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Note: 48-g5Le5 William5 Leggett born April 30, 1801 in Savannah, Ga.
died May 29, 1839 at New Rochelle, N.Y.
married 1828 to Elmira Waring
parents John Waring
died March 31, 1863
William5 Leggett, son of Major Abraham23-g4Le5 Leggett was a well known writer, and was editor, with William Cullen Bryant, of the NEW YORK EVENING POST for a number of years. Educated at Georgetown College, D.C., he was appointed a midshipman in the United States Navy in 1822, but finding a literary life more to his taste, resigned his commission in 1826 and returned to New York. In 1828 he was made editor of the CRITIC, a weekly journal which was afterwards united with the NEW YORK MIRROR. He became one of the editors of the EVENING POST in 1829 and remained with the POST until ill health forced him to resign in 1836. He sought to regain his health by rest and travel in Europe, but without success, and returned to America.
His published works include: Leisure Hours At Sea, a volume of poems written while in the navy; Tales by a Country Schoolmaster, a collection of his articles which had appeared in the MIRROR and other magazines; Sketches at Sea, and many other poems and sketches. He was an earnest advocate of the rights of free discussion and strongly denounced those who mobbed the abolitionist in 1835. His editorial work on the POST was of a very high order, his articles being exceptionally vigorous and direct. Mr. Sedgwick, in his EDITORIALS of the EVENING POST, says of him: "The intellect of Mr. Leggett was of a very high order. His reading was extremely copious and his style most vigorous and manly. ...
Nothing could be in greater contrast with the vehemence of his writings than the mildness and courtesy of his social life. ..."
Mr. Leggett was intimately associated with W.C. Bryant in his work on the POST, and an editorial by Bryant at the time of his resignation shows the high esteem which he had for him and for his talents, an esteem which is further emphasized in the editorial written upon William's5 death.
William5 and his wife Elmira Waring are buried in the cemetery adjacent to the Trinity Episcopal Church, New Rochelle, N.Y. The stone, a 15 foot obelisk, bears the following inscription:
face: To WILLIAM5 LEGGETT, an eloquent Journalist, whose genius, disinterestedness, and courage ennobled his profession, who loved truth for its own sake and asserted it with most ardour when weaker minds were most dismayed with opposition. Who could endure no form of Tyranny and raised his voice against all injustice on whomsoever committed and whoever were its authors. The Democratic Young Men of New York, sorrowing that a career so glorious should have closed so prematurely have erected this Monument.
rear: WILLIAM5 LEGGETT
Born in New York, April 30, 1801
Died at New Rochelle, May 29, 1839
-also-
ELMIRA WARING, his wife, died March 31, 1863
This monument prompted a poem by John Greenleaf Whittier, titled Leggett's Monument.
As an introduction to an editorial of his The Annals of America: 1834 has the following bio. :
"William5 Leggett became an assistant to William Cullen Bryant, the publisher and editor of the New York Evening Post, in 1829, and over the years wrote a series of editorials on the general principles of government. Leggett, like many Jacksonians, believed that in America the struggle between the laboring masses and the privileged few was more or less perpetual and that to secure their interests, the privileged few would try to monopolize the advantages of the central government and expand the realm of its activity. To restrain the privileged few, the activity of the central government must be restrained - as the Constitution intended it should be. The following editorial against the National Bank, which appeared in the Post for November 4, 1834, is an example of his view."
From American Authors 1600-1900, A Biographical Dictionary we have the following entry:
LEGGETT, WILLIAM5 (April 30, 1801 - May 29, 1839), journalist, descended from a Westchester County settler of English origin in the seventeenth century, was born in New York City, the son of Abraham23-g4Le5 Leggett, an officer in the Revolution, and his second wife, Catherine Wylie of New Rochelle. He became a midshipman in the navy at twenty-one, but resigned after more than three years. He had already published his first volume of verses written while at sea. He now began contributing to periodicals and in 1828 established a weekly, the CRITIC, for which he wrote most of the contents for the ten months of its existence.
Leggett was associated as editor with William Cullen Bryant on the New York Evening Post for seven years from 1829, and was chief editor during the year of Bryant's visit abroad. His independence was pronounced, and he warred strenuously against political and economic abuses, his radicalism leading to his defeat for Congress and alienating Tammany. Appointed diplomatic agent to Guatemala, he died before sailing. His political writings were published posthumously and a monument in his honor was erected at New Rochelle.
Principal Works:
ï Poetry- Leisure Hours at Sea, 1825; Journals of the Ocean, 1826
ï Stories- Tales and Sketches, by a Country Schoolmaster, 1829
ï Political Writings- A Collection of the Political Writings of William Leggett (2 vols), 1840
About:
ï Leggett, T.A. Early Settlers of West Farms, Westchester County, N.Y.;
ï Wilson, J.G. Bryant and His Friends; United States Magazine and Democratic Review, July 1839
From the Dictionary of American Biography Vol. 6, we have the following entry:
LEGGETT, WILLIAM5 (April 30, 1801 - May 29, 1839), journalist, descended from Gabriel4-g1Le1 Leggett, an emigrant from Essex, England, who settled in Westchester County, N.Y., about 1675, was born in New York City, son of Abraham23-g4Le5 Leggett, an officer in the Revolution, his second wife, Catherine Wylie of New Rochelle.
He attended Georgetown College for a time, but did not graduate, and in 1891 went with his parents to Illinois, where he lived a pioneer's life until his appointment as midshipman in the navy, December 4, 1822. In May the following, was assigned to the Cyane, he sailed for the Mediterranean, but in 1825 he was court-martialed for a dueling affair with another midshipman at Port Mahom, was sent home, and on April 17, 1826, threw up his commission. His faults were chiefly hot temper and a witty, unruly tongue - one offense was quoting passages of Shakespeare "of highly inflammatory, rancorous, and threatening import" against his captain, John Orde Creighton. His defense (Court Martial Records, Navy Department), is an able, entertaining document. He had published some youthful verse, Leisure Hours at Sea 1825), and now took up journalistic writing in New York. He published a second volume of poems, Journals of the Ocean, in 1826, and Tales and Sketches, by a Country Schoolmaster in 1829; contributed "The Blockhouse" to Tales of Glauber Spa in 1832; and wrote constantly for the New York Mirror and other periodicals. In 1828 he married Elmira, daughter of John Waring of New Rochelle, and in the same year established a weekly, the Critic, most of which he wrote himself and which lasted only ten months.
In 1829 he became part owner and assistant editor, under William Cullen Bryant, of the Evening Post. Whittier's poem, To a Poetical Trio in New York d (Haverhill. Iris, September 29, 1832), was an appeal to Bryant, Leggett, and James Lawson (q.v.), another New York editor, to give up vain political debates and devote themselves to the anti-slavery cause. From June 1834 to October 1835, during Bryant's absence abroad Leggett was chief editor. He was more fluent and more of a theorist than Bryant. Though at first he had disclaimed interest in politics, he now entered warmly into political issues, adopting strong Jacksonian principles. From opposing the United States Bank he advanced to denunciation of the state banks as the worst examples of chartered monopolies and special privilege. He advocated broad suffrage and free trade. Soon he had become the oracle of the radical Democrats whose extreme wing seceded to from the Equal Rights or Locofoco Party in 1835. In that year, though not yet a thoroughgoing abolitionist, he hotly attacked the administration for excluding anti-slavery propaganda from the mails, and denounced the mobs that broke up abolitionist meetings in New York.
His chief characteristics as a writer were energy and absolute independence; his chief defect was violence. Combative from his backwoods and naval antecedents, he was responsible for Bryant's attempt to horsewhip Sands, editor of the Commercial, and later challenged Sands to a duel. This was not fought, but he had a duel with an Englishman named Banks, treasurer of the Park Theater. Convivial in tastes, he was prominent in New York social and literary life. His severe illness in the winter of 1835-36 hastened Bryant's return from Europe, and about October 1836, he left the Evening Post. From December of that year to September 1837, he edited the Plaindealer, in which, free from the restrictions imposed by his more conservative chief on the Post, he continued to attack political and economic abuses and to advocate free trade, direct taxation, and the right of working men to organize. He also advanced from the defense of the abolitionists' right of free speech to support of their attacks on slavery. The journal was influential in shaping Democratic policies, and was fairly successful till the failure of its publishers. During part of this time Leggett also edited a daily, the Examiner. "How he finds time to write so much," remarked Bryant, "I know not."
In 1838 he nearly secured a Democratic nomination for Congress, but, having declared himself an abolitionist and refusing to modify his declaration, he was rejected for a less radical candidate. The next year Van Buren appointed him diplomatic agent to Guatemala, his friends hoping the climate might benefit his health, but he died before sailing for his post. Though Tammany, during his attacks on the administration in 1835, had abjured Leggett and disclaimed the Post as a party organ, the Tammany Young Men's General Committee erected the monument over his grave in the Trinity (Episcopal) Church Cemetery, New Rochelle. Whittier refers to this episode in his Poem, Leggett's Monument. Theodore Sedgwick, Jr., his friend, published in two volumes A Collection of the Political Writings of William Leggett (1840), remarked upon at the time as the first American attempt to establish the standing of a writer on the basis of journalistic work.
ï Biographical sketch by Bryant in U.S. Mag. and Dem. Rev., July 1839, and poem, Ibid., Nov. 1839;
ï Eve. Post (editorial), Jun. 3, 1839;
ï Morning Courier, N.Y. Euquirer and N.Y. Daily Express, May 31, 1839;
ï critical estimate in U.S. Mag. and Dem. Rev., Jan. 1840;
ï J.G. Wilson, Bryant and His Friends (1886);
ï Parke Godwin, A Biog. of Wm. Cullen Bryant (2 vol., 1883) passim;
ï C.I. Bushnell, Crumbs for Antiquarians, vol. II (1866);
ï J.G. Whittier, Old portraits and Modern Sketches (1850);
ï Allan Nevins, The Evening Post, A Century of Journalism (1922);
ï Wm. Trimble, "Diverging Tendencies in New York Democracy in the Period of the Locofocos." Am. History Rev., Apr. 1919;
ï T.A. Leggett and A. Hatfield, Jr., Early Settlers of West Farms, Westchester County, N.Y. (t.p. 1913, Foreword, 1916).
NEW YORK EVENING POST FOR THE COUNTRY, page 1, dated June 3, 1839
THURSDAY EVENING, MAY 30
It is with sorrow that we announce the death of William5 Leggett, formerly one of the editors and proprietors of this paper.
He expired at his residence in New Rochelle at nine o'clock last evening, in the thirty-ninth year of his age.
As a political writer, Mr. Leggett attained, within a brief period, a high rank and an extensive and enviable reputation. He wrote with great fluency and extraordinary vigor; he saw the strong points of a question at a glance, and had the skill to place them before his readers with force, clearness and amplitude of statement and illustration rarely found in the writings of any journalist that ever lived. When he became warmed to his subject, which was not infrequently the case, his discussions had all the power of extemporaneous eloquence.
His fine endowments he wielded for worthy purposes. He espoused the cause of the largest liberty and the most comprehensive equality of rights among the human race, and warred against those principles which inculcate distrust of the people, and those schemes of legislation which tend to create an artificial inequality in the conditions of men. He was wholly free and, in this respect his example ought to be held up to journalists as a model to contemplate and copy - - he was wholly free from the besetting sin of their profession, a mercenary and time-serving disposition. He was a sincere lover and follower of truth, and never allowed any of those specious reasons for inconsistency, which disguise themselves under the name expediency, to seduce him for a moment from the support of the opinions which he deemed right, and the measures which he was convinced were just. What he would not yield to the dictates of interest he was still less disposed to yield to the suggestions of fear.
We sorrow that such a man, so clearsighted, strong minded and magnanimous has passed away, and that his aid is no more to be given in the conflict which truth and liberty maintain with their numerous and powerful enemies.
Mr. Leggett's health had been impaired by too intense and long continued application to literary labor while he had the sole management of the Evening Post in the years 1834 and 1835. He was subject to frequent bilious attacks, which accompanied with great suffering and great prostration of strength, and his friends had hoped that a sea voyage and a change of air might restore him. He had been offered by our government the employment of confidential agent to Central America, and was about making arrangements for his voyage to that country, parts of which are celebrated for their temperate and uniform climate, when an attack of greater violence than usual supervened and put an end to his life. He was taken ill Sunday, and expired last evening, retaining possession of his mental faculties almost to the last moment.
His funeral will take place on Saturday, from his late residence at New Rochelle. The hour will be mentioned hereafter.
The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volume XLIII, 1961 also carries a extensive bio on him.
Birthplace from LotLL, 5-8.
http://www.econlib.org/library/Leggett/lgtDE0.html#Foreword%20by%20Lawrence%20H.%20WhiteWilliam Leggett
Democratick Editorials
Essays in Jacksonian Political Economy
William Leggett
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Foreword
by Lawrence H. White
Ten years after Thomas Jefferson's death in 1826, an outspoken young editor in New York City was reformulating and extending the Jeffersonian philosophy of equal rights. William Leggett, articulating his views in the columns of the New York Evening Post, Examiner, and Plaindealer, gained widespread recognition as the intellectual leader of the laissez-faire wing of Jacksonian democracy.
F.1 Leggett's Life
William Leggett was born April 30, 1801, in Savannah, Georgia. His father, Abraham, a revolutionary war veteran, had moved the family shortly after the war from Westchester County, New York, first to Charleston, South Carolina, then to Savannah. When William was about four years old, the family returned to New York.*1 At the young age of fourteen he entered Georgetown College but was forced to withdraw the following year when his father's business failed. In 1819 he moved with his family to the Illinois frontier, where his first writings—poems—appeared in the columns of a local newspaper.
F.2 In the fall of 1822 Leggett returned east to enter the United States Navy as a midshipman. During a tour of duty he contracted yellow fever, from which his health evidently never completely recovered. He also disagreed with his commander, leading to a court-martial trial. As a result Leggett resigned his commission in 1826. While in the Navy he had continued his efforts at poetry, publishing a volume of works in 1825. He now undertook to support himself with literary contributions to New York newspapers and magazines and with some acting roles. The combination of the two pursuits soon led him to regular work as a theatrical and literary critic for two periodicals. In 1828 Leggett began his own weekly, The Critic, which ran for eight months. On its demise, William Cullen Bryant of the New York Evening Post took Leggett on as a critic.*2
F.3 Leggett had no taste for politics when he joined the Evening Post in 1829. In fact, he accepted the job on the condition that he not be asked to write on the subject.*3 He achieved some importance as a theatrical critic, particularly in championing the Shakespearean actor Edwin Forrest. For our purposes, however, the important phase of Leggett's career had just begun. Within a year he had adopted wholesale Bryant's free-trade Jacksonian position and had begun authoring his own political editorials. In 1831 he became a partner. In June 1834 he assumed sole editorship of the paper upon Bryant's departure for Europe. Leggett soon brought financial difficulties upon the paper. His editorials antagonized heads of government agencies, who withdrew their patronage advertising. He later mused over the financial fate of the uncompromising newspaper editor: "He who strives to be a reformer, and to discharge his high trust with strict and single reference to the responsibilities of his vocation, will be sadly admonished by his dwindled receipts that he has not chosen the path of profit, however much he may be consoled by knowing it is that of honour."*4
F.4 After the fall of 1835, ill health forced Leggett to resign his duties for a year. Shortly after returning to work in the fall of 1836, he dissolved his partnership with Bryant to establish two periodicals of his own. The Plaindealer, begun in December, was a weekly sixteen-page journal of politics, news, and the arts. The Examiner, begun in May 1837, was a daily four-page newspaper with a similar mix of contents. The Plaindealer was modeled after, and the Examiner named after, the London Examiner, which Leggett much admired. Both papers were composed and written by Leggett front to back. Both ceased publication in September, 1837. Though the papers evidently failed for financial reasons,*5 sickness again had caught up with the editor. Given the volume of his weekly word output during this period, it is no surprise that overwork should have taken its toll. The later numbers of the Plaindealer, with their tendency toward copious extracting from other publications, clearly show the strain. Yet in this journal, particularly in its early numbers, are to be found Leggett's best and most passionate writings.
F.5 After the failure of his papers Leggett lived in New Rochelle, New York, on the charity of his friend Edwin Forrest. An attempt was made to revive the Plaindealer, but Leggett's ill health caused the plan to be abandoned. Friends were eventually able to secure from President Van Buren—though he had been the target of sharp editorial attacks by Leggett—an appointment for Leggett as diplomatic agent to Guatemala in 1839. The voyage promised a healthful change of climate, but death came while he prepared to depart.*6
F.6 The Loco-Foco Movement
The political currents of the Jacksonian era can hardly be detailed here, but William Leggett's important role should be indicated. He was not directly involved in party politics but, through his editorials, exerted a notable influence on the causes taken up by the democratic-republican followers of Andrew Jackson. Much of this impact was felt after his death. John Greenleaf Whittier in 1850 remarked of Leggett's pioneering efforts: "No one has labored more perseveringly or, in the end, more successfully, to bring the practice of American democracy into conformity with its professions."*7
F.7 Leggett's editorials directly provided inspiration to the radical young democrats of New York. Among them, "the coming forth of his paper was looked for daily with the most eager desire" to see "upon whom or what the bolt [of his invective] had fallen." When his illness prevented his writing editorials, "the Evening Post was bereft of the mighty spirit which gave it power over men's minds, and it seemed as if the sun was standing still in the political world."*8
F.8 When the radicals split off from the regular democrats to form their own party in 1835, Leggett's writings were themselves among the divisive issues. In September, 1835, Leggett was effectively excommunicated by the semi-official organ of the Jackson administration, the Washington Globe, for his criticism of federal officials and his defense of the rights of abolitionists. Early in October the Democratic Republican General Committee of New York, meeting in Tammany Hall, similarly censured the Evening Post for discussing the slavery issue and resolved to end the patronage of publishing its proceedings in Leggett's newspaper.*9
F.9 At the Tammany Hall meeting of October 29, the radical wing unfurled banners emblazoned with various slogans and gave "heartfelt cheers" to a banner expressing support for Leggett's Evening Post as against the regular-democratic New York Times. The regulars unceremoniously sought to end the meeting by stomping out of the hall, shutting off the gas lamps as they departed, leaving the radicals to meet among themselves in the dark. Those remaining formed the splinter Equal Rights Party, more commonly known as the "Loco-Focos" after the brand of matches they used to light that first meeting. During the match-lit meeting the Loco-Focos adopted a resolution pledging support for the Evening Post and "the efforts of its talented editors."*10
F.10 Leggett himself discouraged the formation of a separate party, urging the young radicals to seek reform within the existing party organization. In 1836 the party offered Leggett its mayoral nomination, but he declined it on grounds of poor health, financial troubles, and commitment to the paper in Bryant's absence. In the two-year lifespan of their party, Loco-Foco candidates never received more than five thousand votes in city elections. But the doctrines of the group—Leggett's doctrines—spread throughout the Democratic party of the northern states for the next two decades. To his followers Leggett was a martyr who had raised the banner of anti-monopoly reform. Among their tangible accomplishments may be counted the New York State Free Banking Act of 1838, the provision for a general incorporation law in the state's 1846 constitution, and, on the national level, the removal of federal government deposits from state banks by the Independent Treasury Act.*11
F.11 The Doctrine of Equal Rights
With the noteworthy exception of his late-blooming abolitionism, Leggett's views on questions of political economy underwent little or no fundamental change during his brief career. This is not surprising: he had become convinced of a powerful and consistent doctrine ab ovo, as it were, and had written his last editorial only eight years later.
F.12 The doctrine, from beginning to end, was one of equal rights—equal human rights to liberty and property. From these rights Leggett carefully derived his position on any given topic. For the most part Leggett spoke of these equal rights as natural rights, anterior to society and limiting the legitimate province of government. In his most systematic statement of political principles he grounded the legitimacy of government in a Lockean social compact whereby strictly limited powers—only those necessary for the protection of person and property—were delegated to government.*12 Yet Leggett was unwilling to extend the natural rights principle to cover every question. In a discussion of copyright law he explicitly founded his argument on a very different principle, the Benthamite principle of "the greatest good of the greatest number."*13
F.13 These two strains of thought—natural rights and utilitarianism—coexist throughout Leggett's writings. His affinity for the English utilitarian Jeremy Bentham is evident from numerous quotations of his maxims, one of which appeared just below the masthead as the motto of the Plaindealer: "The immediate cause of all the mischief of misrule is, that the men acting as the representatives of the people have a private and sinister interest, producing a constant sacrifice of the interest of the people." Leggett shared with Bentham a concern for the welfare of the many, what Bentham called the "universal interest," as opposed to that of their rulers, the special interest. Both advocated free markets, universal suffrage, and economy in government.*14
F.14 Leggett cited several British economists besides Bentham, most importantly Adam Smith. Political economy and Jacksonian democracy were to Leggett "sister doctrines," both fundamentally libertarian in import.*15 The deepest roots of Leggett's thought lay not in British political economy, however, but in the natural rights tradition of American founding fathers Thomas Jefferson and John Taylor of Caroline. He quoted at length on one occasion from Taylor's Inquiry into the Principles of the Government of the United States (1814), lauding it as "one of the most democratic and at the same time most eloquent books ever written in this country."*16 He proudly claimed to be guided strictly by Jeffersonian principles: "The principles we maintain are those which were maintained by Jefferson. We profess to be a disciple of that great apostle of liberty, and if any article of faith is heterodox as tried by the standard he has furnished, let it be pointed out, and we promise to renounce it at once."*17 Leggett was fond of citing Jefferson to the effect that government's sole duty is to restrain men from injuring one another.
F.15 The equal rights principle meant to Leggett that the law may not discriminate among citizens, benefiting some at the expense of others. Few government programs could pass through this filter. Strict application of the equal rights principle thus led Leggett naturally to favor minimization of government powers. In his view, every extension of the sphere of government action beyond the Jeffersonian night-watchman duties created a privileged aristocratic class at the expense of the productive laboring class.
F.16 This Volume
The editorials in this volume are organized under headings of those topics to which Leggett devoted the greatest attention. In putting together this collection, I have attempted to combine the best of the editorials that appeared in A Collection of the Political Writings of William Leggett (1840) with the best of his Plaindealer pieces that did not make that collection. Though there is fairly clear external evidence concerning the dates on which Leggett presumably wrote the Evening Post editorials, Bryant being in Europe, I have included only two Evening Post editorials that did not appear in the 1840 collection.*18 I have not included anything from the Examiner, since Leggett wrote virtually nothing of importance there that he did not later include in the Plaindealer.
F.17 In choosing among Leggett's political writings, I have rejected pieces dealing primarily with party disputes or personalities of the day. Other pieces from the 1840 collection have been omitted in the interest of avoiding repetition. The repetition that remains usefully indicates what Leggett most wanted to emphasize. Ellipses appearing in the editorials following indicate where deletions have been made of partisan invective or, more commonly, of long extracts from other publications. The content of those deleted extracts should be clear from Leggett's replies to them.
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F.18 My foremost debt is to Walter E. Grinder of the Institute for Humane Studies, who years ago first suggested William Leggett to me as a figure deserving study. His guidance and encouragement since then have been invaluable. I also wish to thank Axel Leijonhufvud, Joseph R. Peden, Linda Bandy-White, David D. Boaz, and D. Alexander Puig for their help, and Steve Wylie for his useful comments on a paper on Leggett I wrote several years back.
F.19 Lawrence H. White
Department of Economics
New York University
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IN MEMORY OF WILLIAM LEGGETT
by William Cullen Bryant
The earth may ring, from shore to shore,
With echoes of a glorious name,
But he, whose loss our tears deplore,
Has left behind him more than fame.
For when the death-frost came to lie
On Leggett's warm and mighty heart,
And quench his bold and friendly eye,
His spirit did not all depart.
The words of fire that from his pen
Were flung upon the fervid page,
Still move, still shake the hearts of men,
Amid a cold and coward age.
His love of truth, too warm, too strong
For Hope or Fear to chain or chill,
His hate of tyranny and wrong,
Burn in the breasts he kindled still.
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<b>William Leggett
Birth
</b>30 Apr 1801 New York, New York County (Manhattan), New York, USA
<b>Death
</b>29 May 1839 New Rochelle, Westchester County, New York, USA
<b>Burial
</b>Trinity Churchyard New Rochelle, Westchester County, New York, USA
<b>Memorial ID
</b>166182232
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