Five years after the Dartmouth College decision, Mr. Webster made his famous argument in the case of Gibbons vs. Ogden. The case was called suddenly, and Mr. Webster prepared his argument in a single night of intense labor. The facts were all before him, but he showed a readiness in arrangement only equalled by its force. The question was whether the State of New York had a right under the Constitution to grant a monopoly of steam navigation in its waters to Fulton and Livingston. Mr. Webster contended that the acts making such a grant were unconstitutional, because the power of Congress to regulate commerce was, within certain limitations, exclusive. He won his cause, and the decision, from its importance, probably enhanced the contemporary estimate of his effort. The argument was badly reported, but it shows all its author's strongest qualities of close reasoning and effective statement. The point in issue was neither difficult nor obscure, and afforded no opportunity for a display of learning. It was purely a matter of constitutional interpretation, and could be discussed chiefly in a historical manner and from the standpoint of public interests. This was particularly fitted to Mr. Webster's cast of mind, and he did his subject full justice. It was pure argument on general principles. 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.