All the notes, minutes, and arguments of Smith and Mason were in
his hands. It is only just to say that Mr. Webster tells all this himself,
and that he gives all credit to his colleagues, whose arguments he says "he
clumsily put together," and of which he adds that he could only be the
reciter. 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.
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