Livingston, Edward (1764–1836)

US lawyer and statesman. A Democrat-Republican, he represented New York in the US House of Representatives (1795–1801). He held the offices of US attorney and mayor of New York City simultaneously (1801–04) but resigned when a business associate all but ruined him financially. He gained a reputation for his work on attempting to reform the penal laws of Louisiana, and returned, as a Democrat-Republican representative of that state, to the US House of Representatives (1823–29) and then to the US Senate (1829–31). His old friend, President Andrew Jackson, appointed him secretary of state (1831–33) and then ambassador to France (1833–35); his major accomplishment in these offices was to oversee the negotiations that led to France's repaying US citizens for losses suffered during the Napoleonic wars.

Livingston was born in Columbia County, New York. He moved to New Orleans, Louisiana, where he began to practice law and pay off his debts. While in the South he was unfairly implicated in Aaron Burr's conspiracy to set up an independent nation (1806). For many years he was involved in a legal dispute over real estate that eventually led him into conflict with the US president, Thomas Jefferson. During the War of 1812 he took a lead in the defence of New Orleans (1814–15).