Thomas Addis Emmet.
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assembled when the four eminent counsel argument of Wirt, which aimed to shade took seats, after all below the Bench had in logic with style. The episodes and the standing greeted the full Bench, for the closing paragraphs in the arguments of popular interest in the great legal battle each combatant glow with fancy and illus had then become climacteric. The scene tration. when the argument opened would have Webster's constitutional views won upon formed on canvas a rare historical picture, Marshall's massive intellect, and he deliv with the strong Washingtonian countenance ered an opinion that has long been monu of Chief-Justice Marshall in the foreground, mental in jurisprudential regions, holding and with the eagle-eyed Webster, whose with Justice Johnson, who also prepared an laurels of the great Dartmouth College case opinion that is only a foil to that one by still adorned his Jove-like forehead; with the Chief Justice. The Court decided that the grant by the New York legislature was the handsome and graceful Attorney-Gen eral Wirt, wearing literary honors as author unconstitutional and void, and that Gibbons, of " The British Spy," and the biography of the appellant, had by virtue of his Federal Patrick Henry, and also professional fame license, and by the operation of the Federal first won in the Burr treason trial; with Constitution, the freest right to navigate the Thomas J. Oakley, a facial combination of New York and all other waters. The opin hawk and owl; and with the Milesian bear ion was the first strong national blow judi ing of Emmet, all as middle figures in the cially delivered at the potency of States, picture. The report of the argument and rights when in conflict with Federal author of the opinions of Marshall and Johnson, ity. that begin the ninth volume of Wheaton's Although unsuccessful, Mr. Emmet's Reports, constitutes the longest entry on the legal prestige was improved, and for three reports of the Court up to that date, and years longer he maintained supremacy at spreads over a score of pages. Mr. Web the Washington and Eastern bars. In the ster's argument is a marvel of arrangement, autumn of 1827 his fee-book showed him in and constitutes a very ladder of logic, each receipt of the annual income of fifteen thou round leading to the next, until these finally sand dollars, equivalent in purchasing power reach an apex of eloquent defense of the to double that amount now-a-days. Federal Constitution as possessing supreme On November 1 2 of that year he entered jurisdiction over the navigable waters and a New York court-room apparently in full commerce of the United States. It was not health and spirits, to conduct a trial, but ornate, he was leaving that to Wirt, but he suddenly his transcribing pen fell from his held up his client's license to traverse Fed hand, for — as an eloquent medical lecturer eral waters as the paramount factor in the once observed to his students — "beside controversy. Oakley followed with plau every worker with his brain walks in close sible pleas for coincidence of State sover company an unseen spirit armed with a eignty with Federal safeguards. Emmet javelin, ready at any moment to strike, and succeeded him, leaving Wirt to answer their the popular name of that attendant spirit joint argument. Emmet's address, after a is ' apoplexy.' " The metaphorical stroke reader has grasped Webster's exposition of reached Emmet, while Court, Bar and audi the controlling power of the Federal Con tors became absorbed in the most anxious stitution, reads speciously, but the reader interest for the fate of the eminent citizen cannot fail to extol its admirable rhetoric with seven years of the Biblical span of life and classic style. It will impress the stu yet spared to him; but on the following night dent as even more ornate than the closing he expired. The notes of testimony which
