"But admitting that charter to have been such a contract, what was the contract? Can it be construed to be a contract on the part of the king with the corporators, whom he appointed, and their successors, that they should forever have control of the affairs of this institution, and be forever free from all legislative interference, and that their number should never be augmented or diminished, however strongly the public interest might require it? Such a contract in relation to a public institution would, as we conceive, be absurd and repugnant to the principles of all government. The king had no power to make such a contract, and thus bind the sovereign authority on a subject of mere public concern. Nor does our legislature possess the power to make such a contract."

*

"A distinction is to be taken between particular grants, by the legislature, of property or privileges, to individuals for their own benefit, and grants of power and authority to be exercised for public purposes. The former is, in its nature, special legislation in relation to private rights; the latter, is general legislation in relation to the common interests of all. Chief Justice Marshall, in the case of Fletcher v. Peck, 6 Cranch, 135, adverts to this distinction, where he says: 'The correctness of this principle, that one legislature cannot abridge the powers of a succeeding legislature so far as respects general legislation, can never be controverted. But if an act be done under a law, a succeeding legislature cannot undo it. The past cannot be recalled by the most absolute power. Conveyances have been made; those conveyances have vested legal estates; and if these estates may be seized by the sovereign authority, still, that they originally vested is a fact, and cannot cease to be a fact.' We are, therefore, of opinion that if this charter can be construed to be a contract within the meaning of the constitution of the United States, yet still it contains no contract binding on the legislature, that the number of trustees shall not be augmented, and that the validity of the contract is not impaired by these acts."

Webster said of this opinion (letter to Story, Sept. 9, 1818),

"The truth is, the New Hampshire opinion is able, ingenious and plausible." But in general it has never received from others "scanty justice." If the state court erred, it did so aside from the point referred to, and a few authorities cited upon another, with all the light that could be thrown upon it. The private correspondence of the counsel shows, with the exceptions named, that nothing new, as a legal argument, was advanced at Washington. A comparison of the arguments before the two courts brings us to the same conclusion.

The counsel entered into the following stipulation, which went up with the special verdict: "It is agreed by the parties that, if the plaintiffs shall recover by the judgment of the Supreme Court of the United States, they shall accept the delivery of the articles mentioned in their declaration, in full satisfaction of the damages recovered. It is also agreed that no advantage shall be taken in the Supreme Court of the United States of any want of form in the proceedings, and that the counsel then may add any facts, documents or records to the special verdict, to be taken and deemed a part thereof, or expunge any fact therefrom which, in the opinion of the counsel or Supreme Court, may be necessary to the obtaining of a decision on the validity of the acts of the legislature of New Hampshire, recited in the special verdict; and that, if the said acts are adjudged to be valid, the judgment is to be affirmed, otherwise, reversed. It is also agreed by the plaintiffs' counsel, in order that the same question may come fairly before the court, that the demand, refusal and conversion stated in the special verdict, shall be considered as made and done on the day preceding the commencement of this suit."

Subscription papers were circulated, and Webster took up a heavy collection among the Boston merchants to defray the expenses of the further litigation. All the counsel retained their connection with the cause, but none on either side were so situated as to attend to it at Washington, except Webster. The trustees, the faculty and his associates, handed over the cause to him with power to procure such assistance as he desired. The other side, for some reason which nobody

seems to understand, was committed to John Holmes, of Maine, to whom Jefferson wrote his celebrated "fire-bell in the night" letter; to William Wirt and-at too late a dayto Pinkney.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

III. THE WORKS OF JOEL PRENTISS BISHOP.

3.

I. The Difficulties of Authorship. II. The Requisites of a Good Treatise on Law. III. The Classes of Books on Unwritten Law. IV. The Value of Treatises. V. The Works of Joel Prentiss Bishop-He has accomplished the following Results:-1. He has stated the Law correctly. 2. He has stated it on Legal Principle and Reason. He has established Legal Doctrines, as the Result of Adjudication, not stated by Judges or other Text Writers. 4. A large part of Bishop's Books consists of Legal Doctrine not found in those of prior Authors. 5. The New Matter introduced by Bishop is the Most Important of all. 6. Bishop's First Book of the Law. 7. Bishop on the Law of Married Women.

I. The Difficulties of Authorship.-There is perhaps no country where it is so difficult to write a really accurate and trustworthy elementary treatise on most branches of the law, as in the United States. In England there is but one general legislative body, the Parliament. There, the House of Lords is the highest court, and its decisions are law in all the judicial tribunals, irreversible except by the same high authority. There, the common law, comprising the great body of the law, is substantially a unit. There, no question can arise as to the constitutionality of an act of Parliament. There, indeed, is constitutional law, but no subordinate or conflicting constitutions. There, an elementary treatise on law, based on general, recognized principles, developed by judicial determination, may on most subjects present a uniform system.

But here, our written law is found in the national constitution; in treaties with foreign nations and the Indian tribes; in acts of Congress, general in their application to the high seas or the states of the Union-local in their application to the territories and the District of Columbia, to forts, magazines, arsenals, etc., purchased within the states; in thirty-six state constitutions, and statutes enacted by as many legislatures; in English statutes in force in most of the states, and in territorial statutes; besides the legislation of local municipal bodies.

Here, our unwritten law consists of international law; to a

limited extent for certain purposes, in a national common law; in the common law of the District of Columbia; in the common law of the several states and territories; in English statutes adopted by common consent as common law "so far as applicable to our circumstances and condition:" besides (if I may be allowed the expression) the common civil law which we inherited from the French Republic over a portion of the "Louisiana Purchase," and the Mexico-Spanish common law in Texas, New Mexico and California, to say nothing of the Russo-common law of Alaska. Added to all these, are our systems of equity, admiralty, military, martial and probate law, each having its written and unwritten rules, with appropriate tribunals for their administration. These systems of laws are developed in thousands of volumes, comprising the recorded usages of nations; the usages between our general government and the states and Indian tribes; the usages between the states and territories; the history, habits and usages of the people; and the decisions of courts of almost every conceivable jurisdiction, involving not only questions of principle, but questions of conflict between constitutions and statutes, between national and state authority, between written and unwritten law, and between different systems and tribunals. This is but a faint outline of the difficulties which an author encounters, who undertakes to write an elementary treatise on almost any branch of law. He must explore all these sources of the law, English and American, bring order out of chaos, and reduce into system, as a learned and practical science, that which is otherwise confusion. A writer on English law encounters all the difficulties presented by statutes and unwritten law, of all classes, and different tribunals having jurisdiction of them, with the ecclesiastical courts, and law growing out of the union of church and state, which latter do not exist in this country.

If the law were (1) a system of mere arbitrary rules, and if (2) these could by any possibility be made to meet the exigency of every case that could arise, and if (3) it were possible to anticipate all these, and find appropriate language to cover them, and (4) if circumstances never changed to render a rule