in Clermont, Columbia county, New York, on the 26th of May 1764. He was
a great-grandson of Robert Livingston, the first of the family to settle
in America (see LIVINGSTON, WILLIAM, below). He graduated at Princeton
in 1781, was admitted to the bar in 1785, and began to practise law in
New York City, rapidly rising to distinction. In 1795-1801 he was a
Republican representative in Congress, where he was one of the leaders
of the opposition to Jay's treaty, introduced the resolution calling
upon President Washington for all papers relating to the treaty, and at
the close of Washington's administration voted with Andrew Jackson and
other radicals against the address to the president. He opposed the
Alien and Sedition Laws, introduced legislation on behalf of American
seamen, and in 1800 attacked the president for permitting the
extradition by the British government of Jonathan Robbins, who had
committed murder on an English frigate, and had then escaped to South
Carolina and falsely claimed to be an American citizen. In the debate on
this question Livingston was opposed by John Marshall. In 1801
Livingston was appointed U.S. district-attorney for the state of New
York, and while retaining that position was in the same year appointed
mayor of New York City. When, in the summer of 1803, the city was
visited with yellow fever, Livingston displayed courage and energy in
his endeavours to prevent the spread of the disease and relieve
distress. He suffered a violent attack of the fever, during which the
people gave many proofs of their attachment to him. On 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 district-attorney. He at once surrendered
all his property, resigned his two offices in 1803, and removed early in
1804 to Louisiana. He soon acquired a large law practice in New Orleans,
and in 1826 repaid the government in full, including the interest, which
at that time amounted to more than the original principal.
Almost immediately upon his arrival in Louisiana, where the legal system
had previously been based on Roman, French and Spanish law, and where
trial by jury and other peculiarities 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. 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 Governor Claiborne, when
appealed to for protection, referred the question to the Federal
government. Livingston's case was damaged by President Jefferson, who
believed that Livingston had favoured Burr in the presidential election
of 1800, and that he had afterwards been a party to Burr's schemes.
Jefferson made it impossible for Livingston to secure his title, and in
1812 published a pamphlet "for the use of counsel" in the case against
Livingston, to which Livingston published a crushing reply. Livingston's
final victory in the courts brought him little financial profit because
of the heavy expenses of the litigation. During the war with England
from 1812 to 1815 Livingston was active in rousing the mixed population
of New Orleans to resistance. He used his influence to secure amnesty
for Lafitte and his followers upon their offer to fight for the city,
and in 1814-1815 acted as adviser and volunteer aide-de-camp to General
Jackson, who was his personal friend. In 1821, by appointment of the
legislature, of which he had become a member in the preceding year,
Livingston began the preparation of a new code 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
codes--crimes and punishments, procedure, evidence in criminal cases,
reform and prison discipline. Though substantially completed in 1824,
when it was accidentally burned, and again in 1826, it was not printed
entire until 1833. It was never adopted by the state. It was at once
reprinted in England, France and Germany, attracting wide praise by its
remarkable simplicity and vigour, 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" (_Cambridge Essays, 1856_, p. 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 labour not a punishment forced on the prisoner, but a
matter of his choice and a reward for good behaviour, bringing with it
better accommodations. His Code of Reform and Prison Discipline was
adopted by Guatemala. Livingston was the leading member of a commission
appointed to prepare a new civil code,[1] which for the most part the
legislature adopted in 1825, and the most important chapters of which,
including all those on contract, were prepared by Livingston alone.
Livingston was again a representative in Congress during 1823-1829, a
senator in 1829-1831, and for two years (1831-1833) secretary of state
under President Jackson. In this last position he was one of the most
trusted advisers of the president, for whom he prepared a number of
state papers, the most important being the famous anti-nullification
proclamation of the 10th of December 1832. From 1833 to 1835 Livingston
was minister plenipotentiary to France, charged with procuring the
fulfilment 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 the Berlin and Milan 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, but the French Chamber of Deputies refused to make
an appropriation to pay the first instalment 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. He died on the 23rd of May 1836 at Montgomery Place, Dutchess
county, New York, an estate left him by his sister, to which he had
removed in 1831. Livingston was twice married. His first wife, Mary
McEvers, whom he married on the 10th of April 1788, died on the 13th of
March 1801. In June 1805 he married Madame Louise Moreau de Lassy (d.
1860), a widow nineteen years of age, whose maiden name was Davezac de
Castera, and who was a refugee in New Orleans from the revolution in
Santo Domingo. She was a woman of extraordinary beauty and intellect,
and is said to have greatly influenced her husband's public career.
See C. H. Hunt, _Life of Edward Livingston_ (New York, 1864);
Livingston's _Works_ (2 vols., New York, 1873); and Louise Livingston
Hunt, _Memoir of Mrs Edward Livingston_ (New York, 1886).
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Preliminary work in the preparation of a new civil code had been
done by James Brown and Moreau Lislet, who in 1808 reported a "Digest
of the Civil Laws now in force in the Territory of Orleans with
Alterations and Amendments adapted to the present Form of
Government."
LIVINGSTON, ROBERT R. (1746-1813), American statesman, son of Robert R.
Livingston (1718-1775; a justice of the New York supreme court after
1763) and brother of Edward Livingston (see above), was born in New York
City, on the 27th of November 1746. He graduated at King's College, New
York (now Columbia University), in 1765, was admitted to the bar in
1773, and for a short time was a law partner of John Jay. In 1773 he
became recorder of New York City, but soon identified himself with the
Whig or Patriot element there, and was forced to give up this position
in 1775. He was a member of the second, third and fourth Provincial
Congresses of New York (1775-1777), was a delegate from New York to the
Continental Congress in 1775-1777 and again in 1779-1780, and was a
member of the committee which drafted the Declaration of Independence.
He was prevented from signing that document by his absence at the time
to attend a meeting of the fourth New York Provincial Congress, which on
the 10th of July became the Convention of the Representatives of the
state of New York, and by which at Kingston in 1777 the first state
constitution was adopted, Livingston having been a member of the
committee that drafted this instrument. He was the first chancellor of
the state, from 1777 to February 1801, and is best known as "Chancellor"
Livingston. In this capacity he administered the oath of office to
Washington at his first inauguration to the presidency, in New York, on
the 30th of April 1789. Previously, from October 1781 to June 1783, he
had been the first secretary of foreign affairs under the Confederation,
and his European correspondence, especially with Franklin, was of the
utmost value in accomplishing peace with Great Britain. In 1788 he had
been a member of the New York Convention, which ratified for that state
the Federal Constitution. He became an anti-Federalist and in 1798
unsuccessfully opposed John Jay in the New York gubernatorial campaign.
In 1801, having refused an appointment as secretary of the navy, he
became minister to France on President Jefferson's appointment. He had
refused this post when Washington offered it to him in 1794. He arrived
in France in November 1801, and in 1803, in association with James
Monroe, effected on behalf of his government the purchase from France of
what was then known as "Louisiana," the credit for this purchase being
largely his (see LOUISIANA PURCHASE). In 1804 Livingston withdrew from
public life, and after a year of travel in Europe returned to New York,
where he promoted various improvements in agriculture. He did much to
introduce the use of gypsum as a fertilizer, and published an _Essay on
Sheep_ (1809). He was long interested in the problem of steam
navigation; before he went to France he received from the state of New
York a monopoly of steam navigation on the waters of the state and
assisted in the experiments of his brother-in-law, John Stevens; in
Paris he met Robert Fulton, and with him in 1802 made successful trials
on the Seine of a paddle wheel steamboat; in 1803 Livingston (jointly
with Robert Fulton) received a renewal of his monopoly in New York, and
the first successful steam-vessel, which operated on the Hudson in 1807,
was named after Livingston's home, Clermont (N.Y.). He died at Clermont
on the 26th of February 1813.
Livingston and George Clinton were chosen to represent New York state in
Statuary Hall, in the Capitol, at Washington, D.C.; the statue of
Livingston is by E. D. Palmer.
See Frederick de Peyster, _Biographical Sketch of Robert R.
Livingston_ (New York, 1876); Robert K. Morton, "Robert R. Livingston:
Beginnings of American Diplomacy," in _The John P. Branch Historical
Papers of Randolph-Macon College_, i. 299-324, and ii. 34-46; and J.
B. Moore, "Robert R. Livingston and the Louisiana Purchase," in
_Columbia University Quarterly_, v. 6 (1904), pp. 221-229.
LIVINGSTON, WILLIAM (1723-1790), American political leader, was born at
Albany, New York, probably on the 30th of November 1723. He was the son
of Philip Livingston (1686-1749), and grandson of Robert Livingston
(1654-1725), who was born at Ancrum, Scotland, emigrated to America
about 1673, and received grants (beginning in 1686) to "Livingston
Manor" (a tract of land on the Hudson, comprising the greater part of
what are now Dutchess and Columbia counties). This Robert Livingston,
founder of the American family, became in 1675 secretary of the
important Board of Indian Commissioners; he was a member of the New York
Assembly in 1711-1715 and 1716-1727 and its speaker in 1718-1725, and in
1701 made the proposal that all the English colonies in America should
be grouped for administrative purposes "into three distinct
governments."
William Livingston graduated at Yale College in 1741, studied law in the
city of New York, and was admitted to the bar in 1748. He served in the
New York legislature (1759-1760), but his political influence was long
exerted chiefly through pamphlets and newspaper articles. The Livingston
family then led the Dissenters, who later became Whigs, and the De
Lancey family represented the Anglican Tory interests. Through the
columns of the _Independent Reflector_, which he established in 1752,
Livingston fought the attempt of the Anglican party to bring the
projected King's College (now Columbia University) under the control of
the Church of England. After the suspension of the _Reflector_ in 1753,
he edited in the _New York Mercury_ the "Watch Tower" section
(1754-1755), which became the recognized organ of the Presbyterian
faction. In opposition to the efforts of the Anglicans to procure the
establishment of an American episcopate, he wrote an open _Letter to the
Right Reverend Father in God, John Lord, Bishop of Llandaff_ (1768), and
edited and in large measure wrote the "American Whig" columns in the
_New York Gazette_ (1768-1769). In 1772 he removed to Elizabeth, New
Jersey, where after 1773 he lived on his estate known as "Liberty Hall."
He represented New Jersey in the first and second Continental Congresses
(1774,1775-1776), but left Philadelphia in June 1776, probably to avoid
voting on the question of adopting the Declaration of Independence,
which he regarded as inexpedient. He was chosen first governor of the
state of New Jersey in 1776, and was regularly re-elected until his
death in 1790. Loyal to American interests and devoted to General
Washington, he was one of the most useful of the state executives during
the War of Independence. While governor he was a frequent contributor to
the _New Jersey Gazette_, and in this way he greatly aided the American
cause during the war by his denunciation of the enemy and appeals to the
patriotism of his countrymen. He was a delegate to the Federal
Constitutional Convention of 1787, and supported the New Jersey
small-state plan. In 1754 he joined with his brother, Philip Livingston,
his brother-in-law, William Alexander ("Lord Stirling") and others in
founding what is now known as the Society Library of New York. With the
help of William Smith (1728-1793), the New York historian, William
Livingston prepared a digest of the laws of New York for the period
1691-1756, which was published in two volumes (1752 and 1762). He died
at Elizabeth, New Jersey, on the 25th of July 1790.
See Theodore Sedgwick, Jr., _Life of William Livingston_ (New York,
1833); and E. B. Livingston, _The Livingstons of Livingston Manor_
(1910).
His brother, PETER VAN BRUGH LIVINGSTON (1710-1792), was a prominent
merchant and a Whig political leader in New York. He was one of the
founders of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), was a
member of the New York Council for some years before the War of
Independence, a member and president of the First Provincial Congress of
New York (1775), and a member of the Second Provincial Congress
(1775-1776).
Another brother, PHILIP LIVINGSTON (1716-1778), was also prominent as a
leader of the New York Whigs or Patriots. He was a member of the New
York Assembly in 1759-1769, a delegate to the Stamp Act Congress of
1765, a member of the Continental Congress from 1774 until his death and
as such a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and in 1777-1778
was a member of the first state senate.
William's son, (HENRY) BROCKHOLST LIVINGSTON (1757-1823), was an officer
in the American War of Independence, and was an able lawyer and judge.
From 1807 until his death he was an associate justice of the United
States Supreme Court, and he wrote political pamphlets under the
pen-name "Decius."
LIVINGSTONE, DAVID (1813-1873), Scottish missionary and explorer in
Africa, was born on the 19th of March 1813, at the village of Blantyre
Works, in Lanarkshire, Scotland. David was the second child of his
parents, Neil Livingston (for so he spelled his name, as did his son for
many years) and Agnes Hunter. His parents were typical examples of all
that is best among the humbler families of Scotland. At the age of ten
years David left the village school for the neighbouring cotton-mill,
and by strenuous efforts qualified himself at the age of twenty-three to
undertake a college curriculum. He attended for two sessions the medical
and the Greek classes in Anderson's College, Glasgow, and also a
theological class. In September 1838 he went up to London, and was
accepted by the London Missionary Society as a candidate. He took his
medical degree in the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons in Glasgow in
November 1840. Livingstone had set his heart on China, and it was a
great disappointment to him that the society finally decided to send him
to Africa. To an exterior in these early years somewhat heavy and
uncouth, he united a manner which, by universal testimony, was
irresistibly winning, with a fund of genuine but simple humour and fun
that would break out on the most unlikely occasions, and in after years
enabled him to overcome difficulties and mellow refractory chiefs when
all other methods failed.
Livingstone sailed from England on the 8th of December 1840. From Algoa
Bay he made direct for Kuruman, Bechuanaland, the mission station, 700
m. north, established by Robert Moffat twenty years before, and there he
arrived on the 31st of July 1841. The next two years Livingstone spent
in travelling about the country to the northwards, in search of a
suitable outpost for settlement. During these two years he became
convinced that the success of the white missionary in a field like
Africa was not to be reckoned by the tale of doubtful conversions he
could send home each year--that the proper work for such men was that of
pioneering, opening up and starting new ground, leaving native agents to
work it out in detail. The whole of his subsequent career was a
development of this idea. He selected the valley of Mabotsa, on one of
the sources of the Limpopo river, 200 m. north-east of Kuruman, as his
first station. Shortly after his settlement here he was attacked by a
lion which crushed his left arm. The arm was imperfectly set, and it was
a source of trouble to him at times throughout his life, and was the
means of identifying his body after his death. To a house, mainly built
by himself at Mabotsa, Livingstone in 1844 brought home his wife, Mary
Moffat, the daughter of Moffat of Kuruman. Here he laboured till 1846,
when he removed to Chonuane, 40 m. farther north, the chief place of the
Bakwain or Bakwena tribe under Sechele. In 1847 he again removed to
Kolobeng, about 40 m. westwards, the whole tribe following their
missionary. With the aid and in the company of two English sportsmen,
William C. Oswell and Mungo Murray, he was able to undertake a journey
to Lake Ngami, which had never yet been seen by a white man. Crossing
the Kalahari Desert, of which Livingstone gave the first detailed
account, they reached the lake on the 1st of August 1849. In April next
year he made an attempt to reach Sebituane, who lived 200 m. beyond the
lake, this time in company with his wife and children, but again got no
farther than the lake, as the children were seized with fever. A year
later, April 1851, Livingstone, again accompanied by his family and
Oswell, set out, this time with the intention of settling among the
Makololo for a period. At last he succeeded, and reached the Chobe
(Kwando), a southern tributary of the Zambezi, and in the end of June
reached the Zambezi itself at the town of Sesheke. Leaving the Chobe on
the 13th of August the party reached Cape Town in April 1852.
Livingstone may now be said to have completed the first period of his
career in Africa, the period in which the work of the missionary had the
greatest prominence. Henceforth he appears more in the character of an
explorer, but it must be remembered that he regarded himself to the last
as a pioneer missionary, whose work was to open up the country to
others.
Having seen his family off to England, Livingstone left Cape Town on the
8th of June 1852, and turning north again reached Linyante, the capital
of the Makololo, on the Chobe, on the 23rd of May 1853, being cordially
received by Sekeletu and his people. His first object was to seek for
some healthy high land in which to plant a station. Ascending the
Zambezi, he, however, found no place free from the tsetse fly, and
therefore resolved to discover a route to the interior from either the
west or east coast. To accompany Livingstone twenty-seven men were
selected from the various tribes under Sekeletu, partly with a view to
open up a trade route between their own country and the coast. The start
was made from Linyante on the 11th of November 1853, and, by ascending
the Liba, Lake Dilolo was reached on the 20th of February 1854. On the
4th of April the Kwango was crossed, and on the 31st of May the town of
Loanda was entered, Livingstone, however, being all but dead from fever,
semi-starvation and dysentery. From Loanda Livingstone sent his
astronomical observations to Sir Thomas Maclear at the Cape, and an
account of his journey to the Royal Geographical Society, which in May
1855 awarded him its patron's medal. Loanda was left on the 20th of
September 1854, but Livingstone lingered long about the Portuguese
settlements. Making a slight détour to the north to Kabango, the party
reached Lake Dilolo on the 13th of June 1855. Here Livingstone made a
careful study of the hydrography of the country. He "now for the first
time apprehended the true form of the river systems and the continent,"
and the conclusions he came to have been essentially confirmed by
subsequent observations. The return journey from Lake Dilolo was by the
same route as that by which the party came, Linyante being reached in
the beginning of September.
For Livingstone's purposes the route to the west was unavailable, and he
decided to follow the Zambezi to its mouth. With a numerous following,
he left Linyante on the 8th of November 1855. A fortnight afterwards he
discovered the famous "Victoria" falls of the Zambezi. He had already
formed a true idea of the configuration of the continent as a great
hollow or basin-shaped plateau, surrounded by a ring of mountains.
Livingstone reached the Portuguese settlement of Tete on the 2nd of
March 1856, in a very emaciated condition. Here he left his men and
proceeded to Quilimane, where he arrived on the 20th of May, thus having
completed in two years and six months one of the most remarkable and
fruitful journeys on record. The results in geography and in natural
science in all its departments were abundant and accurate; his
observations necessitated a reconstruction of the map of Central Africa.
When Livingstone began his work in Africa the map was virtually a blank
from Kuruman to Timbuktu, and nothing but envy or ignorance can throw
any doubt on the originality of his discoveries.