ARGUMENT OF HORACE BINNEY, ESQ., IN THE CASE OF VIDAL v. THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES. FEBRUARY, 1844. PHILADELPHIA: C. SHERMAN, PRINTER, 19 ST. JAMES STREET. 1844. THE general importance of the main question in Vidal v. The City of Philadelphia, may account for the fulness of the arguments of all the counsel who were heard upon the re-argument, and especially of that of the opening counsel for the City, which follows. The interests at stake in the State of Pennsylvania, in various trusts for charitable uses, can hardly be considered as secondary in magnitude, and they certainly are not in importance, to the trust under Mr. Girard's Will; and to extricate the latter from the objections made against it, upon any narrow ground, without defending, upon more comprehensive principles, the whole body of trusts for religious, charitable, and literary purposes, the blessing, honour, and glory of any people, might have involved a lasting evil to the community. It is known that a leading decision by the Supreme Court of the United States, in the year 1819, had led to the almost total overthrow of charitable uses in the States of Maryland and Virginia. It was worthy of any labour to counteract the further influence of that decision, by showing that in a great degree it proceeded from imperfect information, and the inaccurate dictum of an English chancellor, in regard to the original jurisdiction of Chancery over the subject of charitable uses. A like mistake as to the design of an Act of Assembly of Pennsylvania in 1731, menaced this State with similar consequences. To correct both the errors, which were historical in their character, required a history of the law both in Pennsylvania and in England; and this, if performed in a slight or perfunctory manner, was not likely to be of any decisive influence. The authorities were therefore stated to the Court much more copiously than is in general necessary; and they are repeated in the same way in this pamphlet, for professional reference. Until the close of the opening argument for the defendants, the case of the Incorporated Society v. Richards in 1 Drury & Warren, was unknown to the defendants' counsel. Mr. Justice Story was then so obliging as to obtain the volume from the law library of Harvard College, and to allow them the opportunity of reading the case. Though an earlier knowledge of it, would have abridged the labour of preparation, it was highly satisfactory to perceive, that as far as the course of research in the two cases had been coincident, the argument for the defendants had the entire sanction of Lord Chancellor Sugden. |