The Green Bag
158
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
