Robert R. Livingston

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Robert R. Livingston
Livingston's statue in the National Statuary Hall Collection

Robert Robert Livingston (born November 27, 1746 in New York City , Province of New York , † February 26, 1813 in Clermont , New York ) was an American politician and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States . From 1777 to 1801 he served for 24 years as the first Chancellor of New York, the chief judge of the state in the New York Court of Chancery , and was therefore known as The Chancellor . From 1781 to 1783 he was the first United States Secretary of State . He belonged to the Democratic Republican Party .

Life

Robert R. Livingston was the eldest son of the judge Robert Livingston (1718–1775) and his wife Margaret Beekman Livingston. He had nine siblings, all married and residing near the family home in Clermont on the Hudson River .

Livingston was a large landowner and attorney, as well as a delegate to the New York State Constituent Assembly and a member of the committee that drafted the United States Declaration of Independence . Before signing, however, he was recalled by his New York State. From 1781 to 1783 he served as Minister of Foreign Affairs under the Articles of Confederation . Since there was no supreme federal court at that time, he took the oath of office from George Washington when he was first sworn in in 1789 as Chief Justice of New York State . From 1790 he became increasingly alienated from the ruling federalists because of Alexander Hamilton's financial policy and approached the political camp of Thomas Jefferson , from which the Democratic Republican Party developed. In 1795 he ran for governor of New York , but was defeated in the elections to John Jay , whose negotiated contract with the Kingdom of Great Britain he had previously publicly attacked. In the 1800 presidential election, the Democrats long contemplated setting up Livingston as Thomas Jefferson's running mate , but then chose Aaron Burr as a candidate for the vice presidency . From 1801 to 1804 he was envoy to France and negotiated there in 1803 the purchase of the French possession of Louisiana to America.

During his time in France he met Robert Fulton . He acquired a steamship monopoly in New York and helped Fulton financially develop the first successful steamship, the North River Steam Boat , also known as the Clermont . Its home port was Livingston's estate in Clermont (New York). The first trip by steamship on August 17, 1807 was up the Hudson River from New York to Albany . The journey, which took a conventional sloop almost a week, took a little less than 32 hours.

Livingston built a house south of Clermont for himself and his wife Mary Stevens Livingston, which they called the 'Belvedere'. It was burned down by the British Army in 1777, along with all of Clermont. In 1794 he built a new house, which he named 'Arryl House'. It was called the most spacious house in America and contained, among other things, a library with 4,000 volumes and - after his stay in France - also an orangery . He was a Freemason , in 1784 he was elected Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of New York and remained in office until 1801.

His brother Edward Livingston was later also Secretary of State of the United States.

Commemoration

The Livingston County in Kentucky and the Livingston County in New York are named after Livingston.

One of the six statues in Statuary Hall in the crypt of the United States Capitol in Washington, DC is the bronze statue of Chancellor Robert A. Livingston, created by Erastus Dow Palmer in 1874 .

literature

Web links

Commons : Robert R. Livingston  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ James T. Carroll: Livingston, Robert R. In Spencer C. Tucker (ed.): The Encyclopedia of the Wars of the Early American Republic, 1783-1812: A Political, Social, and Military History . Volume 1: A – K. ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara 2014, ISBN 978-1-59884-157-2 , p. 380 .
  2. ↑ James T. Carroll: Livingston, Robert R. In Spencer C. Tucker (ed.): The Encyclopedia of the Wars of the Early American Republic, 1783-1812: A Political, Social, and Military History . Volume 1: A – K. ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara 2014, ISBN 978-1-59884-157-2 , p. 380 .
  3. ↑ Charles Curry Aiken, Joseph Nathan Kane: The American Counties: Origins of County Names, Dates of Creation, Area, and Population Data, 1950-2010 . 6th edition. Scarecrow Press, Lanham 2013, ISBN 978-0-8108-8762-6 , p. 183 .
personal data
SURNAME Livingston, Robert R.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Livingston, Robert Robert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American politician
DATE OF BIRTH November 27, 1746
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City
DATE OF DEATH February 26, 1813
Place of death Clermont , New York