a rigid and uncompromising
Presbyterian, a political disciple of Macon, and a man of incorruptible
honesty.

Prominent among the Representatives from the State of New York were
Messrs. Gulian C. Verplanck and Thomas J. Oakley, members of the
legal profession, who were statesmen rather than politicians. Mr.
George C. Washington, of Maryland, was the great-nephew of "the
Father of his country," and had inherited a portion of the library
at Mount Vernon, which he subsequently sold to the Boston Athenaeum.
Messrs. Elisha Whittlesey and Samuel Vinton, Representatives from
Ohio, were afterwards for many years officers of the Federal
Government and residents at Washington. Mr. Jonathan Hunt, of
Vermont, a lawyer of ability, and one of the companions chosen by
Mr. Webster, was the father of that gifted artist, William Morris
Hunt, whose recent death was so generally regretted. Mr. Silas
Wright, of New York, was then attracting attention in the Democratic
party, of which he became a great leader, and which would have
elected him President had he not shortened his life by intemperance.
He was a solid, square-built man, with an impassive, ruddy face.
He claimed to be a good farmer, but no orator, yet he was noted
for the compactness of his logic, which was unenlivened by a figure
of speech or a flight of fancy.

The Supreme Court then sat in the room in the basement of the
Capitol, now occupied as a law library. It has an arched ceiling
supported by massive pillars that obstruct the view, and is very
badly ventilated. But it is rich in traditions of hair-powder,
queues, ruffled shirts, knee-breeches, and buckles. Up to that
time no Justice had ever sat upon the bench in trousers, nor had
any lawyer ventured to plead in boots or wearing whiskers. Their
Honors, the Chief Justice and the Associate Justices, wearing silk
judicial robes, were treated with the most profound respect. When
Mr. Clay stopped, one day, in an argument, and advancing to the
bench, took a pinch of snuff from Judge Washington's box, saying,
"I perceive that your Honor sticks to the Scotch," and then proceeded
with his case, it excited astonishment and admiration. "Sir," said
Mr. Justice Story, in relating the circumstance to a friends, "I
do not believe there is a man in the United States who could have
done that but Mr. Clay."

Chief Justice John Marshall, who had then presided in the Supreme
Court for more than a quarter of a century, was one of