<p>"It is, Sir, as I have said, a small college. And yet there are those who love it!"</p>
<p>The story:</p>
<p>In Hanover, New Hampshire, his other triumphs pale beside Daniel Webster's defense of his alma mater in the Dartmouth College Case, 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 518 (1819). By his will, Eleazar Wheelock, Dartmouth's founder who died in 1779, passed the presidency of the college to his son, John. In 1815 the predominantly Federalist board of trustees, appointed under the provisions of the college's 1769 charter from the colonial governor, became involved in a dispute with John that led to his ouster, and he appealed to the state's Republican politicians for help. At first opportunity they passed laws packing the board with Republicans and changing the college into a university subject to supervision by the state. The old trustees contested the validity of the new laws in the state courts, where they lost.</p>
<p>On appeal to the Supreme Court, the principal question was whether the state had impaired the obligation of a contract, i.e., the college's 1769 charter, in violation of the contract clause of the Constitution. The case was argued before the Supreme Court in March 1818, with Webster and Joseph Hopkinson of Philadelphia presenting the argument for the college. When the Court convened in February 1819, Chief Justice Marshall delivered his opinion, holding that the new state laws violated the contract clause and were therefore invalid. Although subsequent decisions substantially limited the broad protection of contracts announced by Marshall, most historians agree that the decision played an important role in the early growth and prosperity of the American republic.</p>
<p>Today the case is remembered most for the eloquent and emotional plea that Webster added to his prepared peroration but omitted from the subsequently published text of his argument. Rufus Choate, in his eulogy of Webster delivered at Dartmouth College in 1853, first revealed to the world at large this dramatic event, as related to him by Chauncey A. Goodrich, professor of oratory at Yale, who was there. According to legend, Webster had apparently finished his argument. He stood silently before the Court for some moments, all eyes turned toward him. Then, addressing the Chief Justice, he began:(4)</p>
<pre><code>This, Sir, is my case! It is the case not merely of that humble institution, it is the case of every college in our Land! It is more! It is the case of every eleemosynary institution throughout our country -- .... It is more! It is, in some sense, the case of every man among us who has property of which he may be stripped, for the question is simply this: "Shall our State Legislatures be allowed to take that which is not their own, to turn it from its original use, and apply it to such ends and purposes as they in their discretion shall see fit!"
Sir, you may destroy this little institution; it is weak, it is in your hands! I know it is one of the lesser lights in the literary horizon of our country. You may put it out! But if you do so, you must carry through your work! You must extinguish, one after another, all those great lights of science which for more than a century have thrown their radiance over our land! It is, Sir, as I have said, a small college. And yet there are those who love it!
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<p>Here, according to Goodrich, Webster broke down. "His lips quivered; his firm cheeks trembled with emotion; his eyes were filled with tears; his voice choked; and he seemed struggling to the utmost, simply to gain that mastery over himself which might save him from an unmanly burst of feeling." Then, in a "few broken words of tenderness," he spoke of his love for Dartmouth and the difficulties of his early life. The Chief Justice's eyes, reported Goodrich, were "suffused with tears," and Justice Washington, at his side, wore "an eager, troubled look." Then, recovering "his composure and fixing his keen eye on the Chief Justice," Webster, "in that deep tone with which he sometimes thrilled the heart of an audience," exclaimed:</p>
<pre><code>Sir, I know not how others may feel [glancing at the opponents of the college before him], but for myself, when I see my Alma Mater 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, mi fili!"
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