Webster and a Small College

The story of how Daniel Webster wrung tears from the justices of the Supreme Court, even from toughminded John Marshall, as he closed his argument in the Dartmouth College case has become part of the Webster mythology. Its credibility is no longer important. Like the fictitious encounter with the devil, it lends a common touch to the image of an uncommon man. "It is, Sir, as I have said, a small college. And yet thereare those who love it!" He struggled visibly to regain his composure, so the story goes. Then, addressing the Chief Justice, he added the final emotional appeal: "Sir, I know not how others may feel, but for myself, when I see my almamater surrounded, like Caesar in the Senate house, by those who are reiterating stab upon stab, I would not for this right hand have her say to me, 'Et tu quoque, mifili!'"

If the words of the famous peroration are apocryphal, they are at least so much in character that Webster should have uttered them, if he did not. But did he? A bit of contemporary evidence has come to light that tends to verify the tone and the effect, if not the actual words.

Webster had delivered his argument on March 10, 1818, four days before the court term ended. The court sat that term in temporary quarters in the north wing of the Capitol, with accommodation for a relatively small number of spectators. Most of those present were lawyers, in Washington because they themselves were pleading cases before the court. One layman we know to have been present was the Reverend Chauncey A. Goodrich, youthful Professor of Rhetoric at Yale, who had made the journey to the capital to hear Webster speak. He was probably also an unofficial emissary from his own college, for if Dartmouth lost its case, so did Yale and Harvard and every other private institution in the land. It was Goodrich who described the scene and repeated the language Webster had used, but not until November 25, 1852, a month after Webster's death and almost 35 years after the event. He did it then in a letter to Rufus Choate, Dartmouth 1819, who was to eulogize the departed statesman at the next Commencement exercises. Choate used, with some rearrangement, the material Goodrich had supplied, and it first appeared in print on the front page 0f the New York Daily Times for July 30 1853.

The authenticity of the peroration has been studied with meticulous care by the late Professor John C. Sterling. (His book Daniel Webster and a Small College, was published by Dartmouth in 1965.) Sterling concludes, and the evidence is compelling that Goodrich did in fact take notes at the time of the argument, and that in his letter to Choate he is actually quoting from these notes. But the case still rests on the testimony of a single witness, revealed a third of a century after the event. Others who were present commented on Webster's eloquence, on the skill of his presentation, on the merits of his argument. Even those whose interest lay with the other side conceded his towering stature even as they belittled his cause but no one quoted his words.

The best corroboration of the Goodrich account yet to be discovered is at second hand but it comes with no delay in time from a highly reliable witness by way of an equally reliable reporter.

The reference is contained in a letter from Louis McLane, then Representative in Congress from Delaware, to his brotherin-law, John J. Milligan, dated March 15. 1818. The paragraph quoted below concludes a four-page letter discussing professional matters and events in Congress. William Wirt, arguing for the other side, was Attorney-General of the United States, a position that did not then preclude his engaging in private practice; Joseph Hopkinson, eminent Philadelphia lawyer and member of Congress, was Webster's co-counsel. The italics have been added.

"The Supreme Court adjourned yesterday," McLane wrote, "and Webster & Hopkinson have added a new polish to their fair fame. The city is full of nothing but their exertions in the case of the New Hampshire college, upon which occasion Wirt too lost no ground. I was not well enough to hear the argument, - and indeed I never regretted anything of the sort more. I heard Judge Marshall say that... he thought nothing could excelthe solidity, or the beauty of [Webster'sconclusion, which wrapped the whole courtin tears. But when Wirt came forth, tho' he did not impair the argument, he hid for a moment the beauties of Webster by the splendour of his own peculiar eloquence. But he said when Hopkinson concluded, they forgot all that had been said, and were lost in admiration of his wonderful genius. Wonderful it really is, and tho' in some respects I think Webster the greatest man, yet take him all in all, I never saw Hopkinson's equal in a clear, forcible, ingenious and at the same time beautiful argument. I consider the loss of this famous argument, a misfortune. Harper shed tears when herepeated to me a part of Webster's conclusion, and I am almost ready to do so, at my disappointment. The court have not decided."

John Marshall was not a man to im- agine or to misrepresent a courtroom scene. Neither was Robert Goodloe Harper, himself a distinguished and successful lawyer. McLane and the brother-in-law to whom the letter was addressed were of the same profession, trained to use language with precision. McLane would go on to serve as Minister to England, Secretary of the Treasury, and Secretary of State.

We have here ample corroborating evidence that Webster's argument did not in fact close with the lengthy Latin quotation from Cicero that terminates all of the published versions. Webster said something in addition - something that Chief Justice Marshall thought to be a thing of beauty, that had the justices of the Supreme Court openly weeping, that still brought tears to Harper's eyes when he reported it to McLane.

The words themselves, to be sure, are not quoted, but those recalled by Professor Goodrich might well have produced just these results. Perhaps that is authenticity enough.

"Harper shed tears," said alawyer, "and I am almostready to do so, at my disappointment."

Charles Wiltse is Professor Emeritus ofHistory and Editor of the Daniel WebsterPapers. The McLane letter from which thequotation is taken is in the possession ofMr. D. K. Este Fisher Jr. of Baltimore, aMcLane descendent. For a copy of itProfessor Wiltse thanks John H. Munroe,Professor of History, and Mr. John M.Dawson, Director of Libraries, at theUniversity of Delaware.