The American Union SpeakerPhilbrick, John D. (John Dudley)
General
The American Union Speaker
Philbrick, John D. (John Dudley)
Recitations
Heaven knows I do not at this time speak from motives of party heat. What I
deliver are the genuine sentiments of my heart. However superior to me, in
general knowledge and experience, the respectable body of this House may
be, yet I claim to know more of America than most of you, having seen that
country and been conversant with its affairs. The people, I believe, are as
truly loyal as any subjects the king has; but they are a people jealous of
their liberties, and who, if those liberties should ever be violated, will
vindicate them to the last drop of their blood.
Isaac Barré.
VIII.
WEBSTER'S PLEA FOR DARTMOUTH COLLEGE.
The Supreme Court of the United States held its session that winter in a
mean apartment of moderate size--the Capitol not having been built after
its destruction in 1814. The audience, when the case came on, was therefore
small, consisting chiefly of legal men, the élite of the profession
throughout the country. Mr. Webster entered upon his argument in the calm
tone of easy and dignified conversation. His matter was so completely at
his command that he scarcely looked at his brief, but went on for more than
four hours with a statement so luminous, and a chain of reasoning so easy
to be understood, and yet approaching so nearly to absolute demonstration,
that he seemed to carry with him every man of his audience without the
slightest effort or weariness on either side. It was hardly eloquence, in
the strict sense of the term; it was pure reason. Now and then, for a
sentence or two, his eye flashed and his voice swelled into a bolder note,
as he uttered some emphatic thought; but he instantly fell back into the
tone of earnest conversation, which ran throughout the great body of his
speech.
The argument ended. Mr. Webster stood for some moments silent before the
court, while every eye was fixed intently upon him. At length, addressing
the chief justice, Marshall, he proceeded thus:--
"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. It is more. It is
the case of every eleemosynary institution throughout the country,--of all
those great charities founded by the piety of our ancestors to alleviate
human misery; and scatter blessings along the pathway of life. It is more!
It is, in some sense, the case of every man among us who has property of
which he may be stripped; for the question is simply this: Shall our State
legislatures be allowed to take that which is not their own, to turn it
from its original use, and apply it to such ends or purposes as they, in
their discretion, shall see fit?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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