thee, and thou wilt have such an audience as could not be gathered elsewhere in the Union.

Please write me a line on receipt of this, informing me whether thou shalt be able to come. Once more let me adjure thee to let no small matter prevent thee from complying with our request. In the language of Chinese diplomacy-I hope thou wilt consider this-" a special edict! and obey accordingly."

With kind regards for thy family, I am, as ever, thy friend, JOHN G. WHITTIER.

A correspondent of the "Press" writes:

In an Anti-Slavery Convention, held at Port Byron, New York, in 1842, in the midst of a speech of Mr. Bradley, the door of the church in which the convention was held was opened noislessly, and there appeared the tall, straight figure, and pale, grave face of the slave's friend, Alvan Stewart. The spontaneous and universal burst of applause, from the entire audience, well indicated the impression left by his eloquence upon their hearts during his visit among us last winter. Upon being called upon, he arose and made one of his best speeches. What a wonderful faculty he has to hold a subject up before his audience-what quaint sayings and unparalled comparisons! At one instant his audience would be rolling with laughter, which would soon give place to sobs and grief. Never did I witness a greater manifestation of his honest, holy feeling, than when he alluded to his large meeting, at Fort Defiance, on the Maumee, in Ohio, but a few weeks since, under the "Old Council Oak." This venerable monarch of the forest had, he said, from time immemorial, been the shelter of the various Indian tribes, who for centuries had met under its spreading branches, for council, in peace or war. While alluding to the fact that, in that honored place, the citizens of Fort Defiance were assembled to listen to his stories of the poor slave's wrongs, his whole soul was stirred within him, and a flow of tears burst from his eyes, producing a corresponding feeling throughout the audience.

William Goodell, than whom no one is more familiarly

acquainted with the progress of the Anti-Slavery movement, writes:

If you will permit me, I will take the liberty to suggest two or three things wherein Mr. Stewart was of most essential service to the cause of freedom.

1. He was the first to insist, earnestly, in our consultations, in committees and elsewhere, on the necessity of forming a distinct political party to promote the abolition of slavery. You will find notice of this on page 469 of my history of "Slavery and AntiSlavery." At this time, Mr. Stewart stood alone on the Executive Committee of the New York State Anti-Slavery Society, at Utica, in advocating the measure. Gerrit Smith, as president of the society, and member of our Executive Committee, was at that time (Feb., 1839) opposed to it, nor was I, myself, as one of the committee, and as editor of the "Friend of Man," the society's organ, prepared to advocate the measure. President Beriah Green shared also in the hesitancy of the rest of the committee. Myron Holley, at a convention in September of the same year, introduced a resolution and address in favor of a distinct party (Hist. p. 470); but Mr. Stewart had previously done much to prepare abolitionists for that movement. So that the Liberty party, the Free-soil party, the Free Democracy, and the Republican party-whatever may be said of their varying platforms and policy-all owe their origin to Alvan Stewart, in the first place, and to Myron Holley afterward, more than to any other men. Mr. Stewart presided at the Albany Convention, 1st April, 1840, at which the Liberty party was organized. Gerrit Smith by that time had become ready to cooperate in the measure.

2. Alvan Stewart was the first to elaborate a compact argument in defence of the doctrine that the Federal Government had constitutional power to abolish slavery in the slave States. Though Mr. Stewart based his argument solely upon one single clause of the Constitution (Amendments, Art. V.), yet his argument was extensively regarded a triumphant one, and the debate it elicited among abolitionists gave rise to a number of elaborate discussions of the subject in pamphlet form afterward. The great change of senti

ment already perceptible, and still in progress, concerning the bearing of the federal Constitution on slavery-a change destined, perhaps, to revolutionize the national policy-is largely attributable to the labors of Alvan Stewart in 1837-8.

To you, sir, I may add my conviction, that, in pioneering these two measures-(1) a distinct political party; (2) a national policy directly and positively against slavery-to the extent of its utter extirpation, Mr. Stewart has laid a foundation for a reputation as enduring as the cause of freedom in America. Whether his measures are ever adopted or not, his proposal of them belongs not less to the history of the country than to his own biography, and should be made prominent in both.

3. I ought to add, that Alvan Stewart, as chairman of the Executive Committee of the New York State Anti-Slavery Society, at Utica, rendered quite as effective services in devising plans, ways, means and appliances, for propogating anti-slavery sentiments, and initiating anti-slavery organizations, and rendering them effective, as he ever did in his public speeches, debates, and writings. No one out of the Executive Committee could have any adequate knowledge of his labors in this department, nor due appreciation of their importance in the promotion of our cause. In 1836, he threw up his extensive and lucrative law practice, to devote himself to the one great cause, of which he regarded the then three and a half millions of slaves his direct clients, and the entire American people, their liberties and their national prosperity, as indirectly, and yet in reality involved.

Not all the plans and projects of Mr. Stewart were accepted and adopted by the Executive Committee. Perhaps some of them may have been chargeable with the "eccentricity" with which his brilliant genius was marked. Not all of them that were adopted worked as happily as might have been desired. But enough of them, either modified or unmodified, in committee, did so far succeed, as to entitle him to the credit I have given him, and to the gratitude of the country.

No part of my life do I remember with more pleasure than my social intercourse and public labors with Alvan Stewart. Some

times we have earnestly differed from each other as earnest men will, intent on a common cause. But none of those differences ever lessened my esteem for him, and admiration of him.

Much as I enjoyed, at the time, those brilliant scintillations of wit, eloquence, pathos, humor, and eccentric thought for which he was so very remarkable, and which so enlivened the social conversation and the public speeches of Mr. Stewart, my memory is not as retentive of them, in detail, as of the more serious points of argument, opinion, sentiment, plans and measures which it was my privilege to discuss with him, in consultations, in committees and otherwise, for the promotion of the objects we were intent upon promoting. Nor am I as well qualified to relate, effectively, his sallies of wit and humor, which I do partly remember, as I ought to be, to give them their full force. I will endeavor, however, to recall and to sketch a very few of them.

Sometime in 1836 or '7, Mr. Stewart earnestly defended a couple of colored boys, arrested at Utica as fugitives from slavery in Virginia. The boys in some way got free, and made good their escape to Canada. Much excitement was occasioned, and the pro-slavery presses of the North exerted themselves to throw odium upon Mr. Stewart for his participancy in the affair. The southern papers copied the inflammatory statements and comments of their northern allies, and the name of Alvan Stewart was execrated by the slaveocrats from Maine to Georgia. In the midst of all this, Mr. Stewart received a letter from the old lady in Virginia, to whom, according to the statutes of Virginia, the boys belonged. She thanked Mr. Stewart for his kindness to her boys, who, she said, had escaped from Virginia, with her approbation. They had been pursued by her nephews, her presumptive heirs, who were intending to sell them to the far South, as soon as the old lady should die. This statement accorded precisely with the story Mr. Stewart had received from the colored boys.

It was in reference to the same or a similar effort of Mr. Stewart, that he received a letter of hearty commendation from another lady in Virginia, whose husband was a slaveholder, and a strong proslavery man. She informed Mr. Stewart, that soon after the recent birth of her eldest son, she had ordered her carriage and had driven

a considerable distance with her babe, to a neighboring parish, and had him christened by the name of Alvan Stewart, much to the astonishment of the parson, the audience, and, afterward, of her husband, when he learned what had been done! That Virginian Alvan Stewart, if now living, is nearly old enough to vote as his mother would doubtless counsel him. In conventions Mr. Stewart sometimes told the story in answer to the question-" Why don't you go to the South to preach your abolition?" He thought he was going to the South, most effectually, by working at home.

In Alvan Stewart's day, it was thought a knock-down argument against an Abolitionist to ask whether he would be willing to have a white man marry a "nigger." One day, in a large convention, while Alvan Stewart was speaking on some resolution, he was interrupted by a pert young gentleman, neatly attired, with the stereotyped question. Mr. Stewart replied, in a polite and dignified manner, explaining that Abolitionists only asked that colored persons should enjoy the protection of law like other persons, and be secured in the exercise of their inalienable rights. Abolitionists had never set themselves up to be matchmakers, had never undertaken to determine who people should marry. With this explanation he attempted to resume the thread of his discourse. But the questioner was not satisfied. He repeated the question again, and, with an air of triumph, demanded an explicit answer. Stewart straightened himself, and stood, as in an attitude of deliberation. "Well," said he, "since the gentleman is so anxious to have the question distinctly answered, although, as I have said, it does not belong to the Abolition question, I will frankly state my own position on the subject. Let me then say to the gentleman that if he should fall in love with a colored girl, and should find that he could not be happy without her, I should interpose no objections to the marriage." This was said with a sober and innocent look, as if the speaker really supposed the questioner was anxious to get his consent to such a connection. The house roared with laughter, at the expense of the pert young gentleman, who seemed annihilated. But there Alvan Stewart stood, as sober as a judge, without relaxing a muscle. After the tumult had subsided, he turned to the young man, with the same innocent, sober countenance, saying: "Is my young friend relieved of his anxiety?" Another roar, louder and