Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 8.djvu/32

1 6 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. The view expressed, either directly or inferentially, in the au- thorities in question, that corporate realty unlawfully acquired may be seized by the State, was apparently adopted largely in reliance upon some old Pennsylvania cases, which are invariably cited in its support. Upon their examination, however, it appears that they are based on conditions pecuHar to Pennsylvania, and not generally existing elsewhere. The decision in the first of these cases, made in 1821,^ is placed squarely on the English Mortmain Statutes, under which a cor- poration might take and hold against all but the mesne lords and the king, A deed to the Bank of North America was collaterally attacked, on the ground that it was taken for a purpose not author- ized by the charter of the bank. The Court thought that the title of the corporation was similar to the title of an alien, in that it was good against all but the State ; and held that the mortmain laws of England were in force in Pennsylvania to the extent, in the case of a conveyance to a corporation not authorized by its charter or by an Act of the Assembly, of permitting the State as quo warranto proceedings revert to the State. Murfree on Foreign Corporations, sects. 353, 358. The Massachusetts Court say : " The corporation by its purchase acquired a title to the land, which was good against all the world, except possibly the Commonwealth." Davis V. Old Colony R. R., 131 Mass. 258. The Supreme Court of the United States say : " Where a corporation is incompe- tent by its charter to take a title to real estate, a conveyance to it is not void, but only voidable, and the sovereign alone can object; ... so an alien forbidden by the local law to acquire real estate, may take and hold title until office found." Bank v. Whit- ney, 103 U. S. 99; Bank v. Matthews, 98 U. S. 621. The Alabama Court say : "The sovereign alone has the right to impeach the trans- action, and until it supervenes for this purpose, the corporation is vested with perfect title against all the world, defeasible only upon office found." Long v. Georgia Pacific R. R., 91 Ala. 519. In North Carolina, the Court hold that a conveyance of land to a railroad corpora- tion, for a purpose other than that authorized by its charter, is, in analogy to a convey- ance to an alien at the common law, "valid until assailed in a direct proceeding instituted by the sovereign for that purpose." Mallett v. Simpson, 94 N. C. 37. The Georgia Court say that " foreign corporations seem to have been treated as aliens were in England as to purchasing and holding real estate," and that " the doc- trine is thoroughly established in our American States that the right of foreign corpo- rations to purchase or hold lands in excess of the authority conferred, either by their own charter, or by the laws of the State in which such purchase is made, can only be questioned by the State itself in which such land may be situated." American Mort- gage Co. V. Ternille, Ga. (1891). See also De Camp v. Dobbins, 29 N. J. Eq. 36 ; Edwards v. Fairbanks, 27 La. 449. In all these cases the statement as to an escheat or forfeiture is mere obiter, the question not having been presented or decided. 1 Leasure v. Hillegas, 7 S.& R. 313.