176 
Indiana University Studies 
important cases before the Supreme Court, 98 and declined 
an appointment by Adams as justice of the Supreme Court. 
He was the son of a Baptist clergyman and was born in the 
Slashes, Hanover County, Va. In succession he was clerk in 
the High Court of Chancery of Richmond, practitioner at 
Lexington, Ky., in the Kentucky constitutional convention and 
the lower house of Kentucky, congressman, secretary of state 
under Adams, and United States senator (1831-1842, 1849- 
1852). He defended Aaron Burr, prevented the overthrow 
of the common law in Kentucky, tried to prohibit slavery in 
Kentucky, and was one of the negotiators of the Treaty of 
Ghent. m 
Webster (1782-1852). 99 Daniel Webster has the reputation 
of being the greatest orator the United States has produced. 
He was perhaps one of the two greatest constitutional 
lawyers of the United States, and many of the arguments used 
by Marshall were first made by Webster. He was born in 
Salisbury, now Franklin, N.H., ; graduated from Dartmouth 
in 1801 ; was admitted to the bar in 1805 ; practiced law in 
Boscawen till his father’s death and then in Portsmouth, 
and achieved distinction; represented New Hampshire in Con- 
gress from 1812 to 1817 ; in 1817 removed to Boston and 
entered upon the largest practice in the United States ; repre- 
sented Massachusetts in Congress from 1822 to 1826 and in 
the Senate from 1827 to 1841 ; was secretary of state in 1841 
(Harrison), but after negotiating the Ashburton Treaty re- 
turned to practice; and was again in the Senate from 1845 
to 1850. In the Dartmouth College Case 100 he argued that 
a charter is a contract and that the “law of the land” does 
not mean any law the legislature may pass. In McCullough 
v. Maryland 100 he argued that the power to tax is the power 
to destroy. In Gibbons v. Ogden 100 he argued that the Union 
is a federation and not a league. In the Girard Will Case 101 
he argued that a will against Christianity is void. In the 
Passenger Tax Case 102 he argued that the states have no 
power to impose a tax upon foreigners entering the United 
98 Osborne v. United States Bank , 9 Wheat. 738 ; Greene v. Biddle, 8 Wheat. 1 ; 
Briscoe v. Bank of Ky., 11 Pet. 257 ; Houston v. Bank, 6 How. 486. 
99 13 Green Bag 508 ; 23 Case and Com. 97 ; 35 Am. L. Rev. 801 ; 13 Yale L. Jour. 
366. 
100 supra. 
101 3 Wall. Jr. 263. 
10S Smith v. Turner, 7 How. 283. 
