Alvan Stewart
Alvan Stewart was a prominent abolitionist leader and lawyer known for his passionate advocacy against slavery. Born in South Granville, New York, in the late 18th century, he pursued a legal education and became involved in teaching and law prior to his full commitment to abolitionism in the 1830s. After relocating to Utica, New York, Stewart played a crucial role in founding the New York State Anti-Slavery Society and served as its president. He was actively involved in public speaking, fundraising, and organizing local branches to support the abolitionist cause.
Stewart was distinguished for his belief that slavery was unconstitutional, advocating for the rights of enslaved individuals through legal avenues. He was a key speaker at the dedication of Pennsylvania Hall, a significant venue for abolitionist activity, where he emphasized the importance of free discussion. In the political arena, he co-founded the Liberty Party and ran for governor of New York. Despite his efforts, the party faced challenges in gaining traction. Stewart also contributed to the temperance movement and remained active in advocating for social reform until his death in New York City at the age of fifty-eight. His legacy includes a collection of writings and speeches that reflect his commitment to justice and equality.
Subject Terms
Alvan Stewart
- Alvan Stewart
- Born: September 1, 1790
- Died: May 1, 1849
Abolitionist leader and lawyer, was born in South Granville, New York, the son of Uriel Stewart. After attending the district school in Westford, Vermont, where his father had moved in 1795, he studied at the University of Vermont from 1809 to 1812. During the War of 1812, in the course of a trip home from Canada, where he had gone as a teacher, he was arrested and briefly held on suspicion of being a spy. Until 1816 he read law and taught school in Cherry Valley, New York, and Paris, Kentucky. After a trip through the South, he gained admission to the bar in Cherry Valley. A Democrat, he nonetheless favored protectionist arguments on the tariff and disagreed with Andrew Jackson on this issue in an 1828 pamphlet, Common Sense.
About 1832 Stewart moved to Utica, New York, where in 1834 he joined the American Anti-Slavery Society, only recently founded. The convention that established the New York State Anti-Slavery Society, held in Utica in October 1835, was organized at his initiative. Elected president of the state group, he poured his energy, time, and sharp wit into organizing local branches, fund-raising, and lecturing. Mistrustful of the national organization, which was oriented toward statements of principle rather than effective action, he barred its representatives from the New York State society and urged his members to direct their financial support where it would do the most good.
Stewart was one of the speakers at the dedication in Philadelphia, on May 14, 1838, of Pennsylvania Hall, the “Temple of Freedom” consecrated to abolitionism. Some abolitionists feared to come because of the threat of mob violence. In his address, Stewart called the hall “the resting-place of the fugitive, the slave’s audience chamber. Here the cause of the slave, the Seminole and the Cherokee shall be heard. . . . Let this hall be a moral furnace, in which the fires of free discussion shall burn night and day.” A mob attacked the hall three days later during an integrated meeting of antislavery women.
Much to the consternation of some of his fellow abolitionists, Stewart insisted that slavery was prohibited by the Constitution, specifically by Article IV, Section 4, which guarantees a republican form of government. The word “person” in the Constitution, he noted, means “a human being in the fullness of his natural rights.” At the 1838 meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society, he succeeded in convincing a majority of the delegates that Congress has the right to interfere with slavery within the states, but failed to win enough votes to obtain formal acceptance of such a program by the organization.
Rejecting as futile the continued presentation of antislavery petitions to Congress, Stewart turned in 1838 to independent political action, helping to split the American Anti-Slavery Society. With Myron Holley and other abolitionists, he established the Liberty party. At the organizing convention in 1840, which he chaired, he was nominated for the office of governor of New York on a ticket led by James Birney as the presidential candidate. After the party’s weak showing in the election, Stewart went into partial retirement, remaining president of the state Anti-Slavery Society and representing slaves in court. He movingly attacked the constitutional legitimacy of slavery before the New Jersey Supreme Court in 1845.
Stewart also lectured in behalf of temperance, to which he was converted after overcoming a drinking habit. His Prize Address for the New York City Temperance Society appeared in 1835.
Stewart’s marriage to Keziah Holt of Cherry Valley produced five children, of whom two survived. He died in New York City at the age of fifty-eight.
For Stewart’s works see Writings and Speeches of Alvan Stewart on Slavery (1860), published by L. R. Marsh, his son-in-law; the Emancipator, 1833-42; and the Friend of Man, 1835-42. Biographical material is found in D. L. Dumond, Anti-Slavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America (1959); The Dictionary of American Biography (1936); L. Beardsley, Reminiscences (1852); and G. H. Barnes, The Antislavery Impulse, 1830-1844 (1933). Obituaries appeared in the Oneida Morning Herald, May 4,1849, and The New-York Tribune, May 3, 1849.