Edward Livingston

Posts in The Copybook credited to ‘Edward Livingston’

Edward Livingston (1764-1836) was a US statesman. After representing New York in Congress, he served as the city’s Mayor in 1801-1803. He returned to Congress, this time for Louisiana, in 1823-29. In 1831, he was appointed Secretary of State, moving two years later to the post of Minister to France. He retired from public service in 1835. Livingston was praised at home and in Britain for his proposed code of criminal law (never adopted) based on seeking reform rather than retribution. His brother Robert R. Livingston negotiated the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.

1

Servants of the People by Edward Livingston

A US Congressman tells the House why they mustn’t censor the press.

In July 1798, the Government of American President John Adams laid a Bill before Congress designed to criminalise criticism in the press. Censorship of this kind was all too familiar in England, then as now, but the debate in the US House of Representatives deserves careful reading, if only for the magnificent principle here laid down by Edward Livingston, Congressman for New York’s 2nd District.

Read

Clay Lane The Copybook