Stephen Johnson Field

“ Of what avail is the constitutional provision that no State shall deprive any person of his property except by due process of law, if the State can, by fixing the compensation which he may receive for its use, take from him all that is valuable in the property? To what purpose can the constitutional prohibition upon the State against impairing the obligation of contracts be invoked, if the State can, in the face of a charter authorizing a company to charge reasonable rates, prescribe what rates shall be deemed reasonable for services rendered? ”

“ If it be admitted that the reserved power to alter all laws creating corporations authorizes the legislature to regulate the rates of charges of a railroad company for the transportation of persons and property, it should not, in common honesty, be so used as to destroy or essentially impair the value of mortgages and other obligations executed under express authority of the State. The reserved power has not generally been supposed to authorize the legislature to revoke the contracts of the corporation with third parties, or to impair any vested rights acquired under them. ”

“ There is no industry or employment, no trade or manufacture, and no avocation which does not in a greater or less extent affect the community at large, and in which the public has not an interest in the sense used by the court.
There is no doubt of the power of the legislature to prescribe in the charter of any corporation the compensation it may receive for services rendered, or to reserve the power to regulate such compensation subsequently. The power to prescribe the conditions of use and enjoyment necessarily accompanies the power to grant. ”