Two causes in the Circuit Court of the United States, in the days of Chief Justice Marshall, are especially remembered as being the themes of his most admired arguments, and in which he overcame the preconceived opinions of the great Judge, though impressed and supported by the acknowledged abilities, learning and persuasiveness of Gaston. These were the cases of _Whitaker_ vs. _Freeman_, an action for libel in twenty-five different counts, and _Lattimer_ vs. _Poteat_, one of a series of cases in ejectment, to recover immense bodies of land in the western counties, claimed by the citizens of Northern States under purchases from speculators who, it was alleged, had made their entries and procured grants before the extinction of the title of the Cherokee Indians, in violation of law; the defendants claiming under grants from the State made after the admitted cession of the Indian title; and Mr. Badger was retained by the State to defend their interests. This latter case, involving the relations of North Carolina while a separate sovereignty, and afterwards of the United States with the Cherokee Indians, as regulated by sundry treaties, the location of several lines of partition between them and the whites, but removed further and further west as the population of the superior race increased and emigration advanced, surveys partially or wholly made to establish these lines through a mountainous, and in many parts, an impervious country, imputed frauds in transgressing those lines and entries without actual survey, was of exceeding volume and complication in its facts, and occupied a week in the trial. The argument, running through four days, was said to be the most elaborate on both sides ever made in the State in a jury trial. It resulted in a verdict and judgment for the defendants, which was afterwards affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States. After the trial, Judge Marshall, in the simplicity and candor of his great character, observed to the then Governor of the State, "At the close of Mr. Gaston's opening argument, I thought he had as good a case as I ever saw put to a jury, but Mr. Badger had not spoken two hours before he satisfied me that no one of his [Gaston's] positions could be maintained." To this instance of _laudatus a laudato viro_ I deem it not improper to add a few others from sources only less eminent: Chief Justice Henderson declared in my presence that "To take up a string of cases, run through them, extract the principle contained in each, and discriminate the points in which they differed from each other, or from the case in hand, I have never seen a man equal to George Badger."