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 THE CHARLES RIVER BRIDGE CASE "Indeed, the practice and usage of almost every State in the Union old enough to have commenced the work of internal improve ment, is opposed to the doctrine contended for on the part of the plaintiffs in error. Turnpike roads have been made in succession on the same line of travel; the latter ones interfering materially with the profits of the first. These corporations have, in some instances, been utterly ruined by the intro duction of newer and better modes of trans portation and traveling. In some cases railroads have rendered the turnpike roads on the same line of travel so entirely useless that the franchise of the turnpike corpora tion is not worth preserving. Yet in none of these cases have the corporations supposed that their privileges were invaded, or any contract violated on the part of the State. Amid the multitude of cases which have occurred, and have been daily occurring for the last forty or fifty years, this is the first instance in which such an im plied contract has been contended for, and this court called upon to infer it from an ordinary act of incorporation, containing nothing more than the usual stipulations and provisions to be found in every such law. . . . We cannot deal thus with the rights reserved to the States; and by legal intendments and mere technical reason ing, take away from them any portion of that power over their own internal police and improvements which is so necessary to their well being and prosperity. . . . Let it once be understood that such charters carry with them these implied contracts, and give this unknown and un defined property in a line of traveling, and you will soon find the old turnpike cor porations awakening from their sleep, and calling upon this court to put down the improvements which have taken their place. The millions of property which have been invested in railroads and canals, upon lines of travel which had been before occu pied by turnpike corporations, will be put in jeopardy. We shall be thrown back to the improvements of the last century, and obliged to stand still, until the claims of the old turnpike corporations shall be satisfied, and they shall consent to permit these States to avail themselves of the lights of modern science, and to partake of the benefit of those improvements which are now adding to the wealth and prosperity and the convenience and comfort of every other part of the civilized world. Nor is

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this all. This court will find itself com pelled to fix, by some arbitrary rule, the width of this new kind of property in a line of travel; for if such a right of prop erty exists, we have no lights to guide us in marking out its extent, unless, indeed, we resort to the old feudal grants, and to the exclusive rights of ferries, by prescrip tion, between towns; and are prepared to decide that when a turnpike road from one town to another had been made, no railroad or canal, between these two points, could afterwards be established. This court is not prepared to sanction principles which must lead to such results. ..." Judge Story and Judge Thompson dis sented from this decision, Story's opinion being undoubtedly one of the ablest works of his life. In it he said : "I have examined the case with the most anxious care and deliberation and with all the lights which the researches of the years inter vening between the first and last argument have enabled me to obtain, and I am free to confess that the opinion which I originally formed after the first argument is that which now has my most firm and unhesitating con viction. The argument at the present term, so far from shaking my confidence in it, has, every step, served to confirm it. ... In now delivering the results of that opinon I shall be compelled to notice the principal arguments urged the other way. My great respect for the counsel who have pressed them and the importance of the cause will, I trust, be thought a sufficient apology for the course which I have, with great reluc tance thought it necessary to pursue." The interest taken at the Harvard Law School in the case is well shown in a letter from Sumner to Story March 25, 1837, after the decision had been announced: "I have read most deliberately all the opinions of the judges in the Warren Bridge case. I have studied them and pondered them, and feel unable to restrain the ex pression of my highest admiration for the learning the argument, the ardour and the style in which you have put your views. If I had not been magnetized by many conversations with Mr. Greenleaf and Mr. Fletcher, and by the deep interest which I was induced, from my friendly intercourse with them, to take in favor of the Warren Bridge,