The bank bill passed in 1816, shorn of some of its objectionable features. On April 26, Mr. Webster presented his resolutions requiring all dues to the government to be paid in coin, or in Treasury notes, or in notes of the Bank of the United States, and by a convincing speech aided in its adoption, thus rendering his country a signal service.
During this session of Congress, Webster received a challenge to a duel from John Randolph of Roanoke, and was brave enough to refuse, saying, "It is enough that I do not feel myself bound, at all times and under any circumstances, to accept from any man, who shall choose to risk his own life, an invitation of this sort."
The time had come now in Mr. Webster's life for a broader sphere; he decided to move to Boston. His law practice had never brought more than two thousand dollars a year, and he needed more than this for his growing family. Besides, his house at Portsmouth, costing him six thousand dollars, had been burned, his library and furniture destroyed, and he must begin the world anew.
The loss of property was small compared with another loss close at hand. Grace, the beautiful, precocious first-born, the sunshine of the home, died in her father's arms, smiling full in his face as she died. He wept like a child, and could never forget that parting look.
After settling in Boston, business flowed in upon him, until he earned twenty thousand dollars a year. He would work hard in the early morning hours, coming home tired from the courts in the afternoon. Says a friend, "After dinner, Mr. Webster would throw himself upon the sofa, and then was seen the truly electrical attraction of his character. Every person in the room was drawn immediately into his sphere. The children squeezing themselves into all possible places and postures upon the sofa, in order to be close to him; Mrs. Webster sitting by his side, and the friend or social visitor only too happy to join in the circle. All this was not from invitation to the children; he did nothing to amuse them, he told them no stories; it was the irresistible attraction of his character, the charm of his illumined countenance, from which beamed indulgence and kindness to every one of his family."
Among the celebrated cases which helped Mr. Webster's renown was the Dartmouth College case in 1817. The college was originally a charity school for the instruction of the Indians in the Christian religion, founded by Rev. Eleazer Wheelock. He solicited and obtained subscriptions in England, the Earl of Dartmouth being a generous giver. A charter was obtained from the Crown in 1769, appointing Dr. Wheelock president, and empowering him to name his successor, subject to the approval of the trustees. In 1815 a quarrel began between two opposite political and religious factions. The Legislature was applied to, which changed the name from college to university, enlarged the number of trustees, and otherwise modified the rights of the corporation under the charter from England. The new trustees took possession of the property. The old board brought action against the new, but the courts of New Hampshire decided that the acts of the Legislature were constitutional. The case was appealed to Washington, and on March 10, 1818, Mr. Webster made his famous speech of over four hours, proving that by the Constitution of the United States the charter of an institution is a contract which a State Legislature cannot annul.
In closing he said to the Chief Justice, "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—of all those great charities founded by the piety of our ancestors, to alleviate human misery and scatter blessings along the pathway of life. 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 or 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 greater 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—"
Here Mr. Webster broke down, overcome by the recollections of those early days of poverty, and the self-sacrifice of the dead father. The eyes of Chief Justice Marshall were suffused with tears, as were those of nearly all present. When Mr. Webster sat down, for some moments the silence was death-like, and then the people roused themselves as though awaking from a dream. Nearly seventy years after this, when the Hon. Mellen Chamberlain, Librarian of the Boston Public Library, gave his eloquent address at the dedication of Wilson Hall, the library building of Dartmouth College, he held in his hand the very copy of Blackstone from which Webster quoted in his great argument, with his autograph on the fly-leaf. Of Webster he said, "His imagination transformed the soulless body corporate—the fiction of the king's prerogative—into a living personality, the object of his filial devotion, the beloved mother whose protection called forth all his powers, and enkindled in his bosom a quenchless love."
Several years later, Webster won the great case of Gibbons vs. Ogden, which settled that the State of New York had no right, under the Constitution, to grant a monopoly of steam navigation, on its waters, to Fulton and Livingston.