Far-reaching in its implication, also, was the second instance, when the Supreme Court held unconstitutional and void the acts of the New Hampshire legislature which amended the charter granted by the Crown to Dartmouth College in 1769. Arguing as counsel for the college, of which he was an honored graduate, Daniel Webster held that the charter of a private corporation was a contract which might not be impaired by an act of a state legislature. Chief Justice Marshall only restated and amplified Webster's argument, when he rendered the opinion of the court and declared that New Hampshire might not by law impair the charter of Dartmouth College. To the argument of the counsel for the Commonwealth, contending that the framers of the Constitution never contemplated such a broad use of the word "contract," Marshall replied that it was not enough to say this particular use of the word was not in the mind of the Convention when the article was adopted. "It is necessary to go farther, and to say that, had this particular case been suggested, the language would have been so varied as to exclude it, or it would have been made a special exception." The immense significance of this decision was not immediately apparent. The peculiar immunity which it gave to private property could not be appreciated until the rise of corporations with concentrated capital. Not even the Chief Justice foresaw that the guaranty of inviolability which he had thrown about a private educational corporation would be demanded with equal right by the great business corporations of the succeeding era. [Map: Highways of the United States about 1825]