ever_, without further
grant or confirmation; and the trustees are to hold all and singular
these privileges, advantages, liberties, and immunities to them and to
their successors for ever.

No funds are given to the college by this charter. A corporate existence
and capacity are given to the trustees, with the privileges and
immunities which have been mentioned, to enable the founder and his
associates the better to manage the funds which they themselves had
contributed, and such others as they might afterwards obtain.

After the institution thus created and constituted had existed,
uninterruptedly and usefully, nearly fifty years, the legislature of New
Hampshire passed the acts in question.

The first act makes the twelve trustees under the charter, and nine
other individuals, to be appointed by the Governor and Council, a
corporation, by a new name; and to this new corporation transfers all
the _property, rights, powers, liberties, and privileges_ of the old
corporation; with further power to establish new colleges and an
institute, and to apply all or any part of the funds to these purposes;
subject to the power and control of a board of twenty-five overseers, to
be appointed by the Governor and Council.

The second act makes further provisions for executing the objects of the
first, and the last act authorizes the defendant, the treasurer of the
plaintiffs, to retain and hold their property, against their will.

If these acts are valid, the old corporation is abolished, and a new one
created. The first act does, in fact, if it can have any effect, create
a new corporation, and transfer to it all the property and franchises of
the old. The two corporations are not the same in anything which
essentially belongs to the existence of a corporation. They have
different names, and different powers, rights, and duties. Their
organization is wholly different. The powers of the corporation are not
vested in the same, or similar hands. In one, the trustees are twelve,
and no more. In the other, they are twenty-one. In one, the power is in
a single board. In the other, it is divided between two boards. Although
the act professes to include the old trustees in the new corporation,
yet that was without their assent, and against their remonstrance; and
no person can be compelled to be a member of such a corporation against
his will. It was neither expected nor intended that they should be
members of the new corporation. Th