nceded the doctrine of Fletcher vs. Peck, that
the obligation of contracts clause "embraced all contracts relating to
private property, whether executed or executory, and whether between
individuals, between States, or between States and individuals," but,
he urged, "a distinction is to be taken between particular grants by
the Legislature of property or privileges to individuals for their own
benefit, and grants of power and authority to be exercised for public
purposes." Its public character, in short, left the College and its
holdings at the disposal of the Legislature.

Of the later proceedings, involving the appeal to Washington and the
argument before Marshall, early in March, 1818, tradition has made
Webster the central and compelling figure, and to the words which it
assigns him in closing his address before the Court has largely been
attributed the great legal triumph which presently followed. The story
is, at least, so well found that the chronicler of Dartmouth College vs.
Woodward who should venture to omit it must be a bold man indeed.

"The argument ended [runs the tale], Mr. Webster stood for some moments
silent before the Court, while every eye was fixed intently upon him. At
length, addressing the Chief Justice, he proceeded thus: 'This, sir, is
my case. It is the case... of every college in our land.... Sir, you may
destroy this little institution.... You may put it out. But if you do
so, you must carry through your work! You must extinguish, one after
another, all those greater lights of science, which, for more than a
century have thrown their radiance over our land. It is, Sir, as I have
said, a small college. And yet there are those who love it--'

"Here, the feelings which he had thus far succeeded in keeping down,
broke forth, his lips quivered; his firm cheeks trembled with emotion,
his eyes filled with tears.... The court-room during these two or three
minutes presented an extraordinary spectacle. Chief Justice Marshall,
with his tall and gaunt figure bent over, as if to catch the slightest
whisper, the deep furrows of his cheek expanded with emotion, and his
eyes suffused with tears; Mr. Justice Washington at his side, with small
and emaciated frame, and countenance more like marble than I ever saw on
any other human being.... There was not one among the strong-minded
men of that assembly who could think it unmanly to weep, when he saw
standing before him the man who had made such an argument