He lacked the creative genius of Hamilton, the prescient gifts of Jay, and the skill of Aaron Burr to marshal men for selfish purposes; but he was rt home in debate with the ablest men of

ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON. lOI

his time, a master of sarcasm, of trenchant wit, and of feUcitous rhetoric. It is likely that he lacked Kent's application. But of ninety-three bills passed by the legislature from 1778 to 1801, a period that spans his life as Chancellor, and which were afterward vetoed by the Council of Revision, Livingston wrote opinions in twenty-three, s'everal of them elaborate, and all revealing capacity for legislation. In these vetoes he stood with Hamilton in resisting forfeitures and confiscations ; he held with Richard Morris that loyal citizens could not be deprived of lands, though bought of an allien enemy ; he agreed with Jay in upholding common law rig^hts and limiting the death penalty ; and he had the support of George Clinton and John Sloss Hobart in disapproving a measure for the gradual abolition of slavery, because the legislature thought it politically expedient to deprive colored men of the right to vote who had before enjoyed such a privilege. In the field of politics, Livingston's search for office did not result in a happy career. So long as he stood for a broader and stronger national life his intellectual rays flashed far beyond the horizon of most of his contemporaries, but the joy of public life was clouded when he entered the domain of partisan politics. His mortification that someone other than himself was appointed Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, made Hamilton's funding system, especially the proposed assumption of State debts, sufficient excuse for becoming an anti-federalist, and had he possessed those qualities of leadership that bind party and friends by ties of unflinching service, he might have reaped the reward that his ambition so ardently craved ; but his peculiar temper unfitted him for such a career.