Both boards of trustees assembled.  The old board turned out Judge Woodward, their secretary, who was a friend to Wheelock and secretary also of the new board, and, receiving a thousand dollars from a friend of one of the professors, resolved to fight.  President Brown refused to obey the summons of the new trustees, who expelled the old board by resolution.  Thereupon the old board brought suit against Woodward for the college seal and other property, and the case came on for trial in May, 1817.  Mr. Mason and Judge Smith appeared for the college, George Sullivan and Ichabod Bartlett for Woodward and the state board.  The case was argued and then went over to the September term of the same year, at Exeter, when Mason and Smith were joined by Mr. Webster.

The cause was then argued again on both sides and with signal ability.  In point of talent the counsel for the college were vastly superior to their opponents, but Sullivan and Bartlett were nevertheless strong men and thoroughly prepared.  Sullivan was a good lawyer and a fluent and ready speaker, with great power of illustration.  Bartlett was a shrewd, hard-headed man, very keen and incisive, and one whom it was impossible to outwit or deceive.  He indulged, in his argument, in some severe reflections upon Mr. Webster’s conduct toward Wheelock, which so much incensed Mr. Webster that he referred to Mr. Bartlett’s argument in a most contemptuous way, and strenuously opposed the publication of the remarks “personal or injurious to counsel.”

The weight of the argument for the college fell upon Mason and Smith, who spoke for two and four hours respectively.  Sullivan and Bartlett occupied three hours, and the next day Mr. Webster closed for the plaintiffs in a speech of two hours.  Mr. Webster spoke with great force, going evidently beyond the limits of legal argument, and winding up with a splendid sentimental appeal which drew tears from the crowd in the Exeter court-room, and which he afterwards used in an elaborated form and with similar effect before the Supreme Court at Washington.

It now becomes necessary to state briefly the points at issue in this case, which were all fully argued by the counsel on both sides.  Mr. Mason’s brief, which really covered the whole case, was that the acts of the Legislature were not obligatory, 1, because they were not within the general scope of legislative power; 2, because they violated certain provisions of the Constitution of New Hampshire restraining legislative power; 3, because they violated the Constitution of the United States.  In Farrar’s report of Mason’s speech, twenty-three pages are devoted to the first point, eight to the second, and six to the third.  In other words, the third point, involving the great constitutional doctrine on which the case was finally decided at Washington, the doctrine that the Legislature, by its acts, had impaired the obligation of a contract, was passed over lightly.  In so doing Mr. Mason was not alone.  Neither he nor