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 yohn K. Porter. power to alter and repeal. You remember they were grants of franchises invaluable for use, invalu able for disuse, made marketable alike to those who would build roads and those who would pro hibit their construction for the purpose of exclud ing rivalry and perpetuating monopolies already overgrown. They were grants, not to corpora tions subject to general laws, but to men whose names are unknown as benefactors of their coun try, who are scarred with no wounds unless they be wounds received at the primary meetings of hostile parties, — men who have not augmented your revenues by public works, illustrated your history by their genius, or enhanced your glory among the nations. No, they are grants to law yers of whom you never heard — to brewers whose names are new to your. ear — to hackneyed poli ticians whose reputations are too familiar to com mend them to your regard. To such men, of whom we are at liberty to say nothing except as (To be c

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you happen to know of them or as you yourselves are ignorant of them, were these grants made by Speaker Littlejohn and his associates." Before he went on the bench, Porter ar gued in the Court of Appeals Metropolitan Bank et al. v. Henry M. Van Dyck, Superin tendent of the Bank Department, in 27 N. Y. 400, involving the constitutional power of Congress to make Treasury notes a legal tender for the payment of debts. It would be impracticable to extract any thing from the great argument in this case and do it justice. It will be found in full in "Snyder's Great Speeches," p. 421. And here this meagre and to me unsatisfactory reference to the work of Mr. Porter at the bar before his accession to the bench must suffice.