by John Marshall Harlan

“ The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, as represented by the Kentucky Annual Conference, has not relinquished, surrendered, or ceased to exercise control of the institute, and therefore its control and management has not reverted to stockholders through trustees of their own selection. The institute has not been discontinued, nor has the corporation ceased, in law, to exist, nor has its charter been surrendered or repealed ”

“ We concur with the court of appeals of Kentucky in saying that neither the contract between the original stockholders and Board of Education, nor the act of 1860, contains an express condition that the title of the property which became part of the endowment fund was to be held upon condition that the college be forever conducted and maintained at Millersburg, and nowhere else within the territorial limits of the Annual Conference; that such condition exists, if at all, by implication only ”

“ It must therefore be taken, in our examination of the question as to the repugnancy of the second section of the act of 1861 to the constitution of the United States, that it was intended by the general assembly of Kentucky to give the Board of Education authority to remove the college and its capital and funds from Millersburg to some other place within the bounds of the Kentucky Annual Conference. ”

“ It resembles the present one in many important particulars. The principles which in that case sustained the validity of the legislation of Pennsylvania relating to the colleges at Canonsburg and Washington lead to an affirmance of the decree below. ”