by John Marshall

“ While it remains where Congress has placed it, the character of the corporation affords some security against its abuse; some security that no other mischief will result from it, than is inseparable from the thing itself. But if the management, control, and responsibility, may be transferred to any adventurer who will purchase, all the security for fairness, which is furnished by character and responsibility, is lost. ”

“ We do not admit the justice of that construction, which denies to the corporation the power of causing the lottery to be drawn on its own account. A corporation aggregate can legislate within its prescribed limits, but can carry its laws into execution only by its agents. Any legislative act directing a lottery to be drawn, is literally an act 'to authorize the drawing of lotteries.'
The object for which the lottery may be authorized, is 'any important improvement in the city.' Its produce is to come in aid of the ordinary funds or revenue thereof ”

“ No purchaser could have been found who would have given 10,000 dollars for the privilege of drawing a lottery on his own account and responsibility, having no connexion with the city. The probability is strong, that the aspect which the lottery still continued to bear was a necessary part of the contract, without which it would never have been made, and that these precautions were used to diminish the hazard of a responsibility which was unavoidably continued. We find the appearance of this responsibility carefully preserved by the corporation itself, and by its managers. ”