The faculty of obtaining and using the valuable work of other men, one of the characteristic qualities of a high and commanding order of mind, was even then strong in Mr.Webster.But in that bright period of early manhood it was accompanied by a frank and generous acknowledgment of all and more than all the intellectual aid he received from others.

He truly and properly awarded to Mason and Smith all the credit for the law and for the legal points and theories set forth on their side, and modestly says that he was merely the arranger and reciter of other men's thoughts.

But how much that arrangement and recitation meant! There were, perhaps, no lawyers better fitted than Mason and Smith to examine a case and prepare an argument enriched with everything that learning and sagacity could suggest.
But when Mr.Webster burst upon the court and the nation with this great appeal, it was certain that there was no man in the land who could so arrange arguments and facts, who could state them so powerfully and with such a grand and fitting eloquence.
The legal part of the argument was printed in Farrar's report and also in Wheaton's, after it had been carefully revised by Mr.Webster with the arguments of his colleagues before him.

This legal and constitutional discussion shows plainly enough Mr.Webster's easy and firm grasp of facts and principles, and his power of strong, effective, and lucid statement; but it is in its very nature dry, cold, and lawyer-like.

It gives no conception of the glowing vehemence of the delivery, or of those omitted portions of the speech which dealt with matters outside the domain of law, and which were introduced by Mr.Webster with such telling and important results.