Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/494

 486 FBDBBAL BBPOBÏEE, �volves the right to prescribe the conditions upon which their existence shall be continued ; that this right ia theoretically and practically without limit, and may be exercised by impos- ing upon corporations laws for the conduct of their business, and restrictions upon the use and enjoyment of their prop- erty, which would be unconstitutional and void if applied to private persons, and which may have the etïect to defeat the object of the association, or to impair or even destroy the ben- eficiai use of its property. �The state may, theref ore, in the exercise of this reserved power, prescribe what persons may be employed by corpora- tions organized under its laws, their number, their national- ity, perhaps even their oreed. It may determine what shall be their age or complexion, their height or their weight, the number of hours they shall work in a day, or the number of days in a week, and the rate of their wages. �These illustrations may seem extravagent, but they were ail either recognized by counsel as within the scope of the reserved power, or else they are legitimate examples of the mode in which the reserved power, as claimed, might be exercised. For ail such legislation the only remedy of the corporations is to disincorporate and cease to exist. �Such being the reserved power of the state over the crea- tures of its laws, it is urged that the treaty was not intended, and cannot be construed, to impair that right any more than it could be deemed to abridge the right to enact laws in the intereat of the public health, safety, or morals, usually known as police laws, or to regulate the making of contracta by pro- viding who shall be incompetent to make them, as infants, married women, and the like. �When we eonsider the vast number of corporations which have been formed under the laws of this state, the claim thus put forth is weli fitted to startle and alarm. It amounts in effect to a declaration that the corporations formed under the laws of this state, and their stockholders, hold their property, so far as its beneficiai use and enjoyment are concerned, at the mercy of the legislature, and that rights which in the case ��� �