The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1881-07-07

the State Senate upon the Veto Ness
age Of the Governor Touching tn
Power Of the Legislature over Rail
road Corporations.
The British Parliament is said to bt
sovereign and omnipotent. Blackstone say
/ that Parliament can do anything that IS MOI
naturally impossible. / Ri. Com. l6l. Dt
/ Lalme saws It is fundamental principle
| with English lawyers, that Parliament can
I do anything, except make man woman
! or a woman a man De Lalme on Const-i
! Eng. 1874.
| And yet, Sir, have shown by authority,
/ that the sovereign, omnipotent Parliament
of England can pass no law which subse-
quent Parliament cannot change or repeal
But in our government of limited powers,
where sovereignty resides in the people
alone, il has been established by the Dart
mouth College case, that one Legislature
OF a State may make laws creating odIous
monopolies and privileges which no subse-
quent Legislature can touch Blackstone
SAYS, it was known pophthegm OF the
great Lord Barleigh, that England could
never be ruined but by Parliament" /
b. Com, I6I. The danger to our institu-
lions lies in the same direction. They have
survived war and pestilence, and sectional
Madness and many other evils, but L fear
they cannot survive this assum ption of legis-
lative imperialism. In the Dartmouth
College case-that Pandora's box in the
history of affairs of this country, where the
baneful doctrine was first asserted, the SUI
preme Court of the United States were di-
vided. Judge Duvall dissented. Wheat,
TIA. In the Piqua Bank, etc, VS.. knoop,
that Court affirmed the doctrine, but Judges
Catron, Daniel and Campbell dissented. 16
II On.D 1 I :,
Co. VS.. Debolts, Judges Catron, Daniel,
Campbell, and others, dissenting. In the
dissenting opinion of Judge Daniel, is this
language: 81 never can believe that, to my
mind, suicidal doctrine, which conters upon
one Legislature, the creatures and limited
agents of the sovereign people, the power, by
breach of duty, and by transcending the
commission with which they were clothed,
to bind forever and irrevocably their creator,
for whose benefit and by whose authority
alone they are delegated to act, to conse-
quences however mischievous or destruct-
i've. The argument of the Court in the case,
leading, in my apprehension, to a justifca-
ton of abuses like those referred to, l must
repudiate that argument" I6 How. 443
In Dodge v. Woolsey, Judges Campbell,
Catron, and Daniel again dissenting from
the doctrine. | read from the dissenting
opinion of Judge Campbell, in that case, in
which the other two dissenting Judges con-
CURED, as follows: Certainly no question,
more involving more essential or impor-
tant principle, has ever been submitted to a
judicial tribunal.
1t involves the operation and efficiency of
the fundamental principles on which the
American Constitutions are supposed to rest. |
The proposition of this confederacy of some
fifty banking corporations, having one-tor- |
tieth of the property of the State is, that by |
the law of their organization, for the whole |
term of their corporate being, there exists |
no power in the Government, nor people of |
the State, to impair the concessions made |
in the act of 1915, particularly that deter |
mining the amount of their contribution to |
the public revenue. This proposition does |
not depend for its truth upon the limitation |
of time imposed upon the corporate exist
ence of the banks. 1t would not affect the
proposition if the charters were for centu-
ry or in perpetuity. Nor does the PROPOSE
ton derive strength from the fact that the |
statute applies only to banking corporations,
or corporations confined to a single form of
commercial dealing The proposition would
have the same degree of accuracy, if the act
had been universal, applicable TO all private
corporations, whether for manufactures,
trade, intercourse, mining, morals relig
ion.
concession of the kind contained in the
a term, or in perpetuity, would impair in
many States their resources to an alarming
extent
Writers on the condition of the Turkish
Empire say, that three-fourths of the landed
property of the empire is held in mortmain
as rakuf by Mosques or charitable institu
lions for their own use, or in trust for their
owners. This property ceases to contribute
to the public revenues, except in a specific
form of Objectionable taxes or produce, and
is inalienable. If held in trust, it is exempt
from forced sale and confscatOn, and on the
death of the owner, without children passes
to the Mosque or other charitable trustee.
In that Empire the ecclesiastical and judi
cial is the dominant interest, for the Ulemas
are both priests and lawyers ust as the
monied interest is dominant i'll
Ohio, and in either country that interest
claims exemption from the usual burdens
and ordinary legislation of the State. The
judgment of this Court would establish the
permanent existence of such an incubus
upon the resources and growth of that coun-
try, if that interest should have taken their
privileges in the form of a contract and had
such Constitution ours.
Yet the first step towards the regeneration
of Turkey, according to the wisest states
is to abolish the rakuf.
Bentham, treating upon constitutional
provisions in form of contracts, says: "Ifl
all contracts were to be observed, all mis-
deeds would be to be committed for there
is no misdeed, the committal of which may
not be made the subject of contract /; and
to establish in favor of themselves or any
other person or persons, an absolute despot-
ism, set of Legislators would have no more
to do than to enter into an engagement
say with a foreign despot, say with mem
Der of their own community-for this pur
pose. And were this to happen, should it
be that State of this Union had become
the victim of vicious legislation its proper
ty alienated, its powers of taxation renounc-
ed i'll favor of chartered associations and
the resources of the body polite cut off,
what remedy has the people against the
Under tho doctrines of this
court none is to be found in the Govern
ment, and none exists in the inherent pow
ers of the people, if the wrong has taken the
form of contract. The most deliberate and
solemn acts of the people would not serve to
redress the injustice, and the over-reaching
upon the facility or corruption
of their Legislature, would be protected by
the power of this court in the profit of his
bargains. Where would the people find a
remedy? Let the case before us form an IL
Iustratiou. Congress cannot limit the term
nor abolish the privileges of these corpora
tions; they are corporations of State, and
beyond her limits they have no legal exist
live in the contemplation of her
laws and dwell in the place of their creation.
IS Pet, 512; 16 How, 314.
Nor can Congress enlarge the subjects for
State taxation, nor interfere in the sup
port of the State Government They could .
not empower the State to collect taxes from
these corporations, were the resources of the
State oppressed with the burden Of Turk
ish rakuf Congress could not afford relief.
The faculties of the judicial department. are
even more fatal to the State than the impo-
tence Of Congress. The courts cannot look
to the cnrrnntinn the blindness. nor mis-