additional members being given to the Governor, and
a board of overseers, also largely of gubernatorial appointment, was
created to supervise all important acts of the trustees.

The friends of the College at once denounced the measure as void under
both the State and the United States Constitution and soon made up a
test case. In order to obtain the college seal, charter, and records,
a mandate was issued early in 1817 by a local court to attach goods, to
the value of $50,000, belonging to William H. Woodward, the Secretary
and Treasurer of the "University." This was served by attaching a chair
"valued at one dollar." The story is also related that authorities of
the College, apprehending an argument that the institution had already
forfeited its charter on account of having ceased to minister to
Indians, sent across into Canada for some of the aborigines, and that
three were brought down the river to receive matriculation, but becoming
panic-stricken as they neared the town, leaped into the water, swam
ashore, and disappeared in the forest. Unfortunately this interesting
tale has been seriously questioned.

The attorneys of the College before the Superior Court were Jeremiah
Mason, one of the best lawyers of the day, Jeremiah Smith, a former
Chief Justice of New Hampshire, and Daniel Webster. These three able
lawyers argued that the amending act exceeded "the rightful ends of
legislative power," violated the principle of the separation of powers,
and deprived the trustees of their "privileges and immunities" contrary
to the "law of the land" clause of the State Constitution, and impaired
the obligation of contracts. The last contention stirred Woodward's
attorneys, Bartlett and Sullivan, to ridicule. "By the same reasoning,"
said the latter, "every law must be considered in the nature of
a contract, until the Legislature would find themselves in such a
labyrinth of contracts, with the United States Constitution over their
heads, that not a subject would be left within their jurisdiction"; the
argument was an expedient of desperation, he said, a "last straw." The
principal contention advanced in behalf of the Act was that the College
was "a public corporation," whose "various powers, capacities, and
franchises all... were to be exercised for the benefit of the public,"
and were therefore subject to public control. And the Court, in
sustaining the Act, rested its decision on the same ground. Chief
Justice Richardson co