purposes. And does the granting of a charter, which is only done to
perpetuate the trust in a more convenient manner, make any difference?
Does or can this change the nature of the charity, and turn it into a
public political corporation? Happily, we are not without authority on
this point. It has been considered and adjudged. Lord Hardwicke says, in
so many words, "The charter of the crown cannot make a charity more or
less public, but only more permanent than it would otherwise be."[32]

The granting of the corporation is but making the trust perpetual, and
does not alter the nature of the charity. The very object sought in
obtaining such charter, and in giving property to such a corporation, is
to make and keep it private property, and to clothe it with all the
security and inviolability of private property. The intent is, that
there shall be a legal private ownership, and that the legal owners
shall maintain and protect the property, for the benefit of those for
whose use it was designed. Who ever endowed the public? Who ever
appointed a legislature to administer his charity? Or who ever heard,
before, that a gift to a college, or a hospital, or an asylum, was, in
reality, nothing but a gift to the State?

The State of Vermont is a principal donor to Dartmouth College. The
lands given lie in that State. This appears in the special verdict. Is
Vermont to be considered as having intended a gift to the State of New
Hampshire in this case, as, it has been said, is to be the reasonable
construction of all donations to the college? The legislature of New
Hampshire affects to represent the public, and therefore claims a right
to control all property destined to public use. What hinders Vermont
from considering herself equally the representative of the public, and
from resuming her grants, at her own pleasure? Her right to do so is
less doubtful than the power of New Hampshire to pass the laws in
question.

In _University v. Foy_,[33] the Supreme Court of North Carolina
pronounced unconstitutional and void a law repealing a grant to the
University of North Carolina, although that university was originally
erected and endowed by a statute of the State. That case was a grant of
lands, and the court decided that it could not be resumed. This is the
grant of a power and capacity to hold lands. Where is the difference of
the cases, upon principle?

In _Terrett v. Taylor_,[34] this court decided that a legislative grant
or