ied the arguments of his adversaries below, and the vigorous hostile
opinion of the New Hampshire judges. He was in possession of the thorough
argument emanating from the penetrating mind of Mr. Mason and fortified and
extended by the ample learning and judicial wisdom of Judge Smith. To the
work of his eminent associates he could add nothing more than one not very
important point, and a few cases which his far-ranging and retentive memory
supplied. All the notes, minutes, and arguments of Smith and Mason were in
his hands. It is only just to say that Mr. Webster tells all this himself,
and that he gives all credit to his colleagues, whose arguments he says "he
clumsily put together," and of which he adds that he could only be the
reciter. The faculty of obtaining and using the valuable work of other men,
one of the characteristic qualities of a high and commanding order of mind,
was even then strong in Mr. Webster. But in that bright period of early
manhood it was accompanied by a frank and generous acknowledgment of all
and more than all the intellectual aid he received from others. He truly
and properly awarded to Mason and Smith all the credit for the law and for
the legal points and theories set forth on their side, and modestly says
that he was merely the arranger and reciter of other men's thoughts. But
how much that arrangement and recitation meant! There were, perhaps, no
lawyers better fitted than Mason and Smith to examine a case and prepare an
argument enriched with everything that learning and sagacity could suggest.
But when Mr. Webster burst upon the court and the nation with this great
appeal, it was certain that there was no man in the land who could so
arrange arguments and facts, who could state them so powerfully and with
such a grand and fitting eloquence.

The legal part of the argument was printed in Farrar's report and also in
Wheaton's, after it had been carefully revised by Mr. Webster with the
arguments of his colleagues before him. This legal and constitutional
discussion shows plainly enough Mr. Webster's easy and firm grasp of facts
and principles, and his power of strong, effective, and lucid statement;
but it is in its very nature dry, cold, and lawyer-like. It gives no
conception of the glowing vehemence of the delivery, or of those omitted
portions of the speech which dealt with matters outside the domain of law,
and which were introduced by Mr. Webster with such telling and important
res