Edward Livingston | |
|---|---|
 | |
| 14thUnited States Minister to France | |
| In office September 30, 1833 – April 29, 1835 | |
| President | Andrew Jackson |
| Preceded by | Levett Harris (acting) |
| Succeeded by | Lewis Cass |
| 11thUnited States Secretary of State | |
| In office May 24, 1831 – May 29, 1833 | |
| President | Andrew Jackson |
| Preceded by | Martin Van Buren |
| Succeeded by | Louis McLane |
| United States Senator fromLouisiana | |
| In office March 4, 1829 – May 24, 1831 | |
| Preceded by | Charles Dominique Joseph Bouligny |
| Succeeded by | George A. Waggaman |
| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives | |
| In office March 4, 1823 – March 3, 1829 | |
| Preceded by | District established |
| Succeeded by | Edward D. White Sr. |
| Constituency | Louisiana 1st |
| In office March 4, 1795 – March 3, 1801 | |
| Preceded by | John Watts |
| Succeeded by | Samuel L. Mitchill |
| Constituency | New York 2nd |
| 47thMayor of New York City | |
| In office 1801–1803 | |
| Preceded by | Richard Varick |
| Succeeded by | DeWitt Clinton |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1764-05-28)May 28, 1764 Clermont,Province of New York, British America |
| Died | May 23, 1836(1836-05-23) (aged 71) Rhinebeck, New York, U.S. |
| Resting place | Livingston Memorial Church and Burial Ground |
| Party | Democratic-Republican (before 1825) Jacksonian (1825–1836) |
| Spouses | |
| Relations | SeeLivingston family |
| Education | Princeton University(BA) |
| Signature |  |
Edward Livingston (May 28, 1764 – May 23, 1836) was an American jurist, statesman and slaveholder.[1] He was an influential figure in the drafting of theLouisiana Civil Code of 1825, a civil code based largely on theNapoleonic Code.[2] Livingston represented both New York and then Louisiana in Congress and served as theU.S. Secretary of State from 1831 to 1833[3] and Minister to France from 1833 to 1835 under PresidentAndrew Jackson. He was also the 47thmayor of New York City.
Edward Livingston was born inClermont,colonial Albany County,Province of New York (since 4 April 1786 withinColumbia County, New York). He was the youngest son of JudgeRobert Livingston and Margaret (née Beekman) Livingston, and was a member of the prestigiousLivingston family. His father was a member of theNew York Provincial Assembly and aJudge of the New York Supreme Court of Judicature, and his mother was heir to immense tracts of land inDutchess andUlster counties. Among his many siblings wereChancellor of New YorkRobert R. Livingston;[4] Janet Livingston, who married Gen.Richard Montgomery;[5] Margaret Livingston, who marriedNew York Secretary of StateThomas Tillotson;[6] Henry Beekman Livingston;[6] Catharine Livingston, who marriedFreeborn Garrettson;[6][7] merchant John R. Livingston;[8][9][10]Gertrude Livingston, who married Gov.Morgan Lewis; Joanna Livingston, who marriedPeter R. Livingston, actingLieutenant Governor of New York; and Alida Livingston, who marriedJohn Armstrong, Jr., aU.S. Senator,U.S. Secretary of War, andU.S. Minister to France who was the son of Gen.John Armstrong, Sr.
His maternal grandparents wereHenry Beekman, a descendant ofWilhelmus Beekman, and Janet (née Livingston) Beekman, a Livingston cousin. Their children included:[11] His father was the only child ofRobert Livingston, known as "Robert ofClermont" (himself a son ofRobert Livingston the Elder, the first Lord ofLivingston Manor, andAlida (née Schuyler) Van Rensselaer Livingston) and Margaret (née Howarden) Livingston.[11]
He graduated fromPrinceton University in 1781.[11]
Livingston was admitted to the bar in 1785, and began to practice law in New York City along withJames Kent,Aaron Burr andAlexander Hamilton, rapidly rising to distinction.[12] From 1795 to 1801, Livingston was aDemocratic-RepublicanU.S. Representative in theUnited States Congress from the state of New York, where he was one of the leaders of the opposition toJay's Treaty, and introduced the resolution calling upon PresidentGeorge Washington to furnish Congress with the details of the negotiations of the peace treaty with theKingdom of Great Britain, which the President refused to share. At the close of Washington's administration, he voted withAndrew Jackson and other radicals against the address to the president.[13]
Livingston was a prominent opponent of theAlien and Sedition Laws, introduced legislation on behalf of American seamen, and in 1800 attacked the president for permitting the extradition to the British government of Jonathan Robbins, who had committed murder on an English frigate and then escaped toSouth Carolina and falsely claimed to be an American citizen. In the debate on this question Livingston was opposed byJohn Marshall, theChief Justice of the United States.[13]
In 1801, Livingston was appointedUnited States Attorney for the district of New York, and while retaining that position was in the same year appointedMayor of New York City. When, in the summer of 1803, the city was visited withyellow fever, Livingston displayed courage and energy in his endeavors to prevent the spread of the disease and relieve distress. He suffered a violent attack of fever, during which the people gave many proofs of their attachment to him.[14]
Upon his recovery he found his private affairs in some confusion, and he was at the same time deeply indebted to the government for public funds which had been lost through the mismanagement or dishonesty of a confidential clerk, and for which he was responsible as US attorney. He at once surrendered all his property, resigned his two offices in 1803, and moved early in 1804 toNew Orleans in what would shortly become theTerritory of Orleans (1804–1812).[15] His older brother, Robert R. Livingston, had negotiated theLouisiana Purchase, in 1803.[citation needed] Edward Livingston soon built a largelaw practice in New Orleans, and in 1826 he repaid theFederal government in full, including the interest, which by that time amounted to more than the original principal.[15]
Almost immediately upon his arrival in Louisiana, where the legal system had previously been based onRoman, French, and Spanish law, and wheretrial by jury and other particularities of English common law were now first introduced, he was appointed by the legislature to prepare a provisional code of judicial procedure, which (in the form of an act passed in April 1805) was continued in force from 1805 to 1825.[15]
In 1807, after conducting a successful suit on behalf of a client's title to a part of the batture or alluvial land near New Orleans, Livingston attempted to improve part of this land (which he had received as his fee) in the Batture Ste. Marie. Great popular excitement was aroused against him; his workmen were mobbed; and territorial GovernorWilliam C. C. Claiborne, when appealed to for protection, referred the question to the Federal government.[15]
It has been alleged that Livingston's case was damaged by then-PresidentThomas Jefferson, who believed that Livingston had favored Aaron Burr in thePresidential election of 1800, and that he had afterwards been a party to Burr's schemes. Jefferson made it impossible for Livingston to secure hisproperty title,[15] since by asserting the claim that such battures were the property of the Federal government, Livingston's title obtained from the Territorial Court was invalid.[clarification needed] In response, Livingston filed a civillawsuit against Jefferson in 1810. After the case was dismissed on December 5, 1811, by Chief Justice John Marshall due to lack of jurisdiction,[16] Jefferson, nonetheless, in 1812 published a pamphlet originally intended "for the use of counsel" in the case against Livingston, to which Livingston published a reply.
Louisiana became a U.S. state just one and a half months before theU.S. Congress declared war uponGreat Britain. During theWar of 1812, Edward Livingston was active in rousing the ethnically mixed population of New Orleans to resistance against the threat of British invasion. He used his influence to secure amnesty forJean Lafitte and his followers when they offered tohelp defend the city, and in 1814–15 acted as adviser and one of severalaides-de-camp to Major General Andrew Jackson, who was his personal friend.[15]
In 1821, by appointment of theLouisiana State Legislature, of which he had become a member of theLouisiana House of Representatives in the preceding year, Livingston began the preparation of a newcode of criminal law and procedure, afterwards known in Europe and America as the "Livingston Code." It was prepared in both French and English, as was required by the necessities of practice in Louisiana, and actually consisted of four sections: crimes and punishments, procedure, evidence in criminal cases, and reform and prison discipline. Though substantially completed in 1824, when it was accidentally burned, and again in 1826, the criminal code was not printed in its entirety until 1833. It was never adopted by the state.[15]
The Livingston Code was at once reprinted in England, France, and Germany, attracting wide praise by its remarkable simplicity and vigor, and especially by reason of its philanthropic provisions in the code of reform and prison discipline, which noticeably influenced the penal legislation of various countries. In referring to this code,Sir Henry Maine spoke of Livingston as "the first legal genius of modern times."[17] The spirit of Livingston's code was remedial rather than vindictive; it provided for the abolition of capital punishment and the making of penitentiary labor not a punishment forced on the prisoner, but a matter of his choice and a reward for good behavior, bringing with it better accommodations. His Code of Reform and Prison Discipline was adopted by the government of the short-livedFederal Republic of Central America under liberal presidentFrancisco Morazán.[15]
Livingston was the leading member of a commission appointed to prepare a newcivil code for Louisiana, which for the most part the legislature adopted in 1825; and the most important chapters of which, including all those on contracts, were prepared by Edward Livingston alone. Livingston became again a U.S. Representative, this time as the first person to serveLouisiana's 1st congressional district. The preliminary work for the preparation of a new civil code was completed byJames Brown andLouis Moreau-Lislet, who in 1808 reported aDigest of the Civil Laws now in force in the Territory of Orleans with Alterations and Amendments adapted to the present Form of Government.[15]
Livingston served as aU.S. Representative from Louisiana from 1823 to 1829, aU.S. Senator from 1829 to 1831, and for two years (1831–1833)United States Secretary of State under President Jackson. In this last position he was one of Jackson's most trusted advisers. Livingston prepared a number of state papers for President Jackson, the most important being the famous anti-nullification proclamation of December 10, 1832.[15]
From 1833 to 1835, Livingston was minister plenipotentiary to France, charged with procuring the fulfillment by the French government of the treaty negotiated by W. C. Rives in 1831, by which France had bound herself to pay an indemnity of twenty-five millions of francs for French spoliations of American shipping chiefly under theBerlin andMilan decrees, and the United States in turn agreed to pay to France 1,500,000 francs in satisfaction of French claims. Livingston's negotiations were conducted with excellent judgment,[citation needed] but the French Chamber of Deputies refused to make an appropriation to pay the first installment due under the treaty in 1833, relations between the two governments became strained, and Livingston was finally instructed to close the legation and return to America.[15]
Livingston was married twice. His first wife, Mary McEvers, whom he wed on April 10, 1788, later died ofscarlet fever.[11] She was the daughter of Charles McEvers and Mary (née Bache) McEvers and her sister, Eliza McEvers, was the second wife of Edwards older brother, the merchant John R. Livingston.[11] Before her death on March 13, 1801, they were the parents of two sons and a daughter.[12]
In June 1805, he married Madame Marie Louise Magdaleine Valentine "Louise" (née d'Avezac) de Castera Moreau de Lassy (1785–1860), a widow who was then 19 years of age, and a refugee in New Orleans from theHaitian Revolution.[18] She was the daughter of a wealthy landowner and the sister ofAuguste Davezac, a politician and diplomat who served twice asU.S. Minister to the Netherlands. She is said to have greatly influenced her husband's public career.[15] Together, Louise and Edward were the parents of two children, only one of whom lived to adulthood:[11]
Livingston died on May 23, 1836, five days before his 72nd birthday atMontgomery Place inRed Hook, New York, an estate left him by his sister, to which he had removed in 1831.[11]
The town ofLivingston, Guatemala, is named after Edward Livingston, in commemoration of the Livingston Code.
Edward Livingston is the namesake of counties inIllinois,Michigan, andMissouri,[19] anda parish in Louisiana with its seat ofLivingston. Also named for him isa town inTennessee (and by extension, the town ofLivingston, Texas,Lake Livingston in Texas, and the Livingston Dam), and the town ofLivingston, Alabama in Sumter County, Alabama.
Edward Livingston High School[20] (formerly a middle school) inNew Orleans was named for him.Fort Livingston, a 19th-century coastal fortification, was named after Edward Livingston, along with today'sFort Livingston State Commemorative Area in south Louisiana.
Livingston was elected a member of theAmerican Philosophical Society[21] in 1825 and theAmerican Antiquarian Society[22] in 1833.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Livingston, Edward".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 16 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 811–812.Hatcher, William B.,Edward Livingston: Jeffersonian Republican and Jacksonian Democrat, Louisiana State University Press (1940).
Hunt, Charles Havens,Life of Edward Livingston, Appleton & Co. (1863).
| U.S. House of Representatives | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Member of theU.S. House of Representatives fromNew York's 2nd congressional district 1795–1801 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Chair of theHouse Energy Committee 1797–1798 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Member of theU.S. House of Representatives fromLouisiana's 1st congressional district 1823–1829 | Succeeded by |
| Legal offices | ||
| Preceded by | U.S. Attorney for the District of New York 1801–1803 | Succeeded by |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Mayor of New York City 1801–1803 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | United States Secretary of State 1831–1833 | Succeeded by |
| U.S. Senate | ||
| Preceded by | U.S. Senator (Class 2) from Louisiana 1829–1831 Served alongside:Josiah S. Johnston | Succeeded by |
| Diplomatic posts | ||
| Preceded by | United States Minister to France 1833–1835 | Succeeded by |
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| Envoys to France (1776–1779) |  | |
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| Ministers Plenipotentiary to France (1778–1815) | ||
| Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to France (1816–1893) | ||
| Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to France (1893–present) | ||
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| Secretary of the Navy |
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| Commerce and Manufactures (1795–1819) |  | |
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| Commerce (1819–1893) | ||
| Interstate and Foreign Commerce (1893–1981) | ||
| Energy and Commerce (1981–present) | ||
