Samuel Livermore

Background

Samuel Livermore was born on August 26, 1786 in Concord, New Hampshire, United States, the son of Edward St. Loe Livermore, by his first wife, Mehitable Harris.

Education

He graduated from Harvard College in 1804.

Career

Livermore was admitted to the Essex County bar. After his admission to the bar he moved to Boston, where he practised law for several years. During the War of 1812 he served as a volunteer on board the Chesapeake and was wounded in the engagement with the Shannon. After the war he moved to Baltimore and with others assisted Alexander C. Hanson in the publication of the Federal Republican. From Baltimore he moved to New Orleans, where his name appears in the city directory for 1822. Within a few years he had achieved distinction as a lawyer. In 1811 Livermore published in Boston A Treatise on the Law Relative to Principals, Agents, Factors, Auctioneers, and Brokers, the first American work of its kind. A second edition of this work in two volumes, entitled A Treatise on the Law of Principal and Agent: and of Sales by Auction, was published in Baltimore in 1818.

In 1828 he published in New Orleans Dissertations on the Questions which Arise from the Contrariety of the Positive Laws of Different States and Nations, the first American work on the conflict of laws. The book has been described as "a forceful but belated attempt to reinstate the statutory theory of the mediaeval commentators". His doctrines, however, "could not be applied in a country where both commercial and social intercourse between all parts of it are constant and continuous. " Livermore died at Florence, Alabama, while he was on his way from New Orleans to New England to visit his relatives.

Achievements

• Livermore was prominent for his works on agency law and conflict of laws. He also influenced Story and other American lawyers by calling attention to the works of medieval authors. He presented to the Harvard Law School his collection of medieval works, containing 400 volumes and including the writers of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries on the conflict of laws. This collection "formed the basis of the large apparatus which Story's bibliography describes" .

Works

More photos

• book

  • A Treatise On The Law Relative To Principals, Agents, Factors, Auctioneers, And Brokers

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • Dissertations On The Questions Which Arise From The Contrariety Of The Positive Laws Of Different States Or Nations

    (Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating bac...)

Connections

Father:

Edward St. Loe Livermore

Mother:

Mehitable Harris

References

• A Treatise on the Conflict of Laws
• The Livermore Family of America
• Legal Bibliography, or a Thesaurus of American, English, Irish, and Scotch Law Books (Classic Reprint)
• Bench and Bar of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Vol. 1 of 2 (Classic Reprint)