120 court of appeals of maryland

been treated unfairly by the majority of judges
headed by Chief Judge Buchanan in bringing the
case on for argument out of place, and that in
the opinion written by Judge Buchanan the law
had been forced because of a mistaken preference
of the canal as a public improvement. Taney
wrote in a letter to John H. B. Latrobe:³³

it is difficult to write to you on the subject without saying
what I think about the conduct of the three judges who, it now
appears, were determined to decide the case against us and re-
solved that they should do it, while, owing to the absence of
one of the Judges, the power remained in their hands.

And again:

and what reasonable ground is there to expect anything from
judges who have, by the act of mere despotic power and in such
circumstances, ordered on a case of this description, and have
decided without taking time to think of it and without having
made up their minds what reasons are to be given for it? The
argument was a solemn farce, and the determination to use the
power in their hands too manifest to be mistaken.

Webster, who took Taney's place in the argument,
Taney having been held in Washington by his
duties as Attorney General, did not see the case
as such an entirely one-sided one. On January 3,
1832, he wrote to William Paige:

Dear William,

You will be glad to hear that I am safe back from Annapolis;
arrived at sunset this evening, having come across the country
and not around by way of Baltimore. We were seven days, all
of us, arguing our cause; I used only part of one. It is not yet
decided, though we left the judges there, and shall know in a
day or two. The controversy is about a narrow pass, which
both companies have occasion to occupy on the banks of the
Potomac River, at the foot of a perpendicular precipice, where

33. Semmes, 344.