exhaustive examination of authorities, and a practical, comprehensive and
familiar acquaintance with legal rules and principles, even those of the
most technical nature, which astonished those who knew that he had never
appeared for a client in Court, or sat before in a judicial tribunal. I
use in this the language of an able lawyer, Judge Daly, who has made this
part of Verplanck's labors a subject of special study.

As examples of his judicial ability, I may instance his examination of the
whole structure of our State and Federal Government in the case of
Delafield against the State of Illinois, where the question came up
whether an individual could sue a State; his survey of the whole law of
marine insurance and the principles on which it is founded, in the case of
the American Insurance Company against Bryan; his admirable statement of
the reasons on which rests the law of prescription, or right established
by usage, in the case of Post against Pearsall; his exposition of the
extent of the right which in this country the owners of land on the
borders of rivers and navigable streams have in the bed of the river, in
Kempshall's case--a masterly opinion, in which the whole Court concurred.
I might also mention the great case of Alice Lispenard, in which he
considered the degree of mental capacity requisite to make a will, a case
involving a vast amount of property in this city, decided by his opinion.
There is also the case of Smith against Acker, relating to the taint of
fraud in mortgages of personal property, in which he carried the Court
with him against the Chancellor and overturned all the previous decisions.
Not less important is his elaborate, learned and exhaustive opinion in the
case of Thompson against the People, decided by a single vote and by his
opinion,--in which he examined the true nature of franchises conferred on
individuals in this country by the sovereign power, the right to construct
bridges over navigable streams, and the proper operation of the writ of
_quo warranto_. These opinions of Verplanck form an important part of the