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At the Institute’s core is the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the great archives in American history. More than 85,000 items cover five hundred years of American history, from Columbus’s 1493 letter describing the New World through the end of the twentieth century.

Smith, Gerrit (1797-1874) to Governor Chase, Ohio

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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC04717.24 Author/Creator: Smith, Gerrit (1797-1874) Place Written: Peterboro, New York Type: Printed letter Date: 30 January 1856 Pagination: 4 p. ; 31.7 x 20 cm. Order a Copy

Smith writes to Salmon Portland Chase, Governor of Ohio, also an abolitionist. Expresses his disappointment in Chase's Inaugural Address: "The habit of the whole country is to justify the pretensions of slavery, and, therefore, to adopt the slaveholders' interpretations of the Constitution:- and even Salmon P. Chase is so enslaved to this miserable and guilty habit, as to lack courage and energy to break out of it."

Smith, a politician from New York, served as a U.S. Representative from 1853-1854. He was a noted philanthropist and social reformer active in anti-slavery campaigns and women's rights.

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874
Chase, Salmon P. (Salmon Portland), 1808-1873

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