. Mr.
Webster does not reach that point of intense clearness and condensation
which characterized Marshall and Hamilton, in whose writings we are
fascinated by the beauty of the intellectual display, and are held fast by
each succeeding line, which always comes charged with fresh meaning.
Nevertheless, Mr. Webster touches a very high point in this most difficult
form of argument, 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 impairing the obligation of contracts covered future
as well as past contracts. He defended his position with astonishing
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 among the multitude with which he was
intrusted. We find them also in cases involving purely legal questions,
such as the Bank of the United States v. Primrose, and The Providence
Railroad Co. v. The City of Boston, accompanied always with that ready
command of learning which an extraordinary memory made easy. There seemed
to be no diminution of Mr. Webster's great 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 same high plane of
clear, impressive, effective reasoning as when he defended his Alma Mater.

Two causes, however, demand more than a passing mention,--the Girard will
case and the Rhode Island case. The former involved no constitutional
points. The suit was brought to break the will of Stephen Girard, and the
question was whether 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 method by which he could go boldly
outside the law, as he had done to a certain degree in the Dartmouth
College case, and substitute for argument an eloquent and impassioned
appeal to emotion and prejudice. Girard was a free-thinker, and he provided
in his will that no priest or minister of any denomination should be
admitted to his college. Assuming that this excluded all religious
teaching, Mr. Webster then laid down the proposition that no bequest or
gift could be charitable which excluded Christian teaching. In other words