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THE GREEN BAG
THE CHARLES RIVER BRIDGE CASE BY CHARLES WARREN In a lecture delivered to the students. of Just one year before Greenleaf made the the Harvard Law School, in 1838, Professor above remarks, the United States Supreme Simon Greenleaf, speaking of the proper Court had decided, in 1837, one of the most attitude in which a case in the law reports noted and historic cases, ever argued before should be studied, made the following sug that tribunal — Charles River Bridge v. gestive comments. Warren Bridge, (i i Peters 420.) The decision in this case regarded merely "Judges and lawyers, like jiuer classes of as the announcement of a legal principle is men, become interested in the absorbing topics of the day, and subjected to their of no great interest or novelty at the present magnetic influences; and some passages in day. A closer study of the facts of the case, the history of the times, or some glimpses of of the counsel engaged, and of the judges their temper and fashion may be seen in the most dispassionate legal judgments. . . . who heard it, makes it clear social and The manner of the decision, the reasons oh economic conditions greatly influenced the which it is professedly founded, and even establishment of the legal doctrine. The fact the decision itself, may receive come coloring is that the Charles River Bridge Case, begun and impress from the position of the judges, in 1828, and the noted Steamboat case of their political principles, their habits of life, their physical temperament, their intellectual, Gibbons v. Ogden, decided in 1824, were the moral and religious character. . . . Thus we great Anti-Trust cases of the early nine should hardly expect to find any gratuitous teenth century. presumption in favor of innocence or any If the Charles River Bridge Proprietors leanings in mitiori sensu in the bloodthirsty had not been regarded as the "grasping and infamous Jeffries; nor could we, while reading and considering their legal opinions, monopoly " of Boston, and as the "octopus forget either the low breeding and meanness corporation " of its time, it is highly probable of Saunders, the ardent temperament of that the court would have reached a dif Buller, the dissolute habits, ferocity and ferent conclusion; and it 'is certain that profaneness of Thurlow; or the intellectual, the fact that railroads were just starting greatness and integrity of Hobart, the sub limated piety and enlightened conscience of as struggling enterprises, needing protection Hale, the originality and genius of Holt, the against possible claims for damages which elegant manners and varied learning of might be set up by rich turnpike corpora Mansfield, or the conservative principles, tions, had a very marked influence upon the the lofty tone of morals, and vast compre final decision of the case. hension of Marshall. The roots of the case went back to the Neither should we expect a decision lean early date of October 17, 1640 (ten years ing in favor of the liberty of the subject from the Star Chamber; nor against the after the founding of Boston) when at the King's prerogative among the judges in the General Court of Massachusetts Bay Colony reigns of the Tudors or of "James the first; it was resolved that "the ferry between nor should we on this side of the water, resort to the decisions in Westminster Hall Boston and Charlestown is granted to the to learn the true extent of the Admiralty College " — this vote being one of the many jurisdiction which the English Common measures by which the early colonists set out Law Courts have been always disposed to to encourage liberal education. For forty curtail and in many points to deny; while it years after 1672 various statutes recog is so clearly expounded in the masterly judgments of Lord Stowell, and of his no nized that the profits and revenues of less distinguished and yet living American the ferry belonged exclusively to Harvard College. In 1701 appeared the first entry on contemporary (Story)."
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