The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1880-12-30
THE RAILROAD QUESTION.
A Rejoinder by Mr.. George Ticknor
Curtis to Judge Blacks Letter.

Mr.. George Ticknor Curtis has written
to President Jewett, of the Erie Railway, a
reioinder to the recent letter to the n. 7.
Chamber of Commerce in which he says he
understands Judge Jere S. Black to main
tain chat the railroads are public high
ways, the property of the people to the same
extent as a turnpike or common road
built at the public expense and operated by
public agents" In this view Mr.. Curtis
saws he does not concur.
1.-THE earliest charters granted in Massa-
chusetts," he says, contain traces of an ex-
pectaticn that the company would lay down
the rails and that the public would some
how drive their own carriages over them.
In this imperfect conception of what was to
be done the railroad, it was supposed, would
be operated like a chartered turnpike. 1t
was not until little later, after the English
example was better known, that it was seen
here that railroad could not be worked
like public highway; that the company
which build the road must operate it, and
that individuals of the public must stand in
the same relation to this new species of COM
mon carrier that they occupy in regard to
all common carriers, and must make con-
tracts for the transportation of their persons
or property by a carrier who would own the
vehicle and the propelling power as well as
the road over which the vehicle was to pass.
corporated with power to acquired and
hold property paid for by the private
funds of the incorporators, sand to be
used by them in the SAME manner,
and subject to the same, and no other con~
troll of the State, as other common carriers
of persons or property use their means OF
transportation, and are under the police au-
| thority of the State in respect to the care
for life and property which they exercise.
T. IL,
doctrines of constitutional law were settled
on foundations that have not yet been dis
turbed. First, That garnt of charter of
incorporation is a contract between sover-
eign power and the grantee, all of whose OBJ
legations are under the protection of that
clause of our Federal Constitution which
prohibits the passage by the State OF any la ~
that impairs them; from which 1T follows
that if a State legislature has once granted
to railroad corporation power to make
its own contracts, without any reservation
of a right to control the exercise of that pow
er, it cannot subsequently control or re-
sumo it. Secondly, It was settled in the
Dartmouth College case that private prop
| erty remains private property, although held
by corporation and held by the terms of
the charter for the use of any individual of
the public who may desire to enjoy its bene~
fits, complying with the conditions on which
charter of a railroad to which the State
has given no funds which makes its proper
ty public property or makes the corporation
public agent managing public property for
the State, for the reason that from public
motives the State has authorized the corpo-
ration to acquire domain, on payment of a
Just compensation, or because the road was
chartered that public eonvenienc might be
promoted by its existence. And even if the
State becomes a stakeholder, the relationship
of the State to the corporation is like that of
every other stakeholder. A lien is not IT,
tie in Fee That remains in the corporation
until the title is changed by the assertion of
the lien in the manner provided in the con-
tract"
Mr. Curtis alludes to foreign investments
in American railroad securities made on the
faith that the United States viii pass no law
impairing the obligation of contracts and
says:
a charter of incorporation Is contract,
and unless the charter of corporation con-
tain some notice that the State viii make
It's contracts as the State thinks they ought
to be made, know of no ground on which
its contracts are more properly q subject Of
State interference than the contracts OF
private individuals. e Is certain that such