Stephen Johnson Field

“ There can be no serious question that the State of Florida possessed the absolute right to confer upon a corporation created by it the exclusive privilege for a limited period to construct and operate a telegraph line within its borders. Its Constitution, in existence at the time, empowered the legislature to grant exclusive privileges and franchises to private corporations for a period not exceeding twenty years. The exclusiveness of a privilege often constitutes the only inducement for undertakings holding out little prospect of immediate returns. ”

“ When the general government desires to transact business within a State, it necessarily makes use of the highways and modes of transit provided under the laws of the State, in the absence of those of its own creation. ”

“ And if Congress can authorize the corporations of one State to construct telegraph lines and railways in another State, it must have the right to authorize them to condemn private property for that purpose. The act under consideration does not, it is true, provide for such condemnation; but if the right exist to authorize the construction of the lines, it cannot be defeated from the inability of the corporations to acquire the necessary property by purchase. The power to grant implies a power to confer all the authority necessary to make the grant effectual. ”

“ They may exclude the foreign corporation entirely, they may restrict its business to particular localities, or they may exact such security for the performance of its contracts with their citizens as in their judgment will best promote the public interest. The whole matter rests in their discretion.' If, therefore, foreign corporations can exist in the State of Florida, and do business there by the authority of Congress, it must be because Congress can create such corporations for local business,-a doctrine to which I cannot assent, and which to my mind is pregnant with evil consequences. ”

“ The roads upon which the mails are carried by parties, under contract with the government, belong either to the States, or to individuals, or to corporations, and are declared post-roads only to protect the carriers from being interfered with, and the mails from being delayed in their transportation, and the postal service from frauds. The government has no other control over them. It has no proprietary interest in them or along them to bestow upon any one. ”

“ It has, therefore, been a common practice in all the States to encourage enterprises having for their object the promotion of the public good, such as the construction of bridges, turnpikes, railroads, and canals, by granting for limited periods exclusive privileges in connection with them. Such grants, so far from being deemed encroachments upon any rights or powers of the United States, are held to constitute contracts, and to be within the protecting clause of the Constitution prohibiting any impairing of their obligation. ”

“ The power vested in Congress to regulate commerce 'among the several States' does not authorize any interference with the commerce which is carried on entirely within a State. 'Comprehensive as the word 'among' is,' says Chief Justice Marshall, 'it may very properly be restricted to that commerce which concerns more States than one;' and 'the completely internal commerce of a State, then, may be considered as reserved for the State itself.' Gibbons v. ”

“ The general government was formed for national purposes, principally that we might have within ourselves uniformity of commercial regulations, a common currency, one postal system, and that the citizens of the several States might have in each equality of right and privilege ”

“ The uncertainty of the results of an enterprise will often deter capitalists, naturally cautions and distrustful, from making an investment, without some assurance that, in case the business become profitable, they shall not encounter the danger of its destruction or diminution by competition. ”

“ Having no absolute right of recognition in other States, but depending for such recognition and the enforcement of its contracts upon their assent, it follows, as a matter of course, that such assent may be granted, upon such terms and conditions as those States may think proper to impose. ”

“ Under this amendatory act, and soon after its passage, the railroad company assigned the rights, privileges, and franchises thus acquired to the Western Union Telegraph Company, the defendant herein, a corporation created under the laws of the State of New York; which at once proceeded to erect a line from the city of Pensacola to the southern boundary of Alabama, along the identical railway on which the complainant's line was erected in 1866, and has been located ever since, with the avowed intention of using it to transmit for compensation messages for the public in the county and State. ”