The charter was
accepted and both real and personal property were thereupon conveyed to
this corporate body, in trust for educational purposes. In 1816 the
legislature of New Hampshire reorganized the board of trustees against
their will. If the incorporation amounted to a contract, the Court was
clear that this statute impaired it; therefore the only really debatable
issue was whether the grant of a charter by the king amounted to a
contract by him, with his subjects to whom he granted it. After
prolonged consideration Marshall concluded that it did, and I conceive
that, in the eye of history, he was right. Throughout the Middle Ages
corporate privileges of all kinds, but especially municipal corporate
privileges, had been subjects of purchase and sale, and indeed the
mediaeval social system rested on such contracts. So much was this the
case that the right to return members of Parliament from incorporated
boroughs was, as Lord Eldon pointed out in the debates on the Reform
Bill, as much private property "as any of your lordships'" titles and
peerages.
It was here that Marshall faltered.
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