Rives was the author of several books, the most important being his Life and Times of James Madison (3 vols., Boston, 1859-68), the completion of which was prevented by his death.
He was the father of Alfred Landon Rives (1830-1903), an engineer of some prominence, whose daughter, Amelie Rives (1863-), became well known as a novelist, her best known book being The Quick or the Dead?
C. Rives in 1831, by which France had bound herself to pay an indemnity of twenty-five millions of francs for French spoliations of American shipping chiefly under the Berlin and Milan decrees, and the United States in turn agreed to pay to France 1,500,000 francs in satisfaction of French claims. Livingston's negotiations were conducted with excellent judgment, but the French Chamber of Deputies refused to make an appropriation to pay the first instalment due under the treaty in 1833, relations between the two governments became strained, and Livingston was finally instructed to close the legation and return to America.