there "suddenly," in the plain sense of that expression, I advise them that the coroner has jurisdiction, and that they should give him notice of the death a reasonable time before interment.

(2) In regard to such as may be brought there who have been wounded, that is to say, stabbed or shot or cut or beaten by another, and shall afterwards die, I advise the hospital in like manner to give the notice, and to submit to the coroner's jurisdiction, without regard to the time that may elapse before death.

(3) But in regard to the cases of accidental injury, broken limbs, burns, bruises, and the like, where the patient does not suffer suddenly, but lies days or weeks, and then dies from fever, inflammation, or other morbid affection caused by the injury, and where there is no ground of reasonable suspicion that the injury involves any person in criminality, I advise that the hospital is under no obligation to give notice of the death to the coroner, and that the coroner has no right to hold an inquest on the body.

(4) In cases of sudden death by apoplexy and the like among the patients in the house, there being no cause whatever to suspect violent and unnatural means, the coroner has clearly no right to hold an inquest, and I do not understand him to assert such a right.

DANIEL WEBSTER.

[Daniel Webster was born in Salisbury, N. H., 1782. He was educated at Exeter Academy and at Dartmouth College. After graduating from college, in 1801, he began the study of law under Thos. W. Thompson, afterwards United States senator. In 1804 he went to Boston, and completed his studies in the office of the celebrated Christopher Gore. In the following year he was admitted to the bar, and soon afterwards began practice in Boscawen. In 1807 he moved to Portsmouth, where he soon acquired an extensive practice. In 1813 he entered congress as a Federalist, where he busied himself principally with financial legislation. For reasons of economy he retired from official life at the expiration of his second term, and, having removed to Boston in 1816, he then devoted his energies to his profession. In the Massachusetts constitutional convention of 1820, Webster rendered conspicuous service. In the same year, at the celebration of the second centennial of the landing of the Pilgrims, he delivered his first great commemorative oration. In 1825 came his Bunker Hill oration, and one year later his celebrated eulogy of Adams and Jefferson. Meantime, in 1822, he had been elected to congress from Boston, where, as chairman of the judiciary committee, he prepared and carried through the Crimes Act, and other important legislation. In 1824 he delivered his speech on the revolution in Greece, and also his powerful argument in favor of free trade. In 1827 he was elected United States senator from Massachusetts. Having completely abandoned his former views on the tariff question, he advocated the case of protection, in 1828, in a memorable speech. In 1830 he made his famous speech in reply to Hayne, which marks the culmination of his power as an orator. Three years later he supplemented that argument with a great speech in reply to the nullification doctrines of Calhoun. He was a vigorous opponent of President Jackson's policy with respect to the national bank. In 1836 he was nominated for the presidency by the legislature of Massachusetts, and received the electoral vote of that state. In 1839 he visited England. Upon the election of Harrison, Webster became secretary of state, where he added materially to his reputation by his able conduct of diplomatic controversies. By the Ashburton Treaty of 1842, the northeastern boundary question was finally settled. In 1843 he resigned from President Tyler's cabinet, and returned to his law practice in Boston. On Rufus Choate's resignation from the United States senate in 1845, Webster succeeded him. On the 7th of March, 1850, he made his last great speech in support of Clay's elaborate compromise of the slavery question. This speech led to much bitter feeling in New England, and

throughout the North generally, and cost Webster much of his influence. In 1850 he became secretary of state in President Fillmore's cabinet. His candidacy for the presidency was again unsuccessful in 1852. His health failed rapidly after this disappointment, and he died at his home in Marshfield, October 24, 1852. His life has been written by Mr. Geo. Ticknor Curtis and others. His collected works were published by Little, Brown & Co., Boston, 1851, by whose permission the following arguments are reproduced.]

Daniel Webster's distinguished public career has contributed, in some degree, to dwarf his professional reputation. His public life is part of the nation's history; but it may be well to recall the leading features of his life at the bar. He commenced in a good school. As a student in the office of Christopher Gore, in Boston, in 1804, he had the advantage of observing such lawyers as Theophilus Parsons, Samuel Dexter, and Harrison Gray Otis, and his impressions, recorded in his diary, show a perception quite remarkable in one of his years. In Portsmouth, N. H., where he practiced from his admission as a counselor, in 1807, until his removal to Boston, in 1816, he laid the foundations of his professional acquirements, and developed his powers in contact with such men as Jeremiah Mason, Jeremiah Smith, and William Plumer. To Jeremiah Mason, whom he always regarded as the greatest lawyer of his acquaintance, he freely acknowledged his indebtedness. Webster observes that at the outset of his career his style was florid, and his sentences long and involved. "The plain, conversational style of Mason led me to examine my own style, and I reformed it altogether." Although he made a distinguished mark among such able associates, his local practice in New Hampshire was never worth more than $2,000 a year. With his entrance into congress, in 1813, he began to look for a wider field. After some hesitation between Albany, New York, and Boston, he finally chose the latter place, whither he moved in 1816. From this time until his return to congress, in 1823, he devoted himself assiduously to the law. The bulk of his purely professional work is comprised within this period. His fee book shows that he earned over $15,000 in his second year at the Boston bar. His practice during these years was immense, and covered a great variety of work. In addition to a large nisi prius practice, the Massachusetts reports of the time1 show that he was constantly engaged in appeals in the state court. In the United States circuit court for the first circuit he argued more cases than any other lawyer. One of the most prominent of the latter was the case of La Jeune Eugenie in which he maintained

that the slave trade was a violation of the law of nations. In 1817 he added materially to his reputation by his successful defense of the Kennistons; in the same year he defended Judge Prescott; in this year, also, he argued the Dartmouth College case, his first important constitutional cause, before the supreme court of New Hampshire.

In 1818 he began his distinguished career in the supreme court of the United States with his great argument in the Dartmouth College case. During his brief congressional experience he had been engaged in some unimportant prize cases, and had been associated as counsel in the case of McCulloch v. Maryland,3 but he had argued only five cases in the United States supreme court when his effort in the Dartmouth College case placed him, at the age of thirty-five, in the front rank of the national bar. From this time until his death he was actively engaged in that tribunal. The United States reports from his first case, in 1814, to his last appearance, in 1851,5 show that he argued more than one hundred and fifty cases. The extent of his public services after his return to congress, in 1823, necessarily made his attendance irregular. The twelfth volume of Wheaton's Reports shows that he was engaged in fourteen cases at that term, and from the third volume of Wheaton to his last cause, in the thirteenth volume of Howard, there are but three volumes of reports that fail to record his services. A list of these cases comprises a large proportion of the most important litigation during this period. Among others may be mentioned The Santissima Trinidad, Gibbons v. Ogden, The Marianna Flora,8 The Bank of the United States v. Dandridge, Ogden v. Saunders,10 Hunt v. Rousmaniere,11 American Ins. Co. v. Canter,12 Foster v. Neilson, 13 Wilkinson v. Leland, Inglis v. Trustees of Sailor's Snug Harbour,15 Carver v. Jackson,16 Grant v. Raymond,17 Wheaton v. Peters,18 Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge, 19 Rhode Island v. Massachusetts,20 Bank of Augusta v. Earle,21 Groves v. Slaughter,22 Vidal v. Girard,23 The License Cases,24 Luther v. Borden,25 The Passen

14

ger Cases, 26 Barnard v. Adams.27 In most of these cases the report gives a fair outline of Webster's argument; indeed, this is quite as much as we have of any of his arguments in that tribunal. The speeches contained in his collected works do not pretend to be verbatim reports. We have sufficient material, however, to arouse speculation as to what his legal reputation might have been had he devoted his powers exclusively to his profession. For it is plain that, with the burden of his public labors, he was not always at his best in court. Charles Sumner, who visited Washington in 1836, heard an argument by Webster which was conspicuously ineffective from lack of preparation. And we find in Webster's letters such reflections as this (at the end of a memorandum of fees for the year ending September 9, 1833, aggregating $8,212): "A very poor year's work. Nullification kept me out of the supreme court all last winter." The double burden of public and professional work has ever been too much for even the most powerful intellects.

Webster's professional capacity, as he himself recognized, was forensic, rather than judicial. "For my own part," he wrote in 1840, "I never could be a judge. I believe the truth may be that I have mixed so much study of politics with my study of law that. though I have some respect for myself as an advocate, and some estimate of my knowledge of general principles, yet I am not confident of possessing all the accuracy and precision of knowledge which the bench requires." His learning was never, in fact, extensive. After he finally embarked in politics, in 1823, he seldom consulted authorities at first hand. The slow processes of investigation and inquiry were distasteful to him. He was accustomed to rely extensively on the learning of a scholarly Massachusetts lawyer named Parker Noyes; and he also received considerable assistance, which, however, was less freely acknowledged. from Judge Story. The extent of his obligation to Jeremiah Mason for his celebrated argument in the Dartmouth College case will be appreciated by comparing it with Mason's argument in the state court as preserved in Farrar's report of that case. Not only is the framework the same, but they are almost exactly similar in length, and in the relative proportion of the parts. As Webster wrote of Farrar's proposed publication: "If the book should not be published, the world would not know where I borrowed my plumes." In the course of his extensive practice he

26 7 Howard 283.

27 10 Howard.

28 Dartmouth College v. Woodward, Gibbons v. Ogden, Ogden v. Saunders, Luther v. Borden, Vidal v. Girard, and Bank of Augusta v. Earle.