Hoffman

great Thomas Addis Emmet (W. W. Story, ed.,
Life and Letters of Joseph Story, 1851,1, 146).
His state-wide practice was one of the most ex-
tensive of his day and he was particularly suc-
cessful in handling problems relating to maritime
and commercial law. He was also called upon
frequently to act as referee and special counsel
for the city of New York. In the federal courts
Hoffman was counsel in a number of notable
cases. In the famous case of The Nereide in the
Supreme Court in 1815 (9 Cranch, 388), Hoff-
man, associated with Emmet against Dallas and
Pinckney, argued for the first time the negative
of the proposition that neutral property forfeits
its character and neutrality by being put on board
an armed ship of the enemy, and in this he was
sustained by a majority of the court. His open-
ing argument was regarded by his contempo-
raries as a splendid specimen of forensic learning
and eloquence (Charles Warren, The Supreme
Court in United States History, 1922, I, 431,
432). Three years later in Gelston vs. Hoyt (3
Wheat on, 246), Hoffman, associated with David
B. Ogden, successfully maintained against the
arguments of Attorney-General Rush the cardi-
nal principle of the Anglo-Saxon legal system
that government officials are not above the law.
He rounded out his legal career as associate
judge of the New York superior court, retaining
his seat from 1828 until his death.

Hoffman was a member of the Federalist land-
holding coterie, and as early as 1792 he pur-
chased extensive tracts of land in St. Lawrence
County. His real-estate transactions in New
York City in this period were on a large scale.
Like others of this Federalist gentry, he was a
man of fashion, "a court of last resort in the
quiddities of minuets and precedence at table"
(D. R. Fox, The Decline of Aristocracy in the
Politics of New York, 1918, pp. 113, 114). He
was twice married. By his first wife, Mary,
daughter of David and Ann Golden, whom he
married on Feb. 16, 1789, he had four children,
among them Ogden [#.£/.], who pursued with
even greater distinction his father's profession,
and Matilda, who died shortly after her betrothal
to Washington Irving. By his second wife,
Maria, daughter of John and Mary Curtis Fen-
no, whom he married on Aug. 7, 1802, he had
three children, the eldest being Charles Fenno

[E. A. Hoffman, Geneal. of the Hoffman Family
(1899) ; C. E. Fitch, Encyc. of Biog. of N. 7. (1916),
1,285; M. A. Hamm, Famous Families of N. 7. (1902),
I, 177-78; D. McAdam, Hist, of the Bench and Bar of
N. Y., vol. I (1897) ; Minutes of the Common Council
of the City of N. Y.f 1784-1831 (1917), IV, 581, 638,
657, VI, 125, 206, 347, XIII, 436, 437, 463-6$ J F. B.
Hough, A Hist, of St. Lawrence and Franklin Coun-
ties, N. Y. (1853); I. N. P. Stokes, The Iconography

Hoffman
of Manhattan Island, vol. VI (1928) ; N.-Y. Daily Ex-
press, Jan. 25,1837 ; Hoffman letters among the Duane,
Gates, King, and Leake MSS. in the N. Y. Hist. Soc.]
R.B.M.
HOFFMAN, OGDEN (May 3, 1793-May i,
1856), lawyer, member of Congress, came of an-
cestors distinguished in the law and in public
life. His father, Josiah Ogden Hoffman [g.v.],
was a leader of the New York bar, and his moth-
er, Mary Golden, was the grand-daughter of
Cadwallader Colden [q.vJ], Loyalist lieutenant-
governor of New York on the eve of the Revo-
lution. Ogden Hoffman has repeatedly been
styled the "American Erskine," and some as-
pects of the careers of the two are strikingly
parallel. Both entered the navy in their youth
and attained the rank of midshipman, resigned
their positions and entered the legal profession,
where by matchless eloquence, intuitive acute-
ness, and erudition they attained great distinc-
tion. Despite the Loyalism of both his father's
and mother's families during the War for Inde-
pendence, and in the face of the pronounced hos-
tility of his father, a Federalist, to the second war
with Great Britain, Hoffman, upon his gradu-
ation from Columbia College in 1812, joined
the navy and was warranted a midshipman in
1814, being attached to the command of Com-
modore Decatur. When the President was cap-
tured off Long Island in 1815, he was taken to
Bermuda and remained there for some months
until an exchange of prisoners of war effected
his release (John Jay, Memorials of Peter A.
Jay, 1929, p. 59). After peace was declared, he
sailed with Decatur and engaged in the Algerine
naval conflict. Upon Hoffman's resignation from
the service in 1816, Decatur, whose aide he had
become, is reputed to have said: "I regret that
young Hoffman should have exchanged an hon-
orable profession for that of a lawyer."
Hoffman took up the study of the law in Goshen,
Orange County, N. Y., where he -was admitted
to the bar. In 1823 he was made district attor-
ney of the county and in 1825 was elected to the
state legislature. In the following year he re-
moved to New York City, where he practised in
partnership with Hugh Maxwell, then district
attorney, and was associated prominently in the
prosecution of Henry Eckford, Jacob Barker,
and others who were indicted for conspiracy to
defraud the public (Minutes of the Common
Council of the City of New York, 1784-1831,
1917, XVI, 494; Monthly Law Reporter, June
1856, pp. 117-19). In 1828 he was in the legis-
lature again as a Tammany assemblyman. As a
member of the judiciary committee of the As-
sembly, he was actively identified with the adop-
tion of the revised statutes, and, more especially,