LIVINGSTON, ROBERT R. (1 ), American states man, son of Robert R. Livingston (1718-75), a justice of the New York supreme court after 1763, and brother of Edward Livingston (q.v.), was born in New York city on Nov. 27, 1746. He gradu ated at King's college, New York (now Columbia university), in 1765 and was admitted to the bar in 1773. He was a member of the second, third, and fourth Provincial Congresses of New York (1775-77), was a delegate from New York to the Continental Congress in 1775-77, and again in 1779-80, 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 Provin cial Congress, which on July 10 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, Living ston having been a member of the committee that drafted this instrument. He was the first chancellor of the state, from 1777 to Feb. 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 April 3o, 1789. In 1788 he had been a member of the New York conven tion, 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 18o' he became minister to France on President Jefferson's appointment 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." In 1804 Livingston withdrew from public
life and returned to New York, where he promoted various im provements 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 suc cessful 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 Living ston's home, Clermont. He died at Clermont, N.Y., on Feb. 26, 1813.
See Frederick de Peyster, Biographical Sketch of Robert R. Living ston (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. ; and J. B. Moore, "Robert R. Livingston and the Louisiana Purchase," in Columbia University Quarterly, vi. 221-229 (1904) ; D. S. Alexander, "Robert R. Livingston," N.Y. State Hist. Assoc. Proc., vol. vi., PP. (Albany, 1906) ; and J. L. Delafield, Chancellor Robert R. Livingston and His Family (Albany, 1911).