Codifier

New York Aristocrat.

Edward Livingston was born in 1764 into one of the wealthiest and most influential families in America. His father was the largest landholder in New York, owning on the eve of the Revolution more than 250,000 acres between Manhattan and Albany. Edward Livingston's older brother, Robert R. Livingston, helped to draft the Declaration of Independence before becoming a distinguished chancellor of New York, and his cousin Brockholst Livingston would sit on the United States Supreme Court. After graduating from Princeton in 1781, Edward entered law, practiced for several years, and took a seat in Congress in 1794. His political affiliation followed a sudden twist in the longrunning factional saga of the Livingstons and their rivals, the Schuylers. Although the families had united briefly to support ratification of the Constitution, the Livingstons felt snubbed by the distribution of patronage under Alexander Hamilton, who had married into...