The Works of Daniel Webster, Volume 1Webster, Daniel
History
The Works of Daniel Webster, Volume 1
Webster, Daniel
United States -- Politics and government -- 1815-1861
It would exceed the limits of this sketch to allude in detail to all
the cases argued by Mr. Webster in the Supreme Court of the United
States; still less would it be practicable to trace him through his
labors in the State courts. We can barely mention a few of the more
considerable causes. The case of Gibbons and Ogden, in 1824, is one of
great celebrity. In this case the grant by the State of New York to
the assignees of Fulton, of an exclusive right to navigate the
rivers, harbors, and bays of New York by steam, was called in question,
and was decided to be unconstitutional, after having been maintained by
all the tribunals of that great and respectable State. The decision of
this great case turned upon the principle, that the grant of such a
monopoly of the right to enter a portion of the navigable waters of
the Union was an encroachment, by the State, upon the power "to
regulate commerce,"----a power reserved by the Constitution to Congress,
and in its nature exclusive. The cause was argued by Messrs. Webster
and Wirt for the plaintiffs, and by Messrs. Oakley and Emmett for the
defendants in error,--an array of talent worthy the magnitude of the
interests at stake. The decision of the court was against the monopoly.
Few cases in the annals of federal jurisprudence are of equal
importance; none, perhaps, was ever argued with greater ability. In the
course of his discussion, Mr. Webster said, with great felicity of
illustration, that, by the establishment of the Constitution, the
commerce of this whole country had become a _unit_, a form of
expression used with approbation by Chief Justice Marshall in
delivering the opinion of the court.
A very distinguished compliment was paid to Mr. Webster's argument in
this case, a quarter of a century after its delivery, by Mr. Justice
Wayne of the Supreme Court of the United States. On the occasion of Mr.
Webster's visit to the South, in the spring of 1847, he was received
with public honors, among other places, at Savannah. He was there
addressed by Judge Wayne on behalf of his fellow-citizens. In the course
of his remarks on that occasion, Judge Wayne alluded to Mr. Webster's
line of argument in this case in the following manner:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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