So delicately did he do it that an attentive listener did not realize that he was straying from the field of "mere reason" into that of political passion. Here no man could equal him or help him, for here his eloquence had full scope, and on this he relied to arouse Marshall, whom he thoroughly understood. In occasional sentences he pictured his beloved college under the wise rule of Federalists and of the Church. He depicted the party assault that was made upon her. He showed the citadel of learning threatened with unholy invasion and falling helplessly into the hands of Jacobins and freethinkers. As the tide of his resistless and solemn eloquence, mingled with his masterly argument, flowed on, we can imagine how the great Chief Justice roused like an old war-horse at the sound of the trumpet. The words of the speaker carried him back to the early years of the century, when, in the full flush of manhood, at the head of his court, the last stronghold of Federalism, the last bulwark of sound government, he had faced the power of the triumphant Democrats. Once more it was Marshall against Jefferson,--the judge against the President. Then he had preserved the ark of the Constitution. Then he had seen the angry waves of popular feeling breaking vainly at his feet. Now, in his old age, the conflict was revived. Jacobinism was raising its sacrilegious hand against the temples of learning, against the friends of order and good government. The joy of battle must have glowed once more in the old man's breast as he grasped anew his weapons and prepared with all the force of his indomitable will to raise yet another constitutional barrier across the path of his ancient enemies. We cannot but feel that Mr. Webster's lost passages, embodying this political appeal, did the work, and that the result was settled when the political passions of the Chief Justice were fairly aroused. Marshall would probably have brought about the decision by the sole force of his imperious will. But Mr. Webster did a good deal of effective work after the arguments were all finished, and no account of the case would be complete without a glance at the famous peroration with which he concluded his speech and in which he boldly flung aside all vestige of legal reasoning, and spoke directly to the passions and emotions of his hearers. When he had finished his argument he stood silent for some moments, until every eye was fixed upon him, then, addressing the Chief Justice, he said:-- This, sir, is my case. It is the case not merely of that humble institution, it is the case of every college in our land....