AND THE SENTIMENT OF UNION 379 



rounded, like Caesar in the senate-house, by those who 

 are reiterating stab after stab, I would not for this 

 right hand have her turn to me and say, Et tu quoque, 

 mi fill ! And thou too, my son!" As he sat down, 

 said a gentleman who was present, " there was a death- 

 like stillness throughout the room for some moments ; 

 every one seemed to be slowly recovering himself, and 

 coming gradually back to his ordinary range of thought 

 and feeling." The decision of the court, rendered in 

 the following autumn, sustained Mr. Webster and set 

 aside the act of the legislature as unconstitutional. It 

 was one of those far-reaching decisions in which the 

 Supreme Court, under Marshall, fixed the interpretation 

 of the Constitution in such wise as to add greatly to 

 its potency as a fundamental instrument of government. 

 It was a case in which a contrary decision would 

 have altered the whole future of American law, and 

 would have modified our political and social develop- 

 ment in many ways. . The clause of our Constitution 

 prohibiting state legislation in impairment of contracts, 

 like most such general provisions, stood in need of 

 judicial decisions to determine its scope. By bringing 

 under the protection of this clause every charter 

 granted by a state, the decision in the Dartmouth 

 College case went farther perhaps than any other in 

 our history toward limiting state sovereignty and 

 extending the federal jurisdiction. 



This extension of federal power was, moreover, 

 entirely in the right direction. It was conservative, 

 pacific, and just in its tendencies. It is no part of the 

 legitimate business of government to help people in 

 business, whether under pretence of fostering domestic 

 industry, or what not ; but it is the legitimate business 



