ults. He spoke for five hours, but in the printed report his speech
occupies only three pages more than that of Mr. Mason in the court below.
Both were slow speakers, and thus there is a great difference in time to be
accounted for, even after making every allowance for the peroration which
we have from another source, and for the wealth of legal and historical
illustration with which Mr. Webster amplified his presentation of the
question. "Something was left out," Mr. Webster says, and that something
which must have occupied in its delivery nearly an hour was the most
conspicuous example of the generalship by which Mr. Webster achieved
victory, and which was wholly apart from his law. This art of management
had already been displayed in the treatment of the cases made up for the
Circuit Courts, and in the elaborate and irrelevant legal discussion which
Mr. Webster introduced before the Supreme Court. But this management now
entered on a much higher stage, where it was destined to win victory, and
exhibited in a high degree tact and knowledge of men. Mr. Webster was fully
aware that he could rely, in any aspect of the case, upon the sympathy of
Marshall and Washington. He was equally certain of the unyielding
opposition of Duvall and Todd; the other three judges, Johnson, Livingston,
and Story, were known to be adverse to the college, but were possible
converts. The first point was to increase the sympathy of the Chief Justice
to an eager and even passionate support. Mr. Webster knew the chord to
strike, and he touched it with a master hand. This was the "something left
out," of which we know the general drift, and we can easily imagine the
effect. In the midst of all the legal and constitutional arguments,
relevant and irrelevant, even in the pathetic appeal which he used so well
in behalf of his Alma Mater, Mr. Webster boldly and yet skilfully
introduced the political view of the case. So delicately did he do it that
an attentive listener did not realize that he was straying from the field
of "mere reason" into that of political passion. Here no man could equal
him or help him, for here his eloquence had full scope, and on this he
relied to arouse Marshall, whom he thoroughly understood. In occasional
sentences he pictured his beloved college under the wise rule of
Federalists and of the Church. He depicted the party assault that was made
upon her. He showed the citadel of learning threatened with unholy invasion
and fal