Excerpt from Letter of Gerrit Smith to Rev. James Smylie, of the State of Mississippi You undertake to show that slavery existed, and, with the Divine approbation, amongst the Old Testament Jews; and that it also existed, whilst our Saviour and his Apostles were on the earth, and was approved by them. You thence argue, that it is not only an in nocent institution, but one which it is a religious duty to maintain. I admit, for the sake of argument, that there was a servitude in the patriarchal families which was approved by God. But what does this avail in your defence of slavery, unless you show, that that servitude and slavery are essentially alike? The literal terms of the relation of master and servant, under that servitude, are not made known to us but we can, nevertheless, confidently infer their spirit from facts. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.