The act ostensibly modified the existing charter rather than establishing a new institution: it attempted to change the name to Dartmouth University, to increase the number of trustees from twelve to twenty-one, and to create a board of twenty-five overseers, including, ex officio, the governor and council, the president of the Senate, the Speaker of the House, and the governor and lieutenant-governor of Vermont.
In response, the legislature voted on December 18, 1816, that the governor had the power to fill the vacancies left by the Trustees who would not submit (eight known as "the Octagon") and decided to reduce the number required for a quorum.
Dartmouth University as the legislature saw it would offer a broad professional program, including separate schools of law and medicine.
A small group of university professors and allied townspeople attempted to take the private libraries of the college's two literary societies, the Social Friends and the United Fraternity, which were located in Dartmouth Hall.
A group of students wielding sticks of firewood soon forced the professors out, and the societies removed their libraries to keep them from falling into the hands of the university.
The college, meanwhile, rented rooms in a building north of Dartmouth Hall and filed a suit in the county court to regain its property.
Though the college effectively was fighting for its life against the legislature, its cause of action ostensibly sought the return of the charter and the seal from the university treasurer, William H. Woodward.