In the months of June and December, 1816, the legislature of New Hampshire passed acts altering the charter of Dartmouth College (of which the name was changed to Dartmouth University), enlarging the number of the trustees, and generally reorganizing the corporation. These acts, although passed without the consent and against the protest of the Trustees of the College, went into operation. The newly created body took possession of the corporate property, and assumed the administration of the institution. The old board were all named as members of the new corporation, but declined acting as such, and brought an action against the treasurer of the new board for the books of record, the original charter, the common seal, and other corporate property of the College. The action was commenced in the Court of Common Pleas for Grafton County, in February, 1817, and carried immediately to the Superior Court, in May of the same year. The general issue was pleaded by the defendants and joined by the plaintiffs. The case turned upon the point, whether the acts of the legislature above referred to were binding upon the corporation without their assent, and not repugnant to the Constitution of the United States. It was first argued by Messrs. Jeremiah Mason and Jeremiah Smith for the plaintiffs, and by the Attorney-General of New Hampshire for the defendants; and subsequently by Messrs. Mason, Smith, and Webster for the plaintiffs, and the Attorney-General and Mr. L Bartlett for the defendants. At the November term it was decided by the Superior Court of New Hampshire, in an opinion delivered by Chief Justice Richardson, that the acts of the New Hampshire legislature were valid and constitutional. In giving his opinion on the case, the Chief Justice said: "The cause has been argued on both sides with uncommon learning and ability, and we have witnessed a display of talents and eloquence upon this occasion in the highest degree honorable to the profession of the law in this State."[6] The case thus decided in the Superior Court of New Hampshire in favor of the validity of the State laws, was carried by writ of error to the Supreme Court of the United States, where, on the 10th of March, 1818, it came on for argument before all the judges, Mr. Webster and Mr. (afterwards Judge) Hopkinson for the plaintiffs, and Mr. J. Holmes of Maine and the Attorney-General, Wirt, for the defendants in error. This was perhaps the first occasion in this country on which a question precisely of this kind had come up, and it is stated that, when one of the court had run his eye cursorily over the record, he said that he did not see how any thing important could be urged by the plaintiffs in error.