parishes and 1,1462 communicants when Meade was consecrated as suffragan, the numbers had risen to 87 clergy serving 99 parishes and 3,702 communicants by the year Bishop Moore died, and 116 clergy serving 123 parishes and 7,876 communicants by 1860. A low Churchman, Meade believed in evangelism and missionary work. He preached the gospel of Christ Crucified like some of his Presbyterian neighbors. Unlike his neighboring bishops Whittingham of Maryland and Ravenscroft and Ives of North Carolina, Meade opposed the Oxford Movement as too "Romish" (particularly after Rt.Rev. Ives' conversion to Catholicism in 1855). Rt.Rev. Meade especially objected to doctrines of transubstantiation and prayers for the dead, which he thought inconsistent with salvation through grace. As bishop Meade actively participated in several episcopal disciplinary cases against high churchmen: against Bishop Henry Onderdonk (1789–1858) of Pennsylvania (who because of intemperance was forced to resign and temporarily suspended from the ministry) in 1844; against his younger brother Bishop Benjamin Treadwell Onderdonk (1791–1861) of New York, who in 1845 was suspended from the ministry on the charge of improper conduct; and against Bishop George Washington Doane of New Jersey for misappropriation. Meade also disciplined at least one priest in Portsmouth for practices he believed excessive and akin to Catholicism. In 1851, some Virginians in counties north and west of Meade's familial home wanted to secede from Virginia, politically as well as by selecting their own bishop. Bishop Meade pointed out that the section only had seven clergy, far less than the 30 required under church canons, and the proposal was defeated until after Meade's death. Views on slavery Meade freed his own slaves, who moved to Pennsylvania, since Virginia's laws at the time forbade emancipated slaves from remaining in the Commonwealth without special permission from the legislature. His views were influenced by his sister Ann Randolph Meade Page (died 1838) as well as his clerical mentors (who both freed slaves). On December 21, 1816, Rev. Meade traveled to Washington, D.C. for the organizational meeting of the American Colonization Society (ACS), thus helping Rev. Robert Finley (a Presbyterian), Francis Scott Key and U.S. Supreme Court clerk Elias B. Caldwell (son of the "fighting chaplain of the third New Jersey regiment") establish that organization. In 1819, Virginia's diocesan convention strongly supported the ACS, and Meade (as ACS's agent) traveled through the American south campaigning for the removal of African American slaves to Africa. In Georgia