When Livingston signed the Louisiana treaty he was fifty-six years of age, tall and handsome, with an abundance of hair already turning gray, which fell in ringlets over a square, high forehead, lending a certain dignity that made him appear as great off the bench as he did when gowned and throned as Chancellor. In the estimation of his contemporaries he was one of the most gifted men of his time, and the judgment of a later age has not reversed their decision. He added learning to great natural ability, and brilliancy to profound thought, and although so deaf as to make communication with him difficult, he came very near concealing the defect by his remarkable eloquence and conversational gifts. Benjamin Franklin called him "the Cicero of America." His love for the beautiful attracted Edmund Burke. It is doubtful if he had a superior in the State in the knowledge of history and the classics, and in the study of science Samuel L. Mitchell alone stood above him. 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 at home in debate with the ablest men of his time, a master of sarcasm, of trenchant wit, and of felicitous 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, several 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 alien enemy; he agreed with Jay in upholding common law rights 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.