Hoffman

with the criminal code. On the expiration of his
term of office, he was made district attorney of
the city and county of New York by the common
council. This position he filled with distinction
from 1829 until 1835. During this period he be-
came alienated from the ranks of Tammany and
the Jackson party, because of the "destrtiction-
ist" policy of President Jackson with regard to
the Bank of the United States, and joined his
friends among the National Republicans.

Elected as a Whig to the Twenty-fifth and
Twenty-sixth congresses (1837-41), Hoffman
served on the committee of foreign affairs. In
his first year in Congress he distinguished him-
self by his eloquence in opposing the Sub-Treas-
ury Bill (Register of Debates in Congress, 25
Cong., i Sess., col. 1407). In one oratorical
skirmish he created a tremendous impression. In
the course of a debate, Cambreleng chided him
with changing sides and alluded to his having
served in the navy where he learned to "tack and
veer." According to Hone, "this attack brought
a reply from Hoffman, in which the 'Commercial
Representative' was absolutely annihilated. It is
said to have been one of the most searching pieces
of eloquence ever heard on that floor" (Bayard
Tuckerman, ed, The Diary of Philip Hone, 1889,
I, 274; Register of Debates in Congress, 25
Cong., i Sess., col. 1631). Adams told Hoffman
that he had himself intended to reply to Cam-
breleng, but that it was futile to attack a dead
man (Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, IX,
1876, 406). Hoffman's later career in Congress
was not especially brilliant and he appears to
have confined his activities principally to local
issues. When General Harrison became presi-
dent, Hoffman was appointed United States dis-
trict attorney in the southern district of New
York, which position he held until 1845. His
last public office was that of attorney-general of
the state (1853-55), to which office he was elect-
ed as the Whig candidate after a preliminary
convention struggle with young Roscoe Conk-
ling,

Hoffman was the outstanding criminal lawyer
of his generation and one of the most popular
and best beloved figures in the public life of New
York. In person slightly above the medium
height, well-proportioned and erect, with blithe
countenance and laughing eyes, he possessed a
voice of magic eloquence and a court manner,
polished, suave, and courteous. He was general-
ly regarded as one of the great orators of his
generation. Hone, referring to an address which
Hoffman delivered in 1832 before the alumni of
Columbia College, stated that he had "never heard
a production of more taste, purity, and appropri-

Hoffman

ateness, or one delivered with greater grace and
eloquence" (Tuckerman, Diary, I, 52). Among
his most sensational criminal trials was the Rob-
inson case in 1836, in which the defendant, in-
dicted for murder, was acquitted, owing wholly
to Hoffman's eloquence and tact, the evidence
against him being apparently overwhelming.
That forensic success brought him immediate re-
tainers. For the next twenty years he was with-
out a peer as a nisi prius persuadent, was widely
respected for his skill at direct and cross exami-
nation, and was frequently employed as a trial
lawyer by other attorneys. Notable among such
instances were the famous trial of Munroe Ed-
wards, indicted for forgery (F. L. Wellman, The
Art of Cross-Examination, 1924, p. 89), and the
Navy-Yard trial in the Spencer mutiny plot of
1842, where he acted as judge-advocate in charge
of the prosecution (Allan Nevins, ed., The Diary
of Philip Hone, 1927, II, 640). His last great effort
was in the famous contest over the will of Henry
Parish, a keen legal struggle involving questions
of incapacity and undue influence. His intimates
believed that his exhausting labors in that law-
suit contributed to his final illness. While Hoff-
man is not distinguished as a profound jurist, his
arguments in bane were coherent and logical.
Sketches of his briefs given in the state and fed-
eral reports between 1830 and 1855 provide tes-
timony to the fulness of his learning.

Despite his extensive legal practice, he was
constantly hampered with debts and harassed by
creditors, owing to the special combination of
the qualities of generosity and of indolence which
he possessed. At his death his family was left in
comparative poverty. "But for indolence," said
Horace Greeley, "Hoffman might have been gov-
ernor or cabinet minister ere this. Everybody
likes him and he always runs ahead of his ticket"
(New York Tribune, Oct. 6,1853). A few days
after Hoffman's death in New York City, Joseph
H. Choate wrote to his mother: "There has hard-
ly been an important criminal case here for twen-
ty years in which he did not appear on one side
or the other. But he was a notoriously lazy man
and an extravagantly high liver, but for which
he would have won a still more brilliant & more
extended fame" (E. S. Martin, Life of Joseph
Hodges Choate, 1920,1,186). Hoffman married
twice. His first wife was Emily Burrall, whom
he married on June 27, 1819. Their second son,
Ogden, became a federal district judge in Cali-
fornia. His second wife was Virginia E. South-
ard, daughter of Samuel L. Southard, acting
vice-president of the United States when Tyler
succeeded Harrison.

[Sources include: E. A. Hoffman, Geneal. of the

11.6