TO

 

HONORABLE GERRIT SMITH,*

AS A SLIGHT TOKEN OF

 

ESTEEM FOR HIS CHARACTER,

 

ADMIRATION FOR HIS GENIUS AND BENEVOLENCE,

AFFECTION FOR HIS PERSON, AND

 

GRATITUDE FOR HIS FRIENDSHIP,

AND AS

 

A SMALL but most Sincere Acknowledgment of

 

HIS PRE-EMINENT SERVICES IN BEHALF OF THE RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES

 

OF AN

 

AFFLICTED, DESPISED AND DEEPLY OUTEAGED PEOPLE,

 

BY RANKING SLAVERY WITH PIRACY AND MURDER,

AND BY

 

DENYING IT EITHER A LEGAL OR CONSTITUTIONAL EXISTENCE,

 

This Volume is Respectfully Dedicated,

 

BY HIS FAITHFUL AND FIRMLY ATTACHED FRIEND,

 

FREDERICK DOUGLASS.

ROCKESTER N. Y.

 

 

 

^*Gerrit Smith (1797-1874) was a businessman and real estate owner in New York State who was a generous supporter of the New York Anti-Slavery Society and later of Douglass’s paper the North Star. In December 1843 he became the pastor of a group that split from the Presbyterian Church to form the nonsectarian Church of Peterboro, New York. He was a leading figure among those reformers who disagreed with William Lloyd Garrison’s program for the abolition of slavery.