of the great
masterpieces of eloquence in the recorded oratory of the world, Webster
wrote jocularly to Mason: "I have been written to, to go to New
Hampshire, to try a cause against you next August.... If it were an easy
and plain case on our side, I might be willing to go; but I have some of
your _pounding in my bones yet_, and I don't care about any more till
that wears out."

It may be said that Webster's argument in the celebrated "Dartmouth
College Case," before the Supreme Court of the United States, placed
him, at the age of thirty-six, in the foremost rank of the
constitutional lawyers of the country. For the main points of the
reasoning, and for the exhaustive citation of authorities by which the
reasoning was sustained, he was probably indebted to Mason, who had
previously argued the case before the Superior Court of New Hampshire;
but his superiority to Mason was shown in the eloquence, the moral
power, he infused into his reasoning, so as to make the dullest citation
of legal authority _tell_ on the minds he addressed.

There is one incident connected with this speech which proves what
immense force is given to simple words when a great man--great in his
emotional nature as well as great in logical power--is behind the words.
"It is, sir, as I have said, a small college. And yet there are those
who love it." At this point the orator's lips quivered, his voice
choked, his eyes filled with tears,--all the memories of sacrifices
endured by his father and mother, his brothers and sisters, in order
that he might enjoy its rather scanty advantages of a liberal education,
and by means of which he was there to plead its cause before the supreme
tribunal of the nation, rushed suddenly upon his mind in an overwhelming
flood. The justices of the Supreme Court--great lawyers, tried and
toughened by experience into a certain obdurate sense of justice, and
insensible to any common appeal to their hearts--melted into unwonted
tenderness, as, in broken words, the advocate proceeded to state his own
indebtedness to the "small college," whose rights and privileges he was
there to defend. Chief Justice Marshall's eyes were filled with tears;
and the eyes of the other justices were suffused with a moisture similar
to that which afflicted the eyes of the Chief. As the orator gradually
recovered his accustomed stern composure of manner, he turned to the
counsel on the other side,--one of whom, at least, was a graduate of
Dartm