Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Ill EARLY PROFESSIONAL DAYS AND RELATIONS WITH JUDGE STORY graduating from Dartmouth in August, 1801, Webster began the study of the law in the office of Thomas W. Thompson, " next door," he says, " to my father's house." It was the adjoining farm reallvjthe houses being placed in New England fashion, as near together as possible, along the road. Thompson was a friend of Webster's father, a comparatively young lawyer, but with a good country practice of small cases. He was also postmaster, receiving from the office eight or ten dollars a year; and he afterwards became one of the trustees of Dartmouth College, and a Senator at Washington from 1814 to iSi/.1 Webster was not at this time strongly drawn to the law as a profession, but " precipitated himself into it," as he says, at his father's advice and request. His studies began, as was not uncommon at that time and for long afterwards, with the reading of books on international law, particularly the old author, Vattel on the Law of Nations. International law is not law at all, in the lawyer's sense, because it cannot be brought to the test of a decision by a court or an execution by the sheriff. But it was considered an excellent introductory and broadening reading for a law student, giving him general conceptions of law and moral obligation as well as valuable historical information. Webster read Robertson's Charles V for the sake of its account of feudalism and the old legal ideas of Europe; and then he took up Blackstone's commentaries, the real technicality of the old English common law, written in the 'Dearborn, History of Salisbury, p. 156. HOrSE IN WiriCH WEBSTER LIVED AT DARTMOUTH, NORTH MAIN STREET HOUSE IN WHICH WEBSTER LIVED AT DARTMOUTH, SOUTH MAIN STREET richest, most comprehensive and even nobl...