Levi Woodbury

“ It can and should exercise them, again and again, as often as the public interests require. And though private interests may intervene, and then should not be injured except on terms allowed by the Constitution; yet public interests in one place or corporation may be affected injuriously by laws, without any redress, as legislation on public matters looks to the whole and not a part, and may, for the benefit of the whole to the injury of a part, change what is held under it by public bodies for public purposes. ”

“ Thus, to go a little into details, one of the highest attributes and duties of a legislature is to regulate public matters with all public bodies, no less than the community, from time to time, in the manner which the public welfare may appear to demand. ”

“ Provision for compensation makes the difference between public plunder and the exercise of the right of eminent domain. One is rapine, the other is justice. In every case of a franchise (which is necessarily founded in contract) the one is inhibited, the other excepted in the Constitution. No government in the civilized world can make the exercise of this right equivalent to public plunder, without shaking it to its foundations. This was the doctrine of this court in the Warren Bridge case, 11 Pet., 420, and in the West River Bridge case, 6 How., 507. ”

“ It is a right inherent in the sovereignty of the state, to be exercised in cases of necessity. Until the necessity arises, the grantee's right of property is absolute. It is a power of government,-not an interest in the property,-a latent power called into activity by reason of the necessity that exists for its exercise, and not of any pre-existing contract. ”

“ The only power of the legislature was to make a partition of the property, upon a division of the town. They divide it for the time being by giving a moiety to each. But the acts of 1808 fixed the boundaries for ever. The very act incorporating the bridge company recognized the rights of the ferry-owners, by enacting that nothing in that grant should lessen, impair, &c., the ferries established by law. And even the act of 1818, of which we complain, recognizes the same title, so that, if the bridge were destroyed, the ferry rights would be reserved. ”

“ It is hardly possible to conceive the grounds on which a different result could be vindicated, without destroying all legislative sovereignty, and checking most legislative improvements and amendments, as well as supervision over its subordinate public bodies. ”

“ Where not restrained by some constitutional provision, this power is inherent in its nature, design, and attitude; and the community possess as deep and permanent an interest in such power remaining in and being exercised by the legislature, when the public progress and welfare demand it, as individuals or corporations can, in any instance, possess in restraining it. ”

“ It will be seen that the point before us is one of naked constitutional law, depending on no equities between the parties, but on the broad principle in our jurisprudence, whether power existed in the legislature of Connecticut to pass the acts in 1818 and 1841, which are complained of in this writ of error. ”

“ They are public institutions,-political organizations performing functions ancillary to, and in lieu of, the government of the state. Hence, being created without regard to private emolument, whatever functions they are permitted to exercise are necessarily subject to the control of the sovereign power. ”

“ Being established, when necessary, for the general convenience, the charge of maintaining them may be imposed upon the local communities, in the same manner as the support of the highways and bridges, which are deemed properly to devolve on towns whose inhabitants have most occasion for their use, and whose general interests are promoted by the facilities they afford, equal to the burden of their support. ”

“ While maintaining the exemption of private corporations from legislative interference, Justice Washington, in 4 Wheat., 659, in the Dartmouth College case, still admits that corporations for 'public government,' such as a 'town or city,' are under the control of legislation; whereas private corporations are governed by the statutes of their founders, or by their charters (pp. 660, 661) . ”

“ Towns in Connecticut are charged with the duty of making and maintaining all necessary highways and bridges within their limits, which it is not the special duty of some other corporation or person to support; with the maintenance of the poor, and with certain specified duties of local legislation. ”

“ That the petitioners, in pursuance of said charter or act of incorporation, erected a bridge across said Connecticut River, and built said causeway through the meadows of East Hartford, and in all things pursued the provisions contained in said act of incorporation, except that said bridge was not so erected that the travel was on a horizontal line in the chord of the arch, nor were the piers as high as contemplated by the act of incorporation ”