to the Legislature. In answer to that appeal from the college, the Legislature appointed a committee of visitation. The committee in its work was at first acceptable to both the president and trustees. Later the trustees deposed President Wheelock from his office. It was not until these events transpired that Governor Plumer, having advised with Mr. Jefferson, determined to secure the interference of the State in the affairs of the college. An act was passed by the Legislature to amend the charter of Dartmouth College, and to enlarge and improve the Corporation, changing the corporate name to that of Dartmouth University. The trustees at once tested the constitutionality of the act before the Supreme Court of the State.

They brought the case against Woodward, formerly the treasurer of the college, now the treasurer of the university, and in this form the case went to the State court and from the State court to the Supreme Court of the United States. I wish to repeat in this presence the fact that although the State of New Hampshire instituted proceedings affecting the charter of the college, the moral initiative came from the college. And from thence the appeal was taken to the Supreme Court of the United States.

One more fact, about which you may, or may not, agree with me. Notwithstanding the circumstances which surrounded the case, and gave it, as the toastmaster has said, its high dramatic character, it seems to me that if you could have changed in many ways the setting of the case, if you could have changed the part which many took in connection with it, still the case would have almost inevitably reached the same conclusion. I give due credit to the indefatigable enterprise and wise diplomacy of President Brown, to the great sagacity of Jeremiah Mason

and Jeremiah Smith, to the logic and emotion of Mr. Webster in placing the case before the Supreme Court, but I am still convinced that if you throw aside all these surroundings, if you could have given to the college case a weaker presentation, it would still have received by the hand of John Marshall, who dominated the case, the same decision which it did receive at his hands; for the time had inevitably come when any such case as that must call out such an interpretation of the Constitution as was given.

The question which was uppermost at the outset was that of the public and private character of Dartmouth College. It was difficult to distinguish between Moore's Charity school and Dartmouth College. I have never been able to determine exactly how it was that the old Indian school brought to Hanover by Eleazar Wheelock passed into Dartmouth College. Certain it is that of the funds given for the establishment and perpetuation of an Indian school not one dollar to-day remains in any form for the education of Indians. Dartmouth College, out of sentiment for the past, always remembers such a one, giving him tuition and board. Out of all the traditions, however, which have survived, nothing remains to-day which bears the value of a single dollar. Therefore there must have been some confusion at that time as to whether the college was a public or a private corporation in the eye of the law. That, however, was an immaterial question. The material question soon became whether the charter was or was not a contract. Marshall evidently held such a conception of the Constitution, that the decision of this question was predetermined. It seems probable that this decision would have been formulated however weak the case might have been which brought it to the attention

of the Chief Justice. When this case was decided, it accorded with decisions which affected the State of Maryland as well as the State of New Hampshire. It was the interpretation it gave which carried other States along with it. We had come to the time when men agreeing with John Adams and his school would have given one interpretation, and when men agreeing with Thomas Jefferson would have given another.

John Marshall decided the Dartmouth College case in keeping with that interpretation of the Constitution which from first to last was dominant in his mind. When the case reached this high issue, both the State and the college accepted it in good faith, and yet each learned, I think, a lesson from it. Certainly the college has learned the lesson, that it belongs to the State, and exists for the State in all its higher interests, and the State has learned more and more that it can do no better for itself than to build up education on the broad basis which the college affords as preserved in its original integrity.

You will pardon me, gentlemen, one word as I close. It is a word I think you will allow me to say in honest pride. It has been the singular fortune of Dartmouth College, not only in the personality of its graduates, but in its own corporate personality, to walk among the high places of men. Before it had found a shelter for its own home, it had free access to the Royal Chamber of Great Britain, and bore back for its name a name held in equal honor in the mother country and in the colonies. After the War of the Revolution, it was introduced by a great representative into the Supreme Court of the United States, where in its own corporate personality it stood unabashed and awaited the verdict which was to decide its destiny. Dartmouth College stands a debtor to men

of high distinction and to many unknown men, but among all men to whom it owes a debt of gratitude, I know of none to whom it owes a deeper debt of gratitude than to John Marshall, whose voice proclaimed throughout the length and breadth of the land in unanswerable terms, the security, the freedom, and the enduring life of Dartmouth College.

Mr. Charles H. Burns, speaking of Marshall as "The Chief Justice," in the course of his remarks said:

The chief wealth of civilized nations is the great and noble men and women they produce. The memory and the record of the lives of such people are inheritances of surpassing and enduring value. They are legacies that do not depreciate in the lapse of time. If it were possible to find a country that could not point to any truly great characters it had produced, it would have but little attraction for the human race. Whatever of material wealth it might contain would be transplanted to climes more fortunate in producing high talent and exalted char

The decisions of Chief Justice Marshall, which are many and varied, comprehending almost the entire sweep of the Constitution, have become no less famous and will be no less enduring than the instrument itself. Mr. Phelps has admirably said: "Time has demonstrated their wisdom. They have remained unchanged, unquestioned, unchallenged. All the subsequent labors of that high tribunal on the subject of constitutional law have been founded on, and have at least professed and attempted to follow, them. There they remain. They will always remain. They will stand as long as the Constitution stands; and if that should perish, they would still remain to display

to the world the principles upon which it rose, and by the disregard of which it fell."

Marshall was not only a commanding spirit in the legislative assemblies of Virginia, but was acknowledged to be the ablest constitutional lawyer in Congress, while he was a member of that body. He at once stepped to the front, and when he had discussed any measure his treatment was so exhaustive and conclusive that it was seldom, if ever, attacked.

That he was a diplomat of great wisdom, and learned in the law of nations, is established beyond all question by the State papers, of which he was the author, and which now form a part of the treasures of the government.

I know of no character whose career as a lawyer can be studied with greater profit by the younger members of the bar than that of John Marshall. He possessed all of the characteristics requisite to professional success-industry, integrity, perseverance, attention to details, persuasive powers, and a comprehensive knowledge of the law.

Of Marshall as "The Statesman," Mr. Oliver E. Branch said, in part:

The period which included the official, civil career of John Marshall was, in many ways, the most critical in the history of the American people. The seven years of the Revolution were, indeed, full of perils to the high hopes and splendid dreams of the fierce sons of freedom; and in that desperate conflict it often seemed as though the cause of the colonies was moving to imminent and disastrous collapse. And yet, in the darkest night of defeat, and above the murky clouds of disaster, which so