ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON.
By James Hughes Hopkins.
Robert R. Livingston, the great Chancellor Livingston of our fathers' time, is forgotten. Time has dealt unkindly with his memory. The man who entered public life as a member of the committee that framed the Declaration of Independence, and closed a long diplomatic career spent in patriotic services of his country with the purchase of Louisiana, deserved a high place on the roll of American statesmen. "The National Picture Gallery," a publication accessible to few but diligent students of our national history, contains a brief sketch of Livingston and his family. Such is fame. A few pages of an ephemeral magazine constitute the tribute of American historical writers to the memory of the statesman, jurist, and scholar, who in his time was the friend of emperors, the rival of presidents, and the head of a family that at his behest might easily have destroyed a nation.
Descended from the great Livingston family that for fifty years had exercised a powerful influence in the public affairs of New York; the son of a judge of the Supreme Court, who, as a member of the famous Stamp Act Congress of 1765, draughted the address to the king adopted by that body; and already noted at his graduation from King's College, in 1765, for "the sublimity of his sentiments, the elegance of his style, and the graceful propriety of his pronunciation and gesture,"—young Robert may well be said to have been born great. The only path to distinction then open to young men of talent and ambition was through the legal profession. Entering the office of Judge William Smith, the future historian of the Colony of New York, young Livingston devoted himself to the study of law with such assiduity and success, that soon after his admission to the bar he was appointed to the honorable and lucrative position of recorder of New-York City. His success as a lawyer, notwithstanding the advantages derived from his connection with a distinguished family, was remarkable, New York, before the Revolution, had not yet begun that marvellous growth which has finally made it the great commercial city of the new continent, and afforded no alluring hopes of success to a young barrister, who began practice at a bar distinguished by the efforts of the great Colonial lawyers, Duane, Egbert Benson, Robert Troup, and Melancthon Smith, and in after years by the successes of Jay, Kent, Hamilton, and Burr.
Eminent, however, as was his future career as a lawyer, Robert R. Livingston early gave indications of a fitness for the duties of a position that would call into action those qualities that had won for him a high place as a brilliant advocate and learned jurist. As early as 1765, "The New-York Gazette," in commenting on his oration at graduation from King's College, had stated that "many of the audience please themselves with hopes that the young orator may prove an able and zealous asserter and defender of the rights and liberties of his country, as well as an ornament to it." The early promise was not unfulfilled. The father and grandfather were both active in the cause of liberty; and the removal of
