Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/269

 CH. XXXIV.] to be employed in the administration of the government, or, if the funds be public property alone, and the government alone be interested in the management of them, the legislative power over such charter is not restrained by the constitution, but remains unlimited. The reason is, that it is only a mode of exercising public rights and public powers, for the promotion of the general interest ; and, therefore, it must, from its very nature, remain subject to the legislative will, so always that private rights are not infringed, or trenched upon.

§ 1388. But an attempt has been made to press this principle much farther, and to exempt from the constitutional prohibition all charters, which, though granted to private persons, are in reality trusts for purposes and objects, which may, in a certain sense, be deemed public and general. The first great case, in which this doctrine became the subject of judicial examination and decision, was the case of Dartmouth College. The legislature of New-Hampshire had, without the consent of the corporation, passed an act changing the organization of the original provincial charter of the college, and transferring all the rights, privileges, and franchises from the old charter trustees to new trustees, appointed under the act. The constitutionality of the act was contested, and after solemn argument, it was deliberately held by the Supreme Court, that the provincial charter was a contract within the meaning of the constitution, and that the amendatory act was utterly void, as impairing the obligation of that charter. The college was deemed, like other colleges of private foundation, to be a private eleemosynary institution,