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 The Green Bag

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this had been changed to some extent in Marshall’s day, now each judge who wrote an opinion read it upon the coming in of the court. Formerly, in all constitu

tional questions judgment was not de livered unless all of the members of the court had come into substantial agree

the Charles River Bridge" to build a bridge "in the place where the ferry is now kept.” The right to receive tolls was granted to the company. Its char ter was limited to forty years, and until the expiration of that term it was to pay

ment, but in the last days of Marshall

the sum of two hundred pounds annually to the College. After the expiration of

this practice ceased.

Thereafter, unless

the period the bridge was to become

a majority of the court concurred, such

the property of the state, except that the College was to receive a reasonable compensation for the annual income of

cases stood for reargument.

We may pass over the cases of Miln v. New York,4 where it was decided by a majority of the court, Mr. Justice

the ferry which it might have received, if the bridge had not been erected. The

Story dissenting, that a state statute requiring the master of every vessel

bridge was built and opened for travel, and in 1792 the charter was extended

arriving at the port of New York to re port to the public authorities in writing

for a further period of seventy years.

the number of his passengers did not

“Proprietors of the Warren Bridge” to build another bridge over the river in

interfere with the authority to regulate commerce within the express grant of the federal Constitution, and Briscoe v.

Bank of the Commonwealth of Kentucky,5 in which it was held that the act of the legislature in chartering a state bank was not repugnant to the provision in the federal Constitution which pro

hibits the states from issuing bills of credit, as there was no limitation in that instrument on the power of the state to charter a bank, it having such power as an incident of state sovereignty, and

come directly to the last case, The

Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge,6

In 1828 the legislature incorporated the

proximity

and

substantially

parallel

with the ﬁrst bridge. The right to take tolls was granted to this company, but the bridge was to become free after the expenses of the proprietors in building,

and maintaining the bridge had been reimbursed.

This period, however, was

not to exceed six years from the time of entering upon the bridge, and beginning

to receive tolls.

The proprietors of the

Charles River Bridge ﬁled a bill in equity

in the Supreme Judicial Court to obtain an injunction preventing the erection of the Warren Bridge, and for general re

which had come up on a writ of error

lief, claiming that the act authorizing the

from the Supreme Judicial Court of

Warren Bridge impaired the obligation

Massachusetts, where the bill had been

of the contract between the state, the

dismissed by an evenly divided court. Harvard College the power to dispose of

college, and itself. A great principle of public policy was for the ﬁrst time pre sented for decision. It was whether the

the ferry plying between Charlestown

state which had chartered the corporation

and Boston over the Charles River.

known as the Charles River Bridge was prohibited from chartering a free bridge, because while there was no express pro vision to this eﬁect, in granting the

In 1650 the legislature granted to

The college received the .proﬁts until 1785, when the legislature incorporated

a company known as “Proprietors of ‘8 Pet. 120.

5 11 Pet. 257 611 Pet. 420.

charter to the Charles River Bridge, the state impliedly agreed not to charter