that the Constitution did not extend to the Territories, but that he was “incredulous of the fact.”  “Oh!” replied Mr. Webster, “I can remove the gentleman’s incredulity very easily, for I can assure him that the same thing has been decided by the United States courts over and over again for the last thirty years.”  It will be observed, however, that Mr. Webster, after communicating this important item of information, proceeded to discuss the question as if the Supreme Court had no existence, and bases his argument on the plain terms of the Constitution, and the plain facts recorded in the history of the government established by it.

Macaulay, in his lively way, has shown the difficulty of manufacturing English statesmen out of English lawyers, though, as lawyers, their rank in the profession may be very high.  “Their arguments,” he says, “are intellectual prodigies, abounding with the happiest analogies and the most refined distinctions.  The principles of their arbitrary science being once admitted, the statute-books and the reports being once assumed as the foundations of reasoning, these men must be allowed to be perfect masters of logic.  But if a question arises as to the postulates on which their whole system rests, if they are called upon to vindicate the fundamental maxims of that system which they have passed their lives in studying, these very men often talk the language of savages or of children.  Those who have listened to a man of this class in his own court, and who have witnessed the skill with which he analyzes and digests a vast mass of evidence, or reconciles a crowd of precedents which at first sight seem contradictory, scarcely know him again when, a few hours later, they hear him speaking on the other side of Westminster Hall in his capacity of legislator.  They can scarcely believe that the paltry quirks which are faintly heard through a storm of coughing, and which do not impose on the plainest country gentleman, can proceed from the same sharp and vigorous intellect which had excited their admiration under the same roof, and on the same day.”  And to this keen distinction between an English lawyer, and an English lawyer as a member of the House of Commons, may be added the peculiar kind of sturdy manliness which is demanded in any person who aims to take a leading part in Parliamentary debates.  Erskine, probably the greatest advocate who ever appeared in the English courts of law, made but a comparatively poor figure in the House of Commons, as a member of the Whig opposition.  “The truth is, Erskine,” Sheridan once said to him, “you are afraid of Pitt, and that is the flabby part of your character.”