The same general remarks are applicable to his argument in the case of Ogden against Saunders, in 1827, which we notice now, out of the regular series of events, in order to finish at once the little we can say of his professional career as a lawyer. The case to which we now refer, involved the question of the constitutionality of state insolvent laws, when they purported to absolve the party from the obligation of the _contract_, as well as from personal _imprisonment_, on execution. In a legal and constitutional point of view, this has always been thought one of Mr. Webster's ablest and most convincing arguments. With the court he was only half successful; there being a remarkable diversity of opinion among the judges. But, taken in connexion with the opinion of Chief Justice Marshall, delivered in the case, with which Mr. Webster's argument coincides, both in reasoning and in conclusion, it seems absolutely to have exhausted the whole range of the discussion on that side, and to furnish all that future inquirers can need to master the question. But, during the years we have just passed over, Mr. Webster's success was not confined to the bar. In the year 1820-21, a convention of delegates was assembled in Boston, to revise the constitution of Massachusetts. As it was one of those primary assemblies, where no office disqualifies from membership, and as the occasion was one of the rarest importance, the talent and wisdom, the fortunes and authority of that commonwealth were, to a singular degree, collected in it. The venerable John Adams, then above eighty-five years old, represented his native village; Mr. Justice Story, of the Supreme Court of the United States, was a delegate from Salem; Judge Davis, of the District Court of the United States, and the greater part of the judicial officers of the state were there, as well as a large number of the leading members of the Massachusett's bar, and a still larger number of its wealthiest or most prominent land-holders and merchants. No assembly of equal dignity and talent was ever collected in that commonwealth. Mr. Webster was one of the delegates from Boston. What influence he exerted, or how beneficial, or how extensive it was, can be entirely known only there where it was put forth. But, if we may judge from the important committees on which he served; the prominent interests and individuals his duty called him occasionally to defend, to encounter, and to oppose; and the business-like air of his short remarks, which are scattered up and down through the whole volume of the "Journal of Debates and Proceedings" of this convention, published soon afterwards, we should be led to believe, that, though he was then but a newly adopted child of Massachusetts, he had already gained a degree of confidence, respect and authority, to which few in that ancient commonwealth could lay claim. The fruits of it all, in the present volume, are, a short speech on