the right to contract away this power.[1678] Indeed,
any claim by a private corporation that it received the rate-making
power from a municipality must survive a two-fold challenge: first, as
to the right of the municipality under its charter to make such a grant;
secondly, as to whether it has actually done so; and in both respects
an affirmative answer must be based on express words and not on
implication.[1679]

The Doctrine of Inalienable State Powers

The second of the doctrines mentioned above whereby the principle of the
subordination of all persons, corporate and individual alike, to the
legislative power of the State has been fortified, is the doctrine that
certain of the State's powers are inalienable, and that any attempt by a
State to alienate them, upon any consideration whatsoever, is _ipso
facto_ void, and hence incapable of producing a "contract" within the
meaning of article I, section 10. One of the earliest cases to assert
this principle occurred in New York in 1826. The corporation of the City
of New York, having conveyed certain lands for the purposes of a church
and cemetery together with a covenant for quiet enjoyment, later passed
a by-law forbidding their use as a cemetery. In denying an action
against the city for breach of covenant, the State court said the
defendants "had no power as a party, [to the covenant] to make a
contract which should control or embarrass their legislative powers and
duties."[1680]

The Eminent Domain Power Inalienable.--The Supreme Court first
applied similar doctrine in 1848 in a case involving a grant of
exclusive right to construct a bridge at a specified locality.
Sustaining the right of the State of Vermont to make a new grant to a
competing company, the Court held that the obligation of the earlier
exclusive grant was sufficiently recognized in making just compensation
for it; and that corporate franchises, like all other forms of
property, are subject to the overruling power of eminent domain.[1681]
This reasoning was reinforced by an appeal to the theory of State
sovereignty, which was held to involve the corollary of the
inalienability of all the principal powers of a State.

The subordination of all charter rights and privileges to the power of
eminent domain has been maintained by the Court ever since; not even an
explicit agreement by the State to forego the exercise of the power will
avail against it.[1682] Conversely, the State may revoke an impro