overcritically

Webster, never in any case apt to regard his own performance overcritically, seems in later years to have been persuaded that the Chief Justice's opinion "followed closely the track" of his argument on this occasion; and it is true that Marshall expressed sympathy with Webster's contention that Congress may regulate as truly by inaction as by action, since inaction may indicate its wish that the matter go unregulated; but the Chief Justice did not explicitly adopt this idea, and the major part of his opinion was a running refutation of Emmet's argument, which in turn was only an elaboration of Chancellor

John Marshall and the Constitution; a chronicle of the Supreme court Edward Samuel Corwin 1920