The recommendations of the governor became a law; the name of the College was changed to University; the number of the trustees was increased to twenty-one; a board of overseers was created, to be appointed by the governor and council; the president and professors of the university were required to take an oath to support the constitution of the United States, and of the state of New Hampshire; and the act provided that "perfect freedom of religious opinion should be enjoyed by all the students and officers of the university." The committee to whom the message, etc., relating to this subject were referred, did not undertake to decide in favor of either party to the controversy, but alleged that the troubles arose from certain defects in the charter, and that they would recur again in some form, unless those defects were remedied.

The case of Prof. Hale, who was ousted some thirty years after on account of his Episcopalian tendencies, under a charter granted by an Episcopalian governor, would seem to show that this committee had a prophetic eye. The debates upon the historical and constitutional questions involved were able. The minority were ably led, both inside and outside the legislature, but parliamentary tactics availed them nothing. Many of them joined in a written protest against the passage of the bill, the substance of which has already appeared in the action of the trustees. On August 28, 1816, a majority of the old trustees formally refused to accept the provisions of the act.

A meeting of the trustees of the university, under the act of June 27, 1816, was called, but through the illness of a single member, failed for want of a quorum. The judges of the superior court, on December 5, 1816, in answer to the governor and council, gave their opinion that the executive department had no authority to fill the vacancies which had occurred. To remedy this, the legislature, on December 18, 1816, passed an additional act providing for filling the vacancies, the calling of meetings and fixing a quorum; and on December 26, 1816, passed another act imposing the penalty of $500 upon any person who should assume the office of

president, etc., except by virtue of the preceding acts. The governor and council had previously put the following question to the judges of the superior court of the state: "Whether the legislature of this state has authority to amend the charters or acts of incorporation of literary corporations, by increasing the number of trustees, adding boards of overseers, and prescribing modes of visitation." On December 5, 1816, Ch. J. Richardson and Judge Bell refused to answer this question, upon the ground "that the constitution of this state did not contemplate that the opinion of the justices of the superior court should be required upon a mere question of right between the legislature and individuals;" and added that they felt it to be their duty "not to form any opinion."

Judge Woodward had been the secretary and long the treasurer of the college. There was no whisper against him, but he was the fast friend of Wheelock.

On August 27, 1816, the trustees removed him from the office of secretary; on September 27, 1816, he was removed from the office of treasurer. The university was duly organized under the acts, on February 4, 1817. Judge Woodward was reinstated, and Dr. Wheelock as president of the university; but Professor Allen, the son-in-law of Wheelock, was made acting president until the restoration of Wheelock's. health. On April 4, 1817, Dr. Wheelock died, having bestowed upon the university by his last will, property amounting to forty thousand dollars. This summary brings us to

1. The Legal History of these Causes.-The old trustees, in their memorial to the legislature, in 1804, asserted that "they had no other interest than the members of the legislature them-selves;" and in another to the same body declared that they were "mere stake-holders for the public." Probably for this reason, though the leading trustees had ample wealth, while the college practically had none, they took no steps by spending their own money to test these acts. But when they were in session in 1816, John B. Wheeler of Orford, a farmer and country merchant, said to one of the professors, an old friend, "If the trustees intend to test their rights by a suit at law, and

should want means, I have a thousand dollars at their command." The offer was at once transmitted to, and accepted by, the board. Judge Marsh termed it "a light breaking upon blank darkness." The late Professor Adams said, "If it had not been for this unsolicited, unsuspected, unthought-of aid, the great case of Dartmouth College would not have been commenced." Adams was the one to whom Thompson wrote his famous letter (already referred to) relating to his long conversation with Webster, dated July 15, 1815. Henceforth the struggle was between the college and the university, or, to be exact, between the old trustees and the state.

An agreed statement of facts in the first case was drawn up by Judge Farrar, which was signed by the counsel, and afterwards turned into a special verdict. This term of the superior court ended May 24, 1817. Before its close, the cause was ably argued by Smith and Mason for the trustees, and by George Sullivan, the attorney-general, and Ichabod Bartlett, for the state. The cause was continued to the September term, 1817, at Exeter, in Rockingham county, for further argument, as the counsel for the trustees were unprepared to reply as fully as they desired.

The intellectual gifts of the court and counsel were worthy of the greatness of the cause. As but two of them had a national reputation, a brief sketch may not be out of place. The court consisted of William Merchant Richardson, Samuel Bell and Levi Woodbury.

Chief Justice Richardson was forty-four years old. He was a graduate of Harvard, a member of Congress from Massachusetts in 1812, and was subsequently re-elected, but, being averse to political life, resigned and removed to Portsmouth, in his native state, in 1814. From his appointment in 1816, till his death in 1838, he was Chief Justice of the highest court. Physically he was as imposing as he was great intellectually. Like Marshall's, his eyes were black, piercing and brilliant; like Marshall's, his hair was black as a raven's wing; and like Marshall, he had refined and simple tastes; but unlike Marshall, he had a full, high and broad forehead. In learning and industry he ranked with

Chief Justice Parsons. He was a great and honest judge. Some judges owe much of their eminence to their subtlety in judicial fence-a species of cuttle-fish logic. They succeed by darkening. It is oftentimes hard to answer, because difficult to understand them. This great attribute, though not a great judicial quality, Richardson lacked. His reasoning and his heart alike were as open and ingenuous as the light of day. He was reverenced by the people of the state as no other judge ever was.

Judge Bell was forty-seven years old. His was a family famous for their talent. He was the father of the late Chief Justice Bell; trustee of Dartmouth college (of which he was a graduate,) from 1808 to 1811; judge from 1816 to 1819; governor from 1819 to 1823, and United States senator from 1823 to 1835. He was a man of immense erudition and great business capacity; a thorough lawyer, and possessed of great moral courage.

Judge Woodbury was twenty-eight years old. He was a graduate of Dartmouth; was judge from 1817 to 1819; governor in 1823; United States senator from 1825 to 1831; secretary of the navy under Jackson from 1831 to 1834; secretary of the treasury from 1834 to 1841, under Jackson and Van Buren, and then declined the office of chief justice of New Hampshire. He was again senator in Congress from 1841 to 1845, when he was appointed by President Polk one of the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, which office he held until his death in 1851. The probabilities are very strong that he would have been president in the place of General Pierce had his life been spared. Of Judge Woodbury, Webster in his letter to Judge Story of January 4, 1824, said, speaking of two appointments that might be made to that bench, "There is no doubt that Judge Woodbury would be one, and he is as sound a man as I know of.” Richardson was a Federalist; Bell and Woodbury were both Anti-Federalists. Mason, a competent judge, if ever any man was, said of these judges, that "three more men so well qualified as the present judges, and who would accept the office, could not be found in the state." Mason, Smith and

Webster argued the cause for the trustees, and Sullivan and Bartlett for the state. These were all members of the Rockingham bar, when it was literally "an arena of giants." Of this bar Judge Story said that it had "vast law learning and prodigious intellectual power." At the circuit court for New Hampshire, October, 1812, Judge Story made the following orders: "Whereas, the court have a full knowledge of the learning, integrity and ability of the Honorable Jeremiah Smith and the Honorable Jeremiah Mason, and upon the most entire confidence therein, and being willing to express this opinion in the most public manner as well as a testimony to their merits, as also a laudable example to the junior members of the bar; and the court having taken the premises into their mature deliberation, of their own mere motion and pleasure, have ordered and do hereby order, that the honorable degree of serjeant-at-law be and hereby is conferred upon them, the said Jeremiah Smith and Jeremiah Mason, and the court do further order that they be respected as such by all the officers of this court. and all others whom the same may concern, and that this order be entered among the records of the court." "The court, on mature deliberation, do order that the degree of barrister-at-law be and hereby is conferred on the following gentlemen, who are counsellors of this court, viz: Oliver Peabody, Daniel Humphreys, George Sullivan, and Daniel Webster, esquires; in testimony of the entire respect the court entertain for their learning, integrity and ability; and the court further order that this order be entered among the records of the court." At the time of the argument, Smith was fifty-eight years old; Mason, fifty; Sullivan, forty-three; Webster, thirty-five, and Bartlett, thirty-one. Mason was from Connecticut, but read law and commenced practice in Vermont. He was six feet and seven inches in height, and proportionately large in other respects. His intellectual exceeded his physical stature. Webster, with a thorough knowledge of the man, deliberately wrote down that as a lawyer, as a jurist, no man in the Union equalled Mason,• and but one approached him; and a quarter of a century