Part 3 (1/2)

Five years after the Dartuden The case was called suddenly, and Mr Webster prepared his arguht of intense labor The facts were all before hiement only equalled by its force The question hether the State of New York had a right under the Constitution to grant a ation in its waters to Fulton and Livingston Mr Webster contended that the acts rant were unconstitutional, because the power of Congress to regulate commerce ithin certain limitations, exclusive He won his cause, and the decision, from its importance, probably enhanced the conteuest qualities of close reasoning and effective statement The point in issue was neither difficult nor obscure, and afforded no opportunity for a display of learning It was purely a matter of constitutional interpretation, and could be discussed chiefly in a historical manner and from the standpoint of public interests

This was particularly fitted to Mr Webster's cast of ueneral principles Mr

Webster does not reach that point of intense clearness and condensation which characterized Marshall and Has we are fascinated by the beauty of the intellectual display, and are held fast by each succeeding line, which always co

Nevertheless, Mr Webster touches a very high point in this ument, and the impressiveness of his manner and voice carried all that he said to its mark with a direct force in which he stood unrivalled

In Ogden v Saunders, heard in 1827, Mr Webster argued that the clause prohibiting state laws iation of contracts covered future as well as past contracts He defended his position with astonishi+ng ability, but the court very correctly decided against him The same qualities which appear in these cases are shown in the others of a like nature, which were conspicuous a the multitude hich he was intrusted We find theal questions, such as the Bank of the United States v Primrose, and The Providence Railroad Co v The City of Boston, acco which an extraordinary memory reat powers in this field as he advanced in years In the Rhode Island case and in the Passenger Tax cases, argued when he was sixty-six years old, he rose to the sa as when he defended his Alma Mater

Two causes, however, de mention,--the Girard will case and the Rhode Island case The forht to break the will of Stephen Girard, and the question hether the bequest to found a college could be construed to be a charitable devise On this question Mr Webster had a weak case in point of law, but he readily detected a o boldly outside the law, as he had done to a certain degree in the Dartument an eloquent and impassioned appeal to emotion and prejudice Girard was a free-thinker, and he provided in his will that no priest or e assu, Mr Webster then laid down the proposition that no bequest or gift could be charitable which excluded Christian teaching In other words, he contended that there was no charity except Christian charity, which, the poet assures us, is so rare At this day such a theory would hardly be gravely propounded by any one But Mr Webster, on the ground that Girard's bequest was derogatory to Christianity, pronounced a very fine discourse defending and eulogizing, with ion The speech produced a great effect One is inclined to think that it was the cause of the court's evading the question raised by Mr Webster, and sustaining the will, a result they were bound to reach in any event, on other grounds The speech certainly produced a great sensation, and was y, who caused it to be printed and widely distributed It did not ie Story writing to Chancellor Kent that ”Webster did his best for the other side, but it seey” The subject, in certain ways, had a deep attraction for Mr

Webster His iination was excited by the splendid history of the Church, and his conservatisuise of the Roland, or in the for by its age, its influence, and its reat established bulwarks of well-ordered and civilized society All this appealed strongly to Mr Webster, and he round Yet the speech on the Girard will is not one of his best efforts It has not the subdued but intense fire which glowed so splendidly in his great speeches in the Senate It lacked the stately pathos which came alhen Mr Webster was deeply ed with the pompousness which ious topics No ious sincerity of another, unless upon evidence so full and clear that, in such cases, it is rarely to be found

There is certainly no cause for doubt in Mr Webster's case He was both sincere and honest in religion, and had a real and subreat facts and proprieties of life He did not reach his religious convictions afterand many bitter experiences In this he did not differ fro that Mr Webster did not have a deeply religious te spirit which is the surest indication of a profoundly religious nature; the spirit of the Saracen E, ”Forward! Paradise is under the shadow of our swords” When, therefore, he turned his noble powers to a defence of religion, he did not speak with that i from the depths of a man's heart, savors of inspiration and seeious eloquence He believed thoroughly every word he uttered, but he did not feel it, and in things spiritual the heart must be enlisted as well as the head It ittily said of a well-known anti-slavery leader, that had he lived in the Middle Ages he would have gone to the stake for a principle, under a misapprehension as to the facts

Mr Webster not only could never have misapprehended facts, but, if he had flourished in the Middle Ages he would have been a stanch and honest supporter of the strongest government and of the doious character as well as anything, and explains why the argument in the Girard will case, fine as it was, did not reach the elevation and force which he so often displayed on other therew out of the troubles known at that period as Dorr's rebellion It involved a discussion not only of the constitutional provisions for suppressing insurrections and securing to every State a republican foreneral history and theory of the Aovernments, both state and national There was thus offered to Mr Webster that full scope and large field in which he delighted, and which were always peculiarly favorable to his talents His arguh not so closely reasoned, perhaps, as some of his earlier efforts, is, on the whole, as fine a specimen as we have of his intellectual power as a constitutional lawyer at the bar of the highest national tribunal Mr Webster did not often transcend the proper lial discussion in the courts, and yet even when the question holly legal, the court-rooentle of the Girard suit; and during the strictly legal argue Story says, was filled with a brilliant audience, includingreply was in his best manner, but with a little too much _fierte_ here and there” The ability to attract such audiences gives an idea of the impressiveness of his manner and of the beauty of his voice and delivery better than anything else, for these qualities alone could have drawn the general public and held their attention to the cold and dry discussion of laws and constitutions

There is a little anecdote told by Mr Curtis in connection with this Rhode Island case, which illustrates very well two striking qualities in Mr

Webster as a lawyer The counsel in the court below had been assisted by a clever young lawyer naht very important, but which his seniors rejected Mr Bosworth was sent to Washi+ngton to instruct Mr Webster as to the cause, and, after he had gone through the case, Mr Webster asked if that was all Mr Bosworth modestly replied that there was another view of his ohich his seniors had rejected, and then stated it briefly When he concluded, Mr Webster started up and exclaimed, ”Mr Bosworth, by the blood of all the Bosworths who fell on Bosworth field, that is _the_ point of the case Let it be included in the brief by all hly characteristic of one of Mr Webster's strongest attributes He always saith an unerring glance ”_the_ point” of a case or a debate A great surgeon will detect the precise spot where the knife should enter when disease hides it from other eyes, and often with apparent carelessness will make the necessary incision at the exact place when a deflection of a hair's breadth or a tre death to the patient Mr Webster had the saled result of nature and art As the tiger is said to have a sure instinct for the throat of his victim, so Mr

Webster always seized on the vital point of a question Other ue for days, perhaps, and then Mr Webster would take up the rasp at once the central and essential ele, pushed hither and thither, but which had escaped all eyes but his own He had preeminently

”The cal silver little worth The one thin piece that coold”

The anecdote further illustrates the use which Mr Webster made of the ideas of other people He did not say to Mr Bosworth, here is the true point of the case, but he saw that so lahat it was The nized its value and iht and probably would have discovered it for hiet it from soreat intellectual power to be able to select subordinates wisely; to use other people and other people's labor and thought to the best advantage, and to have as much as possible done for one by others This power of assiree There is no depreciation in saying that he took much froest ed, such a faculty is a subject for praise, not criticisation which is no detraction to hiiver is poor indeed, the case is altered In his earliest days Mr Webster used to draw on one Parker Noyes, a , learned New Haed the debt In the Dartave si and the points of the brief to Mason and Slory of the case has rested with Mr Webster and alill He gained by his frank honesty and did not lose a whit But in his latter days, when his sense of justice had grown somewhat blunted and his nature was perverted by the unmeasured adulation of the little i about hiations as in his earlier and better years Froenerous advice and assistance as fro were always at his disposal They were given not only in questions of law, but in regard to the Crimes Act, the Judiciary Act, and the Ashburton treaty After Judge Story's death, Mr Webster not only declined to allow the publication by the judge's son and biographer of Story's letters to himself, but he refused to permit even the publication of extracts from his own letters, intended merely to show the nature of the services rendered to him by Story A cordial assent would have enhanced the reputation of both The refusal is a blot on the intellectual greatness of the one and a source of bitterness to the descendants and adretted that the extraordinary ability which Mr

Webster always showed in grasping and assi from theratitude which, properly and freely rendered, would have htly

A close study of Mr Webster's legal career, in the light of contemporary reputation and of the best examples of his work, leads to certain quite obvious conclusions He had not a strongly original or creative legal mind

This was chiefly due to nature, but in soation and inquiry which were always distasteful to hih he was entirely capable of intense and protracted exertion He cannot, therefore, be ranked with the illustrious few, a e count Mansfield and Marshall as the most brilliant examples, who not only declared what the laas, but who made it Mr Webster's poere not of this class, but, except in these highest and rarest qualities, he stands in the front rank of the lawyers of his country and his age

Without extraordinary profundity of thought or depth of learning, he had a wide, sure, and ready knowledge both of principles and cases Add to this quick apprehension, unerring sagacity for vital and essential points, a perfect sense of proportion, an al at once close and lucid, and we may fairly say that Mr

Webster, who possessed all these qualities, need fear coreat lawyers of that period either at home or abroad

CHAPTER IV

THE MassACHUSETTS CONVENTION AND THE PLYMOUTH ORATION

The conduct of the Darte case, and its result, at once raised Mr Webster to a position at the bar second only to that held by Mr

Pinkney He was now constantly occupied by e part in a great public hich demanded the exertion of all his talents as states off of the Maine district as a State had made a convention necessary, in order to revise the Constitution of Massachusetts This involved the direct resort to the people, the source of all pohich is only required to effect a change in the fundamental law of the State On these rare occasions it has been the honored custom in Massachusetts to lay aside all the qualifications attaching to ordinary legislatures and to choose the best ard to party, public office, or domicile, for the performance of this important work No better or abler body could have been assembled for this purpose than that whichthese distinguished hty-fifth year, and one of the frainal Constitution of 1780, Chief Justice Parker, of the Suprees, and many of the leaders at the bar and in business The two most conspicuous men in the convention, however, were Joseph Story and Daniel Webster, who bore the burden in every discussion; and there were three subjects, upon which Mr Webster spoke at length, that deserveallusion

Questions of party have, as a rule, found but little place in the constitutional assemblies of Massachusetts This was peculiarly the case in 1820, when the old political divisions were dying out, and new ones had not yet been formed At the same time widely opposite views found expression in the convention Theheadway, and directing its force against overn Constitution

That portion of the delegates which favored certain radical changes was confronted and stoutly opposed by those who, on the whole, inclined to s about as they were Mr Webster, as was natural, was the leader of the conservative party, and his course in this convention is an excellent illustration of this marked trait in his disposition and character

One of the important questions concerned the abolition of the profession of Christian faith as a qualification for holding office On this point the line of argument pursued by Mr Webster is extre conservative throughout his life, he was incapable of bigotry, or of narrow and illiberal views At the same time the process by which he reached his opinion in favor of reious test shows more clearly than even ultra-conservatis or innovating spirit He did not urge that, on general principles, religious tests rong, that they were relics of the past and in hopeless conflict with the fundamental doctrines of American liberty and deious test was far fro of necessity an evil He laid down the sound doctrine that qualifications for office were purely ued that it ise to reious test because, while its principle would be practically enforced by a Christian corafted on the Constitution The speech in which he set forth these vieas an able and convincing one, entirely worthy of its author, and the reeexample of the combination of steady conservatism and breadth of viehich Mr Webster always displayed But it also brings into strong relief his aversion to radical general principles as grounds of action, and his inborn hostility to far-reaching change