tal preoccupation of the inheritance by him in the life of the ancestor, or an established expectation of succeeding the ancestor in his rights of property; notwithstanding that the author elsewhere asserts, and apparently with good reason, that no expectation, prospect or hope of acquiring an object can avail to give any title to it. These and some other defects are, however, compensated by a great deal of profound and original thought.

It is perhaps unnecessary to add that according to this conception of the inviolability of rights, the government can never be authorized to destroy any right of the citizen, however trivial it may be. All that the government can do is to regulate the manner in which individuals shall exercise their rights, so as to be least injurious to others, and hence to promote the general welfare. Every individual has the right to resent and repel by force any intrusion into the sphere of his personal activity; but as it is cheaper, safer and more commodious to have this right exercised for him through the invincible agency of a government, he finds it to his advantage to pay taxes for the support of a government, and to commit to it the defence of his rights in the aggregate, as against both internal and external foes. But the duty and commission of the government consist only in the protection of the various rights thus confided to its keeping. The government may, in a case of emergency, cause the house of a citizen to be destroyed, as during war, or a conflagration, but it is the duty of the government to repay the loss which it thus occasions. This is not in consequence of any supposed need of equality in the imposition of public burdens; but it results from the fact that the government has no authority to destroy any individual right of any citizen. It may, for the common good, destroy his property, but his right will subsist in the form of a just claim against the government.

It may be conceded that under any system of positive law some cases of hardship must occur; that the duty of regulating the manner of the exercise of the rights of men cannot, in the nature of things, be so evenly performed but that in some instances it may be said that a particular citizen, in

some special conjunction of facts, will receive less of benefit than falls to the lot of the rest of the community, yet the principle of co-operation in defence of rights is so essential that it will always be found in such case that the person thus. apparently suffering is still far better off than he would be if he were left unaided to ascertain and assert his own rights against all the world; he is at least assured that no right of his shall be destroyed. The government cannot destroy his right, because the fundamental maxim that no one shall do an undeserved injury to another obliges the state, as well as the citizen. When the state takes the property of the citizen for public purposes, it preserves his right by making him an exact compensation; that is, it transforms, or regulates, hist right, for the general good; but as the money paid him for the property thus taken is the equivalent in value of what is taken, it cannot be said that his right is either impaired or destroyed.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark.

U. M. ROSE.

II. THE DARTMOUTH COLLEGE CAUSES AND THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES.

There were five of these causes. The first was "trespass on the case" brought by "the Trustees of Dartmouth College" in the common pleas against William H. Woodward, chief justice of that court for converting, etc., the "books and records in writing," "the original charter" and the "common seal of said college." The mandate was to attach the defendant's goods to the value of $50,000, or to arrest his body. The writ was dated February 8, 1817, and was served on February 10, 1817, by "attaching a chair," "valued at one dollar." The case was entered at the February term, 1817. By consent the cause was entered in the Superior Court— the highest court in the state-at the May term, 1817. This case is reported in 1 N. H. 111-138, and in 4 Wheat. 518-715 (4 Curtis' Decisions, 463-534). The case in both courts is also reported at length in a volume of about 400 pp. by Timothy Farrar, the son of one of the plaintiffs, the partner of Mr. Webster, and one of the counsel in the cause.

The second was the proceeding in the name of the State in which Judge Woodward was acquitted by the same jury that rendered the special verdict in the first case.

The third was a suit in ejectment (for $3,000), brought in the United States Circuit Court for New Hampshire by Horace Hatch of Norwich, Vermont, for a lot of land near the college. This writ was dated March 9, 1818. A special verdict, about twenty pages in length, was rendered at the October term, 1818, and the case went, upon a certificate of the division of opinion between the judges, to the Supreme Court of the United States.

The fourth was a similar suit of ejectment in the same court (for $2,000), brought by David Pierce of Woodstock, Vermont, ex dem. Job Lyman, on March 27, 1818, against Benjamin Gilbert of Hanover. The trustees of the college

were vouched in at the October term, 1818, and made defendants, and the cause went to the Supreme Court on a similar verdict.

The fifth was a similar suit, Marsh v. Allen et al., brought in the same court with a similar result.

The first two causes were brought in the state court; the others were instituted in the United States circuit court by the special direction of Mr. Webster. His reasons were twofold: The first suit was instituted not by him, but by Mills Olcott, one of the trustees; Webster came into it "at the eleventh hour." The writ of error in this case was brought as a "forlorn hope." It raised but "a single point," whether the legislative acts impaired the obligation of contracts. Upon the whole case-we use that term advisedly-Webster had little faith in that point. Webster was not a learned man, much less a learned lawyer. He was a great man; a sort of half justice has been done to his purely intellectual gifts. A century hence ample justice may be done them. Few gave him credit for tact and management, but no American equalled him in his knowledge of men, and his power to overawe and persuade judges as well as other men. No skilled performer ever handled the keys of his instrument with anything like the consummate skill and art with which Webster, when hard pressed, played upon the prejudices, passions and sympathies, as well as the understanding of men. He turned genealogy into a system of philosophy. He knew Judge Marshall, his court, their prejudices and their antecedents. His conviction was that Marshall would set aside these acts, upon the ground taken by Mason in his argument at Exeter, that they were "not within the general scope of legislative power," if that point could be got before the court.

The first reason Mr. Webster confided to those who were close to his heart, like Choate. Webster, in his letter of December 8, 1817, to Judge Smith, says: "It is our misfortune that our cause goes to Washington on a single point. I wish we had it in such shape as to raise all the other objections, as well as the repugnancy of these acts to the constitution of the United States. I have been thinking whether

it would not be advisable to bring a suit, if we can get such parties as will give jurisdiction, in the circuit court of New Hampshire. I have thought of this the more from hearing of sundry sayings of a great personage [Marshall]. Suppose the corporation of Dartmouth College should lease to some man of Vermont (e. g. C. Marsh), one of their New Hampshire farms, and that the lessee should bring ejectment for it. Or suppose the trustees of Dartmouth College should bring ejectment in the circuit court for some of the Wheelock lands. In either of these modes the whole question might get before the court at Washington."

In his letter of April 28, 1818, to Mason, he says: "The question which we must raise in one of these actions is, whether by the general principles of our governments the state legislatures be not restrained from divesting vested rights? this, of course, independent of the constitutional provision respecting contracts. On this question I have great confidence in a decision on the right side. This is the proposition with which you began your argument at Exeter, and which I endeavored to state from your minutes at Washington. The particular provisions in the New Hampshire constitution no doubt strengthen this general proposition in our case; but, on general principles, I am very confident the court at Washington would be with us. If so, then nothing will remain but this: Are the powers, privileges, or authorities of the trustees under this charter, rights within the meaning of the proposition? Are they franchises, liberties or privileges, such as the law protects, or are they merely disinterested duties or official services?' I cannot state this. question very accurately, but this is the general idea. If we get up one of these cases in due form, we shall defeat our adversaries."

It is to be observed that the last letter was written nearly two months after Mr. Webster had made his celebrated effort at Washington in Judge Woodward's case.

The practical results of that judgment exhibit in a striking. light the shortsightedness of men. That decision was invoked by one of the warring factions in the board of trustees