""No member before," says a person then in the House, "ever riveted the attention of the House so closely, in his first speech. Members left their seats, where they could not see the speaker face to face, and sat down, or stood on the floor, fronting him. All listened attentively and silently, during the whole speech; and when it was over, many went up and warmly congratulated the orator; among whom were some, not the most n.i.g.g.ard of their compliments, who most dissented from the views he had expressed."
"Chief Justice Marshall, writing to a friend some time after this speech, says: "At the time when this speech was delivered, I did not know Mr. Webster, but I was so much struck with it, that I did not hesitate then to state, that Mr. Webster was a very able man, and would become one of the very first statesmen in America, and perhaps the very first.""--pp. 35, 36.[5]
The resolutions moved by Mr. Webster prevailed by a large majority, and drew forth from Mr. Monroe, then Secretary of State, an elaborate and instructive report upon the subject to which they referred.
We have already observed, that, as early as 1806, Mr. Webster had expressed himself in favor of the protection of our commerce against the aggressions of both the belligerents. Some years later, before the war was declared, but when it was visibly impending, he had put forth some vigorous articles to the same effect. In an oration delivered in 1812, he had said: "A navy sufficient for the defence of our coasts and harbors, for the convoy of important branches of our trade, and sufficient also to give our enemies to understand, when they injure us, that they too are vulnerable, and that we have the power of retaliation as well as of defence, seems to be the plain, necessary, indispensable policy of the nation. It is the dictate of nature and common sense, that means of defence shall have relation to the danger." In accordance with these views, first announced by Mr. Webster a considerable time before Hull, Decatur, and Bainbridge had broken the spell of British naval supremacy, he used the following language in his speech on encouraging enlistments in 1814:--
"The humble aid which it would be in my power to render to measures of government shall be given cheerfully, if government will pursue measures which I can conscientiously support. If even now, failing in an honest and sincere attempt to procure an honorable peace, it will return to measures of defence and protection, such as reason and common sense and the public opinion all call for, my vote shall not be withholden from the means. Give up your futile projects of invasion. Extinguish the fires which blaze on your inland frontiers.
Establish perfect safety and defence there by adequate force. Let every man that sleeps on your soil sleep in security. Stop the blood that flows from the veins of unarmed yeomanry, and women and children. Give to the living time to bury and lament their dead, in the quietness of private sorrow. Having performed this work of beneficence and mercy on your inland border, turn and look with the eye of justice and compa.s.sion on your vast population along the coast. Unclench the iron grasp of your embargo. Take measures for that end before another sun sets upon you. With all the war of the enemy on your commerce, if you would cease to make war upon it yourselves, you would still have some commerce. That commerce would give you some revenue. Apply that revenue to the augmentation of your navy. That navy in turn will protect your commerce. Let it no longer be said, that not one ship of force, built by your hands since the war, yet floats upon the ocean. Turn the current of your efforts into the channel which national sentiment has already worn broad and deep to receive it. A naval force competent to defend your coasts against considerable armaments, to convoy your trade, and perhaps raise the blockade of your rivers, is not a chimera. It may be realized. If then the war must continue, go to the ocean. If you are seriously contending for maritime rights, go to the theatre where alone those rights can be defended. Thither every indication of your fortune points you. There the united wishes and exertions of the nation will go with you. Even our party divisions, acrimonious as they are, cease at the water"s edge. They are lost in attachment to the national character, on the element where that character is made respectable. In protecting naval interests by naval means, you will arm yourselves with the whole power of national sentiment, and may command the whole abundance of the national resources. In time you may be able to redress injuries in the place where they may be offered; and, if need be, to accompany your own flag throughout the world with the protection of your own cannon."
The princ.i.p.al subjects on which Mr. Webster addressed the House during the Thirteenth Congress were his own resolutions, the increase of the navy, the repeal of the embargo, and an appeal from the decision of the chair on a motion for the previous question. His speeches on those questions raised him to the front rank of debaters. He manifested upon his entrance into public life that variety of knowledge, familiarity with the history and traditions of the government, and self-possession on the floor, which in most cases are acquired by time and long experience. They gained for him the reputation indicated by the well-known remark of Mr. Lowndes, that "the North had not his equal, nor the South his superior." It was not the least conspicuous of the strongly marked qualities of his character as a public man, disclosed at this early period, and uniformly preserved throughout his career, that, at a time when party spirit went to great lengths, he never permitted himself to be infected with its contagion. His opinions were firmly maintained and boldly expressed; but without bitterness toward those who differed from him. He cultivated friendly relations on both sides of the House, and gained the personal respect even of those with whom he most differed.
In August, 1814, Mr. Webster was reelected to Congress. The treaty of Ghent, as is well known, was signed in December, 1814, and the prospect of peace, universally welcomed by the country, opened on the Thirteenth Congress toward the close of its third session.
Earlier in the season a project for a Bank of the United States was introduced into the House of Representatives on the recommendation of Mr. Dallas, Secretary of the Treasury. The charter of the first incorporated bank of the United States had expired in 1811. No general complaints of mismanagement or abuse had been raised against this inst.i.tution; but the opinions entertained by what has been called the "Virginia School" of politicians, against the const.i.tutionality of a national bank, prevented the renewal of the charter. The want of such an inst.i.tution was severely felt in the war of 1812, although it is probable that the amount of a.s.sistance which it could have afforded the financial operations of the government was greatly overrated. Be this as it may, both the Treasury Department and Congress were now strongly disposed to create a bank. Its capital was to consist of forty-five millions of the public stocks and five millions of specie, and it was to be under obligation to lend the government thirty millions of dollars on demand. To enable it to exist under these conditions, it was relieved from the necessity of redeeming its notes in specie. In other words, it was an arrangement for the issue of an irredeemable paper currency. It was opposed mainly on this ground by Mr. Calhoun, Mr. Webster, Mr. Lowndes, and others of the ablest men on both sides of the House, as a project not only unsound in its principles, but sure to increase the derangement of the currency already existing. The speech of Mr. Webster against the bill will be found in one of these volumes, and it will be generally admitted to display a mastery of the somewhat difficult subjects of banking and finance, rarely to be found in the debates in Congress. The project was supported as an administration measure, but the leading members from South Carolina and their friends united with the regular opposition against it, and it was lost by the casting vote of the Speaker, Mr.
Cheves. It was revived by reconsideration, on motion of Mr. Webster, and such amendments introduced that it pa.s.sed the House by a large majority. It was carried through the Senate in this amended form with difficulty, but it was negatived by Mr. Madison, being one of the two cases in which he exercised the veto power during his eight years" administration.
On the 8th of January of the year 1815, the victory at New Orleans was gained by General Jackson. No occurrence on land, in the course of the war, was of equal immediate interest, or destined to have so abiding an influence on the future. Besides averting the indescribable calamity of the sack of a populous and flourishing city, it showed the immense military power of the volunteer force of the country, when commanded with energy and skill. The praises of General Jackson were on every tongue throughout the land, and Congress responded to the grateful feelings of the country. A vote of thanks was unanimously pa.s.sed by the Senate and House of Representatives.
In the interval between the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Congresses (March-December, 1815), Mr. Webster was busily engaged at home in the practice of the law. He had begun at this time to consider the expediency of removing his residence to a wider professional field.
Though receiving a full share of the best business of New Hampshire, it ceased to yield an adequate support for his increasing family, and still more failed to afford any thing like the just reward of his legal attainment and labors. The destruction of his house, furniture, library, and many important ma.n.u.script collections, in "the great fire" at Portsmouth, in December, 1813, had entailed upon him the loss of the entire fruits of his professional industry up to that time, and made it necessary for him to look around him for the means of a considerably increased income. He hesitated between Albany and Boston; and, in consequence of this indecision, the execution of his purpose was for the present postponed.
The Fourteenth Congress a.s.sembled in December, 1815. An order of things in a great degree new presented itself. After a momentary pause, the country rose with an elastic bound from the pressure of the war. Old party dissensions had lost much of their interest. The condition of Europe had undergone a great change. The power of the French emperor was annihilated; and with the return of general peace, all occasions for belligerent encroachments on neutral rights had ceased. Two thirds of our domestic feuds had turned on foreign questions, and there was a spontaneous feeling throughout the country in favor of healing the wounds which these feuds had inflicted upon its social and political harmony. Nor was this all. New relations and interests had arisen. The public debt had been swelled by the war expenditure to a large amount, and its interest was to be paid. Domestic manufactures had, in some of the States, grown up into importance through the operation of the restrictive system and the war, and asked for protection. The West began to fill up with unexampled rapidity, and required new facilities of communication with the Atlantic coast. The navy had fought itself into favor, and the war with Algiers, in 1816, forbade its reduction below the recent war establishment. The necessity of a system of coast defences had made itself felt. With all these loud calls for increased expenditure, the public finances were embarra.s.sed and the currency was in extreme disorder. In a word, there were new and great wants and interests at home and abroad, throwing former topics of dissension into the shade, and calling for the highest efforts of statesmanship and a patriotism embracing the whole country.
Among those who responded with the greatest cordiality and promptness to the new demand were the distinguished statesmen of the preceding Congress, and conspicuous among them Clay, Calhoun, Webster, Lowndes, and Cheves. It will excite some surprise at the present day, in consideration of the political history of the last thirty years, to find how little difference as to leading measures existed in 1816 between these distinguished statesmen. No line of general party difference separated the members of the first Congress after the peace. The great measures brought forward were a national bank, internal improvement, and a protective tariff. On these various subjects members divided, not in accordance with any party organization, but from individual convictions, supposed sectional interests, and general public grounds. On the two first-named subjects no systematic difference of views disclosed itself between the great Northern and Southern leaders; on the third alone there was diversity of opinion. In the Northern States considerable advances had been made in manufacturing industry, in different places, especially at Waltham (Ma.s.s.); but a great manufacturing interest had not yet grown up. The strength of this interest as yet lay mainly in Pennsylvania. Navigation and foreign trade were the leading pursuits of the North; and these interests, it was feared, would suffer from the attempt to build up manufactures by a protective tariff. It is accordingly a well-known fact, which may teach all to entertain opinions on public questions with some distrust of their own judgment, that the tariff of 1816, containing the _minimum_ duty on coa.r.s.e cotton fabrics, the corner-stone of the protective system, was supported by Mr.
Calhoun and a few other Southern members, and carried by their influence against the opposition of the New England members generally, including Mr. Webster. It has been stated, that, during the pendency of this law before Congress, he denied the const.i.tutionality of a tariff for protection. This statement is inaccurate; although, had it been true, it would have placed him only in the same relation to the question with Mr.
Calhoun and other Southern members, who at that time admitted the principle of protection, but lived to reject it as the grossest and most pernicious const.i.tutional heresy. It would have shown only that, in a long political career, he had, on the first discussion of a new question, expressed an opinion which, in the lapse of time and under a change of circ.u.mstances, he had seen occasion to alter. This is no ground of just reproach. It has happened to every public man in every free country, who has been of importance enough to have his early opinions remembered. It has happened to a large portion of the prominent men at the South, in reference to almost every great question agitated within the last generation. The bank, internal improvements, a navy, the Colonization Society, the annexation of Texas, the power of Congress over the territories, this very question of the tariff, the doctrine of State rights generally, are subjects on which many prominent statesmen of the South, living or recently deceased, have in the course of their career entertained opposite views.
But it is not true that Mr. Webster in 1816 denied the const.i.tutionality of a tariff for protection. In 1820, in discussing the subject in Faneuil Hall, he argued that, if the right of laying duties for protection were derived from the revenue power, it was of necessity incidental; and on that a.s.sumption, as the incident cannot go beyond that to which it is incidental, duties avowedly for protection, and not having any reference to revenue, could not be const.i.tutionally laid. The hypothetical form of the statement shows a degree of indecision; while the proposition itself is not to be gainsaid. At a later period, and after it had been confidently stated, and satisfactorily shown by Mr.
Madison, that the Federal Convention intended, under the provision for regulating commerce, to clothe Congress with the power of laying duties for the protection of manufactures; and after Congress had, by repeated laws, pa.s.sed against the wishes of the navigating and strictly commercial interests, practically settled this const.i.tutional question, and turned a vast amount of the capital of the country into the channel of manufactures; Mr. Webster considered a moderate degree of protection (such as would keep the home market steady under the occasional gluts in the foreign market, and shield the domestic manufacturer from the wholesale frauds of foreign importation) as the established policy of the United States; and he accordingly supported it. It is unnecessary to state, that this course has been pursued with the approbation of his const.i.tuents, and to the manifest good of the country. No change has taken place in Mr. Webster"s opinions on the subject of protection which has not been generally shared and sanctioned by the intelligence of the manufacturing States. There are strong indications, even, that in the Southern States the superiority of the home market over the foreign is beginning to be felt.
Mr. Webster took an active and efficient part, at the first session of the Fourteenth Congress, in the debates on the charter of the Bank of the United States, which pa.s.sed Congress in April, 1816. While the bill was before the House, he moved and carried several amendments similar to those which he had caused to be introduced into the bill of the former year. He exerted himself in vain, however, against the partic.i.p.ation of the government in its management, and, in common with several independent members usually supporting the administration, he voted against it on its pa.s.sage. Among the amendments to the bill, of which Mr. Webster procured the adoption, was one which required _deposits_, as well as the _notes_ of the bank, to be paid on demand in specie.
But the great service rendered by Mr. Webster to the currency of the country in the Fourteenth Congress was in procuring the adoption of the specie resolution, in virtue of which, from and after the 20th of February, 1817, all debts due to the treasury were required to be paid in the legal currency of the country (gold or silver), in treasury notes, or the notes of the Bank of the United States, or in notes of banks which are payable and paid on demand in the same legal currency.
This service can hardly be appreciated at the present day by those too young to recollect the state of things existing in this respect during the war and after its close. This resolution pa.s.sed the two houses, and was approved by the President on the 30th of April, 1816. It completely accomplished its object; and that object was to restore to a sound basis the currency of the country, and to give the people a uniform circulating medium. Of this they were dest.i.tute at the close of the war.
All the banks, except those of the New England States, had suspended specie payments; but their depreciated bills were permitted by general consent, and within certain limits, to circulate as money. They were received of each other by the different banks; they pa.s.sed from hand to hand; and even the public revenue was collected at par in this degraded paper. The rate of depreciation was different in different States, and with different banks in the same States, according as greater or less advantage had been taken of the suspension of the specie obligation.
What was not less hara.s.sing than this diversity was the uncertainty everywhere prevailing, how far the reputed rate of depreciation in any particular case might represent justly the real condition of a bank or set of banks. In other words, men were obliged to make and receive payments in a currency of which, at the time, the value was not certainly known to them, and which might vary as it was pa.s.sing through their hands. The enormous injustice suffered by the citizens of different States, in being obliged to pay their dues at the custom-houses in as many different currencies as there were States, varying at least twenty-five per cent. between Boston and Richmond, need not be pointed out. For all these mischiefs the resolution of Mr.
Webster afforded a remedy as efficient as simple; and what chiefly moves our astonishment at the present day is, that a measure of this kind, demanded by the first principles of finance, overlooked by the executive and its leading friends in Congress, should be left to be brought forward by one of its youngest members, and he not belonging to the supporters of the administration. But commanding talent and profound knowledge of the subjects to be treated vindicate to themselves a position in public bodies, which official relations can neither confer nor take away. It would not be easy to name a political measure, in the history of the government, which has accomplished its design with greater simplicity and directness; and that design one of paramount importance to the country, and coming home to the business of every individual.
In all the other public measures brought forward in this Congress for meeting the new conditions of the country, Mr. Webster bore an active part, but they furnish no topic requiring ill.u.s.tration. At the close of the first session, in August, 1816, he executed the project to which we have already alluded of removing to a wider professional field. After some hesitation he decided on Boston, in which and its vicinity he has ever since made his home. He had established friendly relations here at an early period of life. In no part of the Union was his national reputation more cordially recognized than in the metropolis of New England. He took at once the place in his profession which belonged to his commanding talent and legal eminence, and was welcomed into every circle of social life.
FOOTNOTES
[4] Lives of the Chancellors, Vol. VII. p. 218; see also p. 301.
[5] The friend to whom the letter referred to by Mr. March was written, was Mr. Justice Story, who adds: "Such praise from such a man ought to be very gratifying. Consider that he is now seventy-five years old, and that he speaks of his recollections of some eighteen years ago with a freshness which shows how deeply your reasoning impressed itself upon his mind. Keep this _in memoriam rei_."
CHAPTER III.
Professional Character particularly in Reference to Const.i.tutional Law.--The Dartmouth College Case argued at Washington in 1818.--Mr.
Ticknor"s Description of that Argument.--The Case of Gibbons and Ogden in 1824.--Mr. Justice Wayne"s Allusion to that Case in 1847.--The Case of Ogden and Saunders in 1827.--The Case of the Proprietors of the Charles River Bridge.--The Alabama Bank Case.--The Case relative to the Boundary between Ma.s.sachusetts and Rhode Island.--The Girard Will Case.--The Case of the Const.i.tution of Rhode Island.--General Remarks on Mr. Webster"s Practice in the Supreme Court of the United States.--Practice in the State Courts.--The Case of Goodridge,--and the Case of Knapp.
With Mr. Webster"s removal to Boston commenced a period of five or six years" retirement from active political life, during which time, with a single exception which will be hereafter alluded to, he filled no public office, and devoted himself exclusively to the duties of his profession. It was accordingly within this period that his reputation as a lawyer was fixed and established. The promise of his youth, and the expectations of those who had known him as a student, were more than fulfilled. He took a position as a counsellor and an advocate, above which no one has ever risen in the country. A large share of the best business of New England pa.s.sed into his hands; and the veterans of the Boston bar admitted him to an entire equality of standing, repute, and influence.
Besides the reputation which he acquired in the ordinary routine of practice, Mr. Webster, shortly after his removal to Boston, took the lead in establishing what might almost be called a new school of const.i.tutional law. It fell to his lot to perform a prominent part in unfolding a most important cla.s.s of const.i.tutional doctrines, which, either because occasion had not drawn them forth, or the jurists of a former period had failed to deduce and apply them, had not yet grown into a system. It was reserved for Mr. Webster to distinguish himself before most, if not all, of his contemporaries, in this branch of his profession. It may be mentioned as a somewhat curious coincidence, that the case in which he made his first great effort in this direction arose in his native State, and concerned the College in which he had been educated.
In the months of June and December, 1816, the legislature of New Hampshire pa.s.sed acts altering the charter of Dartmouth College (of which the name was changed to Dartmouth University), enlarging the number of the trustees, and generally reorganizing the corporation.
These acts, although pa.s.sed without the consent and against the protest of the Trustees of the College, went into operation. The newly created body took possession of the corporate property, and a.s.sumed the administration of the inst.i.tution. The old board were all named as members of the new corporation, but declined acting as such, and brought an action against the treasurer of the new board for the books of record, the original charter, the common seal, and other corporate property of the College.
The action was commenced in the Court of Common Pleas for Grafton County, in February, 1817, and carried immediately to the Superior Court, in May of the same year. The general issue was pleaded by the defendants and joined by the plaintiffs. The case turned upon the point, whether the acts of the legislature above referred to were binding upon the corporation without their a.s.sent, and not repugnant to the Const.i.tution of the United States. It was first argued by Messrs.
Jeremiah Mason and Jeremiah Smith for the plaintiffs, and by the Attorney-General of New Hampshire for the defendants; and subsequently by Messrs. Mason, Smith, and Webster for the plaintiffs, and the Attorney-General and Mr. L Bartlett for the defendants. At the November term it was decided by the Superior Court of New Hampshire, in an opinion delivered by Chief Justice Richardson, that the acts of the New Hampshire legislature were valid and const.i.tutional. In giving his opinion on the case, the Chief Justice said: "The cause has been argued on both sides with uncommon learning and ability, and we have witnessed a display of talents and eloquence upon this occasion in the highest degree honorable to the profession of the law in this State."[6]
The case thus decided in the Superior Court of New Hampshire in favor of the validity of the State laws, was carried by writ of error to the Supreme Court of the United States, where, on the 10th of March, 1818, it came on for argument before all the judges, Mr. Webster and Mr.
(afterwards Judge) Hopkinson for the plaintiffs, and Mr. J. Holmes of Maine and the Attorney-General, Wirt, for the defendants in error. This was perhaps the first occasion in this country on which a question precisely of this kind had come up, and it is stated that, when one of the court had run his eye cursorily over the record, he said that he did not see how any thing important could be urged by the plaintiffs in error.
It devolved upon Mr. Webster, as junior counsel, to open the case, and it is scarcely necessary to say to any one who has read the report of his argument, that, if such an impression as that just alluded to existed in the mind of any of the court, it must have been immediately dispelled. The ground was broadly taken, that the acts in question were not only against common right and the const.i.tution of New Hampshire, but also, and this was the leading principle, against the provision of the Const.i.tution of the United States which forbids the individual States from pa.s.sing laws that impair the obligation of contracts. Under the first head, the entire English law relative to educational foundations was unfolded by Mr. Webster, and it was shown that colleges, unless otherwise specifically const.i.tuted by their charters, were private eleemosynary corporations, over whose property, members, and franchises the crown has no control, except by due process of law, for acts inconsistent with their charters. The whole learning of the subject was brought to bear with overwhelming weight on this point.
The second main point required to be less elaborately argued; namely, that such a charter is a contract which it is not competent for a State to annul. The argument throughout was pursued with a closeness and vigor which have been rarely witnessed in our courts. The topics were beyond the usual range of forensic investigation in this country. The const.i.tutional principles sought to be applied were of commanding importance. Great public expectation was awakened by the novelty and magnitude of the case. The personal connection of Mr. Webster with Dartmouth College as the place of his education gave a fervor to his manner, which added, no doubt, to the effect of the reasoning. On this point Mr. Ticknor expresses himself as follows:--
"Mr. Webster"s argument is given in this volume [the first collection of his works], that is, we have there the technical outline; the dry skeleton of it. But those who heard him when it was originally delivered still wonder how such dry bones could ever have lived with the power they there witnessed and felt. He opened his cause, as he always does, with perfect simplicity in the general statement of its facts, and then went on to unfold the topics of his argument in a lucid order, which made each position sustain every other. The logic and the law were rendered irresistible. But as he advanced, his heart warmed to the subject and the occasion. Thoughts and feelings that had grown old with his best affections rose unbidden to his lips. He remembered that the inst.i.tution he was defending was the one where his own youth had been nurtured; and the moral tenderness and beauty this gave to the grandeur of his thoughts, the sort of religious sensibility it imparted to his urgent appeals and demands for the stern fulfilment of what law and justice required, wrought up the whole audience to an extraordinary state of excitement. Many betrayed strong agitation, many were dissolved in tears. Prominent among them was that eminent lawyer and statesman, Robert Goodloe Harper, who came to him when he resumed his seat, evincing emotions of the highest gratification. When he ceased to speak, there was a perceptible interval before any one was willing to break the silence; and when that vast crowd separated, not one person of the whole number doubted that the man who had that day so moved, astonished, and controlled them, had vindicated for himself a place at the side of the first jurists of the country."[7]
The opinion of the court, unanimous; with the exception of Justice Duvall, was p.r.o.nounced by Chief Justice Marshall in the term for 1819, declaring the acts of the legislature of New Hampshire to be unconst.i.tutional and invalid, and reversing the opinion of the court below. By this opinion the law of the land in reference to collegiate charters was firmly established. Henceforward our colleges and universities and their trustees, unless provision to the contrary is made in their acts of incorporation, stand upon the broad basis of common right and justice; holding in like manner as individuals their property and franchises by a firm legal tenure, and not subject to control or interference on the part of the local legislatures on the vague ground that public inst.i.tutions are at the mercy of the government. That such is the recognized law of the land is owing in no small degree to the ability with which the Dartmouth College case was argued by Mr. Webster. The battle fought and the victory gained in this case were sought and gained for every college and university, for every academy and school, in the United States, endowed with property or possessed of chartered rights. It ought to be mentioned, to the credit of the State of New Hampshire, that she readily acquiesced in the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and made no attempt to sustain her recent legislation.
This celebrated cause, argued with such success before the highest tribunal in the country, established Mr. Webster"s position in the profession. It placed him at once with Emmett and Pinkney and Wirt, in the front rank of the American bar, and, though considerably the youngest of this ill.u.s.trious group, on an equality with the most distinguished of them. He was henceforward retained in almost every considerable cause argued at Washington. No counsel in the United States has probably been engaged in a larger portion of the business brought before that tribunal. While Mr. Webster as a politician and a statesman has performed an amount of intellectual labor, as is abundantly shown in these volumes, sufficient to form the sole occupation of an active life, there is no doubt that his arguments to the court and his addresses to the jury in important suits at law would, if they had been reported like his political speeches, have filled a much greater s.p.a.ce.
It would exceed the limits of this sketch to allude in detail to all the cases argued by Mr. Webster in the Supreme Court of the United States; still less would it be practicable to trace him through his labors in the State courts. We can barely mention a few of the more considerable causes. The case of Gibbons and Ogden, in 1824, is one of great celebrity. In this case the grant by the State of New York to the a.s.signees of Fulton, of an exclusive right to navigate the rivers, harbors, and bays of New York by steam, was called in question, and was decided to be unconst.i.tutional, after having been maintained by all the tribunals of that great and respectable State. The decision of this great case turned upon the principle, that the grant of such a monopoly of the right to enter a portion of the navigable waters of the Union was an encroachment, by the State, upon the power "to regulate commerce,"----a power reserved by the Const.i.tution to Congress, and in its nature exclusive. The cause was argued by Messrs. Webster and Wirt for the plaintiffs, and by Messrs. Oakley and Emmett for the defendants in error,--an array of talent worthy the magnitude of the interests at stake. The decision of the court was against the monopoly.
Few cases in the annals of federal jurisprudence are of equal importance; none, perhaps, was ever argued with greater ability. In the course of his discussion, Mr. Webster said, with great felicity of ill.u.s.tration, that, by the establishment of the Const.i.tution, the commerce of this whole country had become a _unit_, a form of expression used with approbation by Chief Justice Marshall in delivering the opinion of the court.
A very distinguished compliment was paid to Mr. Webster"s argument in this case, a quarter of a century after its delivery, by Mr. Justice Wayne of the Supreme Court of the United States. On the occasion of Mr.
Webster"s visit to the South, in the spring of 1847, he was received with public honors, among other places, at Savannah. He was there addressed by Judge Wayne on behalf of his fellow-citizens. In the course of his remarks on that occasion, Judge Wayne alluded to Mr. Webster"s line of argument in this case in the following manner:--
"From one of your const.i.tutional suggestions, every man in the land has been more or less benefited. We allude to it with the greater pleasure, because it was in a controversy begun by a Georgian in behalf of the const.i.tutional rights of the citizen. When the late Mr. Thomas Gibbons determined to put to hazard a large part of his fortune in testing the const.i.tutionality of the laws of New York limiting the navigation of the waters of that State to steamers belonging to a company, his own interest was not so much concerned as the right of every citizen to use a coasting license upon the waters of the United States, in whatever way their vessels might be propelled. It was a sound view of the law, but not broad enough for the occasion. It is not unlikely that the case would have been decided upon it, if you had not insisted that it should be put upon the broader const.i.tutional ground of commerce and navigation. The court felt the application and force of your reasoning, and it made a decision releasing every creek, and river, lake, bay, and harbor in our country from the interference of monopolies, which had already provoked unfriendly legislation between some of the States, and which would have been as little favorable to the interest of Fulton, as they were unworthy his genius."
The case of Ogden and Saunders, in 1827, brought in question the right of a State to pa.s.s an insolvent law. It was of course a case of high const.i.tutional law, belonging to the same general cla.s.s with those just mentioned, and relating to the limit of the powers of the several States, in reference to matters confided by the Const.i.tution to the general government. This cause was argued by Mr. Clay and Mr. David B. Ogden of New York for the plaintiffs, and by Mr. Webster and Mr.
Henry Wheaton for the defendants in error. In his argument in this case, Mr. Webster maintained the entire unconst.i.tutionality of State bankrupt laws. This was a step in advance of the doctrines laid down by the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Sturges and Crowninshield, nor did the court on the present occasion incline to go further than they had done in that case. They were divided in opinion, but a majority of the judges held, that, although it was not competent to a State to pa.s.s a law discharging a debtor from the obligation of payment, they might pa.s.s a law to discharge him from imprisonment on personal execution. The Chief Justice and Judge Story were the minority of the court, and the opinion of the Chief Justice sustained the principle of Mr. Webster"s argument, which is, in fact, usually regarded as not falling below his most successful forensic efforts. The manner in which he meets the argument in favor of a prospective State insolvent law, namely, that such a law cannot impair the obligation of a contract because it is a part of the contract, may be quoted as a specimen of the acutest dialectics brought in aid of the broadest views of const.i.tutional law.
In the year 1836, Mr. Webster argued at Washington the great cause of the proprietors of Charles River Bridge. This well-remembered case was a suit in chancery commenced in the Supreme Court of Ma.s.sachusetts, where the bill was dismissed by a decree _pro forma_, the members of that court being equally divided in opinion. A writ of error was taken to the Supreme Court of the United States, on the ground that the rights of the proprietors of Charles River Bridge under their charter had been violated by the legislature, in authorizing the erection of Warren Bridge. The cause was argued at Washington, in 1836, and, having been then held under advis.e.m.e.nt by the court for a year, was, upon difference of opinion among the judges, ordered to be again argued, which was done in 1837. This was another of the great const.i.tutional cases argued by Mr. Webster before the Supreme Court of the United States. The abstract principles of the case were perhaps as clear as in those to which we have alluded; but there were practical difficulties, no doubt, in their application to restrain the right of a legislature to grant an act of incorporation, in the usual form, for the construction of a new bridge, on the ground of interference with some prior similar franchise. The opinion of the court, adverse to the complainants, was delivered by Chief Justice Taney. Mr. Justice McLean was clearly of opinion that the merits of the case were with the complainants, but that the Supreme Court of the United States had no jurisdiction over it. Mr. Justice Story dissented from the majority, and sustained the doctrines advanced by Mr. Webster in a very learned and powerfully reasoned opinion.
In 1839 the const.i.tutional rights of the Bank of the United States (so called), which was incorporated by the State of Pennsylvania after the termination of the Congressional charter, were drawn in question by a case from the State of Alabama, in which the right of a corporation or a citizen in one State to perform any legal act in another was a.s.serted by Mr. Webster, and his argument was sustained by the court. Not long afterwards the controversy between Ma.s.sachusetts and Rhode Island relative to their boundary, a controversy running back to the earliest periods of their colonial history, was brought before the Supreme Court, at Washington, and argued by Mr. Webster for the Commonwealth of Ma.s.sachusetts.
In 1844 the important case relative to the validity of Mr. Girard"s bequest of the greater part of his estate to the city of Philadelphia, for the foundation of a college for orphans, was argued by Mr. Webster before the Supreme Court, at Washington, for the heirs at law. One of the grounds on which the bequest was impeached by them was, the exclusion by the will of all ecclesiastics, missionaries, or ministers, of whatever sect, from all offices in the college, and even from admission within the premises as visitors. So impressive was Mr.
Webster"s argument upon the importance of making provision for religious instruction in all inst.i.tutions for education, that a meeting of the citizens of Washington belonging to different religious denominations was held, at which a resolution was pa.s.sed expressing the opinion entertained by the meeting of the great value of Mr. Webster"s argument, "in demonstrating the vital importance of Christianity to the success of our free inst.i.tutions, and that the general diffusion of that argument among the people of the United States is a matter of deep public interest." A committee of eight gentlemen of the different denominations of Christians in the city was appointed to wait upon Mr. Webster, and request him to prepare for the press the report of that portion of his argument in which this important topic is treated.
In the month of January, 1848, the great Rhode Island case was brought before the Supreme Court of the United States, and argued by Mr.