ncorporated companies_ for
carrying on business of various kinds, as turnpike and rail-road
companies, and companies for the purposes of banking, insurance,
manufacturing, &c. These kinds of business, to be carried on
successfully, sometimes require a larger amount of money than one man
possesses. A number of persons, therefore, unite their capital under an
act of incorporation granting them power to manage their business which
they could not have in an ordinary business partnership. Besides, a
common partnership must end on the death of any one of the partners; but
an incorporated company is not thus affected by the death of its
members.

Sec.10. It is in the nature of corporations to have a perpetual existence.
A corporation may live after the persons who first composed it are all
dead; for those who come after them have the same powers and privileges.
A town or city incorporated a hundred years ago, is the same town or
city still, although none of its first inhabitants are living. So a
railroad or banking corporation may exist after the death of many, or
even all of the original corporators.

Sec.11. But there are certain particulars in which all corporations are not
the same. A state has been defined to be a body politic, or corporation.
(Chap. I. Sec.10; III, Sec.5.) But it differs from other government
corporations, as counties, towns, cities, &c., in this: the latter are
formed by acts of the legislature; but a state is formed by the people
in their political capacity in establishing the constitution.

Sec.12. Again, all these government corporations differ from incorporated
business companies. In forming a town or city, many persons are brought
into the corporation against their wishes or consent; because, in
governments, all who live within certain prescribed bounds must come
under the same laws; but of an incorporated business association, as of
a common business partnership, none become members but by their own act
or choice. There is another difference: The latter are what are called
_stock_ companies; and although they may be continued after the death of
the first corporators, those who afterward come into the association, do
so by becoming owners of the capital stock of those who preceded them.
This latter difference will more clearly appear from the more particular
description, elsewhere given, of the incorporated companies, and of the
manner in which the stock is transferred. (Chap. XXIII, Sec.11--15.)