Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 17.pdf/188

 EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT

173

portation which were established by the States. The report of the Commissioner of Corpora Local self-government was the theory of the tions goes however far beyond any expressions Constitution. If State monopolies were wrong, of this case. Following suggestions previously it was by the States that they should be made by the Industrial Commission, and by abolished. The motion which was made in Mr. Knox, he urges that the Federal Govern the Second Congress to permit proprietors of ment deny the right to engage in interstate stages employed in carrying the mails, to carry commerce, to all corporations, except such as passengers also, was lost as being beyond the shall voluntarily comply with Federal require power of Congress. Gibbons v. Ogden de ments as to corporate organization and stroyed State monopolies of coasting naviga management. A similar suggestion as to tion, but had no effect on State monopolies of Federal powers was made on April 22d, interstate transportation by land, or by water 1886, during the debate on the Interstate when not conducted coastwise." Commerce Act. The Senate then refused to i An opportunity for expansion of this earlier take the suggestion seriously and the considera doctrine was afforded by the decision in Cooley tion of the subject ended with the statement v. Port Wardens which applied literally the that the reply made to this suggestion, 'un rule of Gibbons v. Ogden and held that "in doubtedly demolished the proposition.'" all matters which demand a single uniform rule or as the doctrine is broadened by later cases in all matters which admit of a single CONSTITUTIONAL LAW (Obligation of Contracts. Reserved Right to Repeal Charters) uniform rule the silence of Congress is equiv alent to a declaration that commerce shall be THE first instalment of an elaborate dis free." ' ' Before this decision interstate carriers cussion of the "Limits of the Power of a State were within the power of Congress only in their under a Reserved Right to Amend or Repeal relation to shippers and travellers. As carriers Charters of Incorporations," by Horace Stern merely, Congress had no power over them." appears in the January American Law Register The influence of the Civil War in expanding (V. 53, page i). It begins with an elaborate jurisdiction was soon felt in a broader doctrine analysis of Fletcher V. Peck and the Dart but even then it was conceded that the carrier's mouth College case, in explanation of the en rate was not subject of regulation. actment of the common provision for the "Federal control of interstate carriers as amendment or repeal of the charters of cor such, and from the standpoint of the carrier, porations. The author shows that if the grant has therefore grown from small beginnings to of franchise constitutes a contract the reserved its present extent since the date of these cases. power is the reservation of an authority to It has, however, at all times been understood change a particular contract and is in no sense that the primary relation of the carrier is to the creation of a new and distinct power. The State cannot regulate such property and the State in which it operates. Federal con trol relates directly to but one of its functions rights of the corporation as are not given to it by its charter, to any greater extent than the and to the carrier only because of, and in re spect to, its exercise of that function. Amid similar property of other citizens. It is ad all changes therefore this one rule has always mitted, however, that the same result can be stood unquestioned and unquestionable, that accomplished by imposing it as a condition matters relating to the ownership of facilities precedent to the continued exercise of its of transportation have been exclusively within franchise. State jurisdiction." "This latter power is enormous in its extent; "It is in this respect that the decision in it is too dangerous a power for any legislature the Northern Securities case makes a complete to exercise." "Realizing the perils of such break from the rules which have controlled a condition, and frequently confronted in the decisions of the Supreme Court, the practice specific instances by unfair exercises of this of Congress, and the conduct of States and in power, the courts have often refused to apply dividuals during the whole period which has to the cases the principles logically controlling elapsed since the adoption of the Constitution. them."