David Davis

“ It certainly requires no argument to show that a railroad corporation cannot perform the functions for which it was created without owning rolling stock, and a limited quantity of real estate, and that these are embraced in the general term property. Property is a word of large import, and in its application to this company included all the real and personal estate required by it for the successful prosecution of its business. ”

“ Nothing is better settled than that the franchise of a private corporation-which in its application to a railroad is the privilege of running it and taking fare and freight-is property, and of the most valuable kind, as it cannot be taken for public use even without compensation. ”

“ It has been so often decided by this court that a charter of incorporation granted by a State creates a contract between the State and the corporators, which the State cannot violate, that it would be a work of supererogation to repeat the reasons on which the argument is founded. It is true that when a corporation claims an exemption from taxation, it must show that the power to tax has been clearly relinquished by the State, and if there be a reasonable doubt about this having been done, that doubt must be solved in favor of the State. ”