nt of a political campaign, in which my
mother took the deepest interest, may have had an influence on my
prenatal life and given me the strong desire that I have always felt to
participate in the rights and duties of government.

My father was a man of firm character and unimpeachable integrity, and
yet sensitive and modest to a painful degree. There were but two places
in which he felt at ease--in the courthouse and at his own fireside.
Though gentle and tender, he had such a dignified repose and reserve of
manner that, as children, we regarded him with fear rather than
affection.

My mother, Margaret Livingston, a tall, queenly looking woman, was
courageous, self-reliant, and at her ease under all circumstances and in
all places. She was the daughter of Colonel James Livingston, who took
an active part in the War of the Revolution.

Colonel Livingston was stationed at West Point when Arnold made the
attempt to betray that stronghold into the hands of the enemy. In the
absence of General Washington and his superior officer, he took the
responsibility of firing into the _Vulture_, a suspicious looking
British vessel that lay at anchor near the opposite bank of the Hudson
River. It was a fatal shot for Andre, the British spy, with whom Arnold
was then consummating his treason. Hit between wind and water, the
vessel spread her sails and hastened down the river, leaving Andre, with
his papers, to be captured while Arnold made his escape through the
lines, before his treason was suspected.

On General Washington's return to West Point, he sent for my grandfather
and reprimanded him for acting in so important a matter without orders,
thereby making himself liable to court-martial; but, after fully
impressing the young officer with the danger of such self-sufficiency on
ordinary occasions, he admitted that a most fortunate shot had been sent
into the _Vulture_, "for," he said, "we are in no condition just now to
defend ourselves against the British forces in New York, and the
capture of this spy has saved us."

My mother had the military idea of government, but her children, like
their grandfather, were disposed to assume the responsibility of their
own actions; thus the ancestral traits in mother and children modified,
in a measure, the dangerous tendencies in each.

Our parents were as kind, indulgent, and considerate as the Puritan
ideas of those days permitted, but fear, rather than love, of God and
parents alike,