[3] Stevens served on the Boston common council from ward 4 in 1856 and 1857 and was president of the body in both years.
[2][4][5] Stevens was a delegate to the 1860 Democratic National Conventions in Charleston and Baltimore, where he supported the candidacy of Stephen A. Douglas.
At the Baltimore convention, Stevens served as the spokesman for the Massachusetts delegation, which supported the eventual nominee – Stephen A.
[8] On March 1, 1882, Stevens, under instruction from Massachusetts attorney general George Marston, wrote to James R. Osgood & Co. informing them that their 1881 printing of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass violated the law against obscene literature and requesting that they withdraw it from circulation.
On March 23, Osgood & Co. wrote to Whitman that if two poems – "A Woman Waits for Me" and "Ode to a Common Prostitute", were removed, the government would allow the book to be published.
[9] Rees, Welsh, & Co. (which was soon acquired by David McKay Publications) of Philadelphia agreed to publish the Leaves of Grass and the controversy surrounding the book made it a financial success.