are common to our free institutions, or by particular
provisions of the Constitution of the United States."[1613]

New Jersey _v._ Wilson

The protection thus thrown about land grants was presently extended, in
the case of New Jersey _v._ Wilson,[1614] to a grant of immunity from
taxation which the State of New Jersey had accorded certain Indian
lands; and several years after that, in the Dartmouth College
Case,[1615] to the charter privileges of an eleemosynary corporation.

Corporate Charters, Different Ways of Regarding

There are three ways in which the charter of a corporation may be
regarded. In the first place, it may be thought of simply as a license
terminable at will by the State, like a liquor-seller's license or an
auctioneer's license, but affording the incorporators, so long as it
remains in force, the privileges and advantages of doing business in the
form of a corporation. Nowadays, indeed, when corporate charters are
usually issued to all legally qualified applicants by an administrative
officer who acts under a general statute, this would probably seem to be
the natural way of regarding them were it not for the Dartmouth College
decision. But in 1819 charters were granted directly by the State
legislatures in the form of special acts, and there were very few
profit-taking corporations in the country.[1616] The later extension of
the benefits of the Dartmouth College decision to corporations organized
under general law took place without discussion.

Secondly, a corporate charter may be regarded as a franchise
constituting a vested or property interest in the hands of the holders,
and therefore as forfeitable only for abuse or in accordance with its
own terms. This is the way in which some of the early State courts did
regard them at the outset.[1617] It is also the way in which Blackstone
regards them in relation to the royal prerogative, although not in
relation to the sovereignty of Parliament; and the same point of view
finds expression in Story's concurring opinion in Dartmouth College _v._
Woodward, as it did also in Webster's argument in that case.[1618]

The Dartmouth College Case

The third view is the one formulated by Chief Justice Marshall in his
controlling opinion in Trustees of Dartmouth College _v._
Woodward.[1619] This is that the charter of Dartmouth College, a purely
private institution, was the outcome and partial record of a contract
between the donors of the college,