Background
Alvan was born on September 1, 1790 in South Granville, New York, United States, the son of Uriel Stewart, who five years after the boy's birth moved to Westford, Chittenden County, Vermont.
Alvan was born on September 1, 1790 in South Granville, New York, United States, the son of Uriel Stewart, who five years after the boy's birth moved to Westford, Chittenden County, Vermont.
Alvan attended district school and in 1809 entered the University of Vermont.
In 1812 he began to teach in Canada. After a visit home he was arrested as a spy in Schoharie County, New York, and upon his release went to Cherry Valley, Otsego County, New York, where he taught school and studied law.
In 1815 he journeyed as far West as Paris, Kentucky, and there spent a year teaching and studying. He then traveled in the South for a time, finally returning to Cherry Valley, where he was admitted to the bar.
About 1832 he moved to Utica. Here he acquired a considerable reputation as a lawyer and was regarded as a most formidable adversary before a jury.
In 1835 he issued a call for a convention, which assembled at Utica on October 21, and formed the New York State Antislavery Society. During the next few years, as the society's president, he labored incessantly, collecting money, organizing auxiliaries, and making speeches. These speeches, characterized by a wildfire humor and a vivid, if somewhat exuberant, imagination, earned for him the title of humorist of the antislavery movement. He aspired to another title, however, that of constitutionalist to the cause. Basing his argument upon the due process clause of the Constitution, he contended that slaves were deprived of their freedom without due process of law, and that slavery itself was therefore in violation of the Constitution. This view he attempted to persuade the American Antislavery Society at its 1838 meeting to adopt. It so outraged William Jay, son of the great jurist, that he withdrew from the society; and though Stewart won over to his views a majority of the delegates, he was unable to convince the two-thirds necessary to amend the antislavery creed.
As president of the New York State Antislavery Society, he took the position that the national society had no jurisdiction within the bounds of his organization.
In the 1838 convention of the latter he proposed that agents of the national society be excluded from all the state auxiliaries, and the proposal was adopted. Furthermore, at the New York State society headquarters, he opposed the pledging of contributions to the support of the national society.
More than any other abolitionist except William Lloyd Garrison he was responsible for the disruption of the national movement, which occurred in 1840. At an early date Stewart had urged separate political antislavery organization.
In 1840 he joined with Myron Holley, the leading political abolitionist, in calling an antislavery political convention, which met in Albany, on April 1, with Stewart as presiding officer. This convention organized the Liberty Party and nominated James G. Birney for president and Stewart for governor of New York; but in the subsequent campaign, Birney received only a few thousand votes and Stewart a few hundred. Disgusted with the outcome of political action, he returned to private life. He still served as president of the diminished New York society, and on occasion he donated his services as counsel for the slave.
Before the supreme court of New Jersey, in a test case arranged by local abolitionists, he challenged the constitutionality of slavery with eloquence.
In 1835 he published Prize Address for the New York City Temperance Society.
He died in 1849.
Alvan Stewart was a highly influencial member of American Antislavery Society, and at once took the lead in establishing abolitionist organizations in New York. As the society's president, he labored incessantly, collecting money, organizing auxiliaries, and making speeches and advocating more aggressive tactics than the moral suasion favored by William Lloyd Garrison. A fervent supporter of protectionism, a national bank, public education, federally funded internal improvements, and temperance, Stewart ran unsuccessfully for governor of New York on the ticket of the abolitionist Liberty Party in 1840 and 1844.
Originally a Democrat, he became an aggressive protectionist, and in 1828 published a pamphlet, Common Sense, opposing Jackson on the tariff question.
This convention organized the Liberty Party and nominated Stewart for governor of New York.
Quotations: "A dollar spent at Utica, " he told his constituents, "is worth three spent at New York. "
He was erratic, independent, and intractable by nature.
Quotes from others about the person
According to Beardsley post, in his early years he "was quite too much given to his cups, " but later became an "advocate of total abstinence and an effective temperance lecturer".
He had a wife - Keziah Holt of Cherry Valley, New York, by whom he had five children, three of them died young.
