethren.
Elder Butler had been sick repeatedly over the course of three years. He said his resistance had been lowered by all the stress involved with his heavy responsibilities as president of the General Conference. He believed that the issue over the law in Galatians was an "unnecessary and unjustifiable" evil. He even blamed Ellen White for his illness from May-August, 1888. He wrote to her: "I have never had any doubt myself but what it was sadness of heart brought upon me by the position you took that gave me that four month's [sic.] sickness." sickness."
Ellen White had failed to respond from Switzerland, to his pleas for help against Waggoner and Jones throughout the year 1886. Then her letter, on February 18, 1887, to the young men was just what he was looking for in condemning their position. He wrote to Ellen White:
There have been simply two views held on this subject of the added law, the one Eld. Waggoner has held that the added law refers to the moral 10 commandments the other that the added law referred to the laws particularly Jewish. . . . They are the points on which the whole matter turns, which has been in debate and controversy for years.
Elder Butler vehemently protested Waggoner's Sabbath School lessons in the Instructor during the summer of 1886. Then the "long series" on Galatians 3 in the Signs, later that summer of 1886, was circulated to some 20,000 readers. This was seen as a direct challenge to the leadership and doctrinal authority of the church. It was the president's duty to say something. Elder Butler complained to her: "You never answered me a word concerning it or paid the slightest attention to these things. . . ."
All these worries had made him so sick, he felt, that now he was ready to lay down his burdens. He would not be able to attend the Minneapolis Conference. Others would have to take up the cause. He would have to nurse himself and his wife back to health at home in Battle Creek. But he warned the loyalists to "stand by the landmarks."
For her part Ellen White would not accept the blame for Butler's illness.
If my letter caused so great consequences to you as five months' illness, I shall not be held accountable for it; for if you had received it in the right spirit, it would have had no such results. I wrote in the anguish of my soul in regard to the course you pursued in the [1886] General Conference two years since. The Lord was not pleased with that meeting. Your spirit, my brother, was not right. The manner in which you treated the case of Dr. Waggoner was perhaps after your own order, but not after God's order.
By the time of the Minneapolis Conference of 1888 there were so many suspicions on the part of the Battle Creek brethren with regard to the delegates coming from California that they believed they had a conspiracy on their hands to doctrinally hijack the denomination on the law in Galatians 3. The brethren from California were unaware of these suspicions. This was the setting for the fateful 1888 Conference.