Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 2).djvu/358

336 one of the committee of four, called "the Paytable," that managed all the military finances of the colony, and in October, 1778, took his seat as a delegate to the Continental congress, where he served on the marine committee (acting as a board of admiralty) and the committee of appeals. By yearly election, from 1780 till 1784, he was a mem- ber of the governor's council, in which he held un- rivalled influence, and in June, 1783, left his seat in congress and, although re-elected, declined to serve. In 1784 he declined the appointment of commissioner of the treasury, tendered by congress, but accepted a legislative assignment as judge of the Connecticut superior court, w'hich he held un- til made a member of the Federal convention at Philadelphia in May, 1787. Here he was conspicu- ous in advocacy of the rights of the individual states, and it was on his motion that the words " National government " were expunged from the constitution and the words " Government of the United States " substituted. His name was not af- fixed to that document, because pressing domestic considerations compelled his return home as soon as all of the provisions of the constitution had been completed ; but his force and energy were success- ful the next year in securing its ratification, against much opposition, in the Connecticut state conven- tion. When the new government was organized at New York in 1789, he was one of the senators from Con- nect icut, and was chairman of the committee for or- ganizing the U. S. judiciary, the orig- inal bill, in his own handwriting, passing with but slight alterations, and its provisions being still in force. His watchfulness over the public ex- penditures earned for him the title of "the Cerberus of the Treas- ury," and his abilities were strenuously exercised in building up the financial credit of the govern- ment, and for the encouragement and protection of manufactures. John Adams spoke of him as "the finest pillar of Washington's whole admin- istration," and he was, by common consent, the Federalist leader in the senate. The mission of John Jay to England in 1794 was suggested by him, and by his influence Jay's treaty, though strenuously opposed in the house of representatives, was defended and approved by the senate. In March, 1796, he was appointed chief justice of the U. S. supreme court, and served with distinguished ability till 1799. when President Adams, on the recommendation of the senate, appointed him, with Patrick Henry and Gov. William R. Davie, an extraordinary commission to negotiate with France, the relations between which nation and the United States were then severely strained. On reaching Paris, 2 March, 1800, they found Napo- leon Bonaparte at the head of the new republic, and soon concluded a satisfactory adjustment of all disputes. The negotiations and discussions were conducted almost exclusively by Judge Ells- worth, and secured all the points most essential to the securing of peace, including a recognition from France of the rights of neutral vessels, and an indemnity for depredations on American commerce. Ill health preventmg his immediate return, Mr. Ellsworth sent home his resignation as chief jus- tice and visited England, where, while trying the mineral springs at Bath and elsewhere, he became the recipient of marked attention from the court and from leading public men, as well as from the English bench and bar. After his return to his home in April, 1801, his impaired health decided him to remain free from the cares of public life, but in 1802 he was again elected a member of the governor's council, which acted as a supreme court of errors, being the final court of appeals in Con- necticut from all inferior courts of state jurisdic- tion. In May, 1807, on a reorganization of the state judiciary, he was appointed chief justice of the supreme court, but failing health compelled his resignation within a few montlis, and he died soon afterward. His extraordinary endowments, accom- plishments as an advocate, integrity as a judge, patriotism as a legislator and ambassador, and sin- cerity as a Christian, were fitly complemented by a fine personal presence and by manners at once plain, unaffected, and social, yet tinctured with a courtliness and dignity which impressed all with whom he came in contact. In 1790 Yale, and in 1797 both Dartmouth and Princeton, conferred on him the degree of LL. D. — His son, Henry Leavitt, commissioner of patents, b. in Windsor, Conn., 10 Nov., 1791 : d. in Fairhaven, Conn., 27 Dec, 1858, was graduated at Yale in 1810. After studying law under Judge Gould, at Litchfield, Conn., he settled first at Windsor and then at Hartford, where he remained eight or ten years. At the close of this period he accepted a government appointment, and went as resident commissioner among the Indian tribes to the south and west of Arkansas. From July, 1836, till May, 1848, he was U. S. commissioner of patents. His reports, espe- cially those on the science of agriculture, were much prized. He afterward settled for a time as a land agent in Lafayette, Ind., but in 1857 re- turned to his native state and settled at Fairhaven. He published " Digest of Patents from 1770 to 1839 " (1840).— Henry Leavitt's twin brother, William Wolcott, jurist, b. in Windsor, Conn., 10 Nov., 1791 ; d. in Hartford, 15 Jan., 1868, was graduated at Yale in 1810, studied law in Litchfield and Hartford, and was admitted to the bar in 1813. In the same year he married Emily, eldest daughter of Noah Webster, and established a successful practice in Hartford. In 1817, when his brother-in-law. Judge Williams, then the foremost lawyer at the Plartford bar, was elected to congress, he made Mr. Ellsworth his partner. In 1827 Mr. Ellsworth became professor of law in Trinity college, and held this oflice till his death. In 1829 he was elected to congress as a Whig, and served till 1834, when he resigned and returned to the practice of his profession. During his congressional service he was a member of the judiciary committee, and in this capacity took an active part in preparing and reporting measures to carry into effect Presi- dent Jackson's proclamation against nullification. He prepared and reported for the committee the present law of copyright, after exhaustive and comparative research into the laws of the United States and other countries. He was also one of the committee to investigate the U. S. bank at Philadelphia. In 1838 he was chosen governor of Connecticut, and re-elected the three following years, during which period he twice declined an election to the U. S. senate. In 1847 he was elected by the legislature a judge of the superior court and of the supreme court of errors, and remained on the bench