Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/662

 654 l^DEBAL BEFOBTKB. �rogate, and the title had passed. There can, however, be no doubt that the raising of an estoppel against a person claim- ing his property is, to ail in.tents and purposes, depriving him of it, within the meaning of such a constitutional provision, as truly as the actuai vesting of the title to it in another would do. It absolutely and entirely deprivea him of the use and enjoyment of it. �In the recent case of Mann v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113, it was held that a statute of Illinois, regulating the price which ■warehousemen should charge for the use of their warehouses, did not deprive them of their property within the meaning of the fourteenth amendment, because the owners having devoted it to a public use the public acquired the right for the common good to control that use, at least to the estent of making reasonable regulations in respect to the price the owner should charge. But no doubt whatever was expressed that the taking away from the owner of the use of property strictly private would be depriving the owner of it within the meaning of this constitutional prohibition, and the two jus- tices who dissented from the opinion put their dissent partly on the ground that such restriction upon or regulation of the use of property by its owner was depriving him of it within the meaning of this amendment. �Full effect, clearly, cannot be given to this restrictive clause according to its plain sense, considering the purpose it was intended to subserve as a protection against eneroachment on private rights, unless it be held to prohibit not only the deprivation of the legal title, but also the impairment of the possession, use or enjoyment by the owner of his private property, subject of course to that power which exists in every civilized state by law to regulate the conduct of its inhabit- ants, and their use of their property, so that they shall not unnecessarily injure others, according to the ancient maxim, "sic utere tuo ut alienum non lœdas," of which maxim and its application the case last cited is a striking example. �In eonstruing that other restrictive clause of the constitu- tion which prohibits the states from passing any law which impairs the obligation of contracts, Mr. Chief Justice Taney, de- ��� �