[726] For example, William Wirt, Monroe's Attorney-General, in urging the appointment of Kent, partisan Federalist though he was, to the Supreme Bench to succeed Justice Livingston, who died March 19, 1823, wrote that "Kent holds so lofty a stand everywhere for almost matchless intellect and learning, as well as for spotless purity and high-minded honor and patriotism, that I firmly believe the nation at large would approve and applaud the appointment." (Wirt to Monroe, May 5, 1823, Kennedy, ii, 153.)
[727] Kent to Marsh, Aug. 26, 1818, Shirley, 263. Moreover, in 1804, Kent, as a member of the New York Council of Revision, had held that "charters of incorporation containing grants of personal and municipal privileges were not to be essentially affected without the consent of the parties concerned." (Record of Board, as quoted in ib. 254.)
[728] Shirley, 253. Shirley says that Kent "agreed to draw up an opinion for Johnson in this case."
[729] Webster to Story, Sept. 9, 1818, Priv. Corres.: Webster, i, 287.
[730] Lord, 143.
[731] "The folks in this region are frightened.... It is ascertained that Judge Story ... is the original framer of the law.... They suppose that on this account the cause is hopeless before the Sup. Ct. of U.S. This is, however, report." (Murdock to Brown, Dec. 27, 1817, ib. 142.)
Murdock mentions Pickering as one of those who believed the rumors about Story. This explains much. The soured old Federalist was an incessant gossip and an indefatigable purveyor of rumors concerning any one he did not like, provided the reports were bad enough for him to repeat. He himself would, with great facility, apply the black, if the canvas were capable of receiving it; and he could not forget that Story, when a young man, had been a Republican.
[732] Hopkinson to Marsh, Dec. 31, 1817, Shirley, 274-75.
[733] This is principally the work of John M. Shirley in his book Dartmouth College Causes and the Supreme Court of the United States. The volume is crammed with the results of extensive research, strange conglomeration of facts, suppositions, inferences, and insinuations, so inextricably mingled that it is with the utmost difficulty that the painstaking student can find his way.
Shirley leaves the impression that Justices Johnson and Livingston were improperly worked upon because they consulted Chancellor Kent. Yet the only ground for this is that Judge Marsh sent Webster's argument to Kent, who was Marsh's intimate friend; and that the Reverend Francis Brown, President of Dartmouth, went to see Kent, reported that his opinion was favorable to the College, and that the effect of this would be good upon Johnson and Livingston.