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Edward Livingston Biography

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LIVINGSTON, Edward (1764-1836). An American jurist and statesman, born May 26, 1764, at Clermont, Columbia Co., N. Y. He graduated in 1781 at Princeton, studied law at Albany and New York, was admitted to the bar in 1785, and rose rapidly to high rank in his profession. From 1795 to 1801 he was a member of Congress, where he supported the measures of the Republican party and attracted attention, particularly by speeches against the Alien and Sedition Laws, on the resolution calling for the correspondence relative to the Jay Treaty, and on the conduct of President John Adams in the case of Jonathan Robbins. In 1801 he was appointed United States Attorney for the district of New York, and during the same year was elected mayor of the city of New York. Through the dishonesty of a clerk in the district attorney's office, Livingston's affairs soon became seriously embarrassed, with the result that he was found to be considerably behind in his accounts. Upon discovering the conduct of his agent Livingston voluntarily confessed judgment for $100,000, resigned his office, and prepared to leave New York. The exact amount of the shortage was something over $43,000. It was not until 1826 that a final settlement with the United States was made. The amount of the shortage with the accrued interest had then reached $100,000, every dollar of which Livingston paid. His resolution to abandon the State was unshaken, and he could not be persuaded to reconsider his decision. In December, 1803, he sailed for New Orleans, and early in 1804 became a member of the bar there. Louisiana had just been acquired by the United States, chiefly through the diplomacy of his brother, Robert R. Livingston, and a great future seemed to await men of Livingston's talents in that country. The legal system of Louisiana was a strange mixture of Spanish and French law, having its foundation in the Corpus Juris Civilis of the Romans. In spite of this difficulty he soon had a lucrative practice, and, by accepting land for his fees, acquired the basis of a respectable fortune, During the second war with Great Britain he was active in rousing the population of New Orleans to resistance and served for a time as secretary and confidential adviser to General Jackson. In 1820 he was elected to the Lower House of the Louisiana Legislature, and with two other members was commissioned to prepare a civil code for the State. Their draft, largely the work of Livingston, was adopted, in large part, by the Legislature in 1825. In the year 1821 be was selected by joint ballot of the Legislature to revise the entire system of criminal law of the State. For this task he possessed preëminent qualifications, having studied with great care the legal systems of Rome, France, Spain, and Great Britain. After about three years of labor he had finished a complete system of penal law, divided into codes, books, chapters, sections, and articles. Unfortunately, just as the final draft of the code was completed, it accidentally caught fire and was completely destroyed. Undaunted by this misfortune, he again began the work, and within two years it was again completed. The code was marked by liberal and enlightened principles and contained provisions looking towards a more humane penal system. The work was styled A System of Penal Law, and was divided into a Code of Crimes and Punishments, a Code of Procedure, a Code of Evidence, and a Code of Reform and Prison Discipline, besides a Book of Definition. The system which Livingston prepared was never directly adopted as a whole by the State, but its publication gave him fame throughout America and Europe, and many of its principles were incorporated in the legal systems of other States of America, and even in those of certain European countries, while the Government of Guatemala adopted his Code of Reform and Prison Discipline without change. In connection with this code Sir Henry Maine characterized Livingston as "the first legal genius of modern times." In 1822, while still engaged in the revision of the Louisiana legal system, Livingston was elected to Congress. He was twice rcëlected, serving until 1829, when he was transferred to the United States Senate, where he took high rank. In 1831 President Jackson appointed him Secretary of State. In this capacity he prepared a number of state papers for the President, the best known being the antinullification proclamation of Dec. 10, 1832. In 1833 the President sent him as Minister Plenipotentiary to France to demand the payment by the French government of an indemnity of a million sterling on account of depredations upon American commerce. He was entirely successful in this mission and returned to the United States in 1835, settling on his estate, Montgomery Place, on the Hudson, where he died the following year. His works on Criminal Jurisprudence, in two volumes, were published in New York in 1873. Consult C. H. Hunt, Life of Edward Livingston (New York, 1864), and Carleton Hunt, Life and Services of Edward Livingston (New Orleans, 1903).