Litchfield Ledger - Student

William Beach Lawrence was the son of Isaac Lawrence, President of the New York Branch of the Bank of the United States and a Presidential Elector. Lawrence's mother, Cornelia Beach Lawrence, was the daughter of the associate Rector of Trinity Church. William Beach Lawrence was born October 23, 1800 in New York City.

Lawrence graduated from Columbia College in 1818 with highest honors. He then studied law in Litchfield before leaving for Europe to study in law and political economy at the Sorbonne and Ecole de Droit. While there, he developed an interest in international law that continued throughout his career.

Lawrence was appointed as Secretary of Legation under Ambassador to Great Britain Albert Gallatin and, in 1827, he was made Charge d'Affaires in London. He returned ...to New York in 1829 and resumed practicing law. After returning to New York to practice, Lawrence continued to lecture and write on jurisprudence, public law and political economics. He was the Vice-President of the New-York Historical Society from 1836-45. In 1855, he published an annotated edition of Henry Wheaton's Elements of International Law, which became the standard textbook on the subject.

In 1850, he was elected Lieutenant-Governor of Rhode Island and briefly became acting governor following the death of the governor. He was not re-elected, possibly due to his unpopularity resulting from his fight to defeat a liquor prohibition law.

Lawrence was a strong believer in states' rights and, although he did not defend slavery, saw it as an economic necessity and denounced abolitionists as dangerous fanatics. He opposed secession at the outbreak of the Civil War but wrote numerous articles and books calling for the fair treatment of the South after the War. His political views earned him great unpopularity. However, he remained a well regarded internationalist and in 1868 published a four volume code of international law, Commentaire sur les Elements du Droit International.

Beginning in 1872, he began lecturing on international law at Columbia University and shortly thereafter began collecting honorary titles from Columbia, Georgetown, the University of New York, and Brown.

In 1873, he argued for the defense in the case of the steamship Circassian before a Joint High Commission in which he won a reversal of a Supreme Court ruling. His argument was published as Belligerent and Sovereign Rights as Regards Neutrals During the War of Secession became an authoritative exposition in both England and the United States of points of public law.

His wife, Esther Gracie, was the daughter of New York's leading merchant, Archibald Gracie. They married in 1821 and she accompanied Lawrence when he traveled to Europe shortly after they wed. The couple had three sons and two daughters. One of his sons, Albert Gallatin Lawrence, was a Brigadier-General and Minister to Costa Rica. One of his daughters married Baron von Klenck, a decorated hero of the Franco-Prussian war.

Lawrence died in March, 1881 while seeking medical treatment in New York City.