constitutional provision on which it was based, the Court said: "The
power of governing is a trust committed by the people to the government,
no part of which can be granted away. The people, in their sovereign
capacity, have established their agencies for the preservation of the
public health and the public morals, and the protection of public and
private rights," and these agencies can neither give away nor sell their
discretion. All that one can get by a charter permitting the business of
conducting a lottery "is suspension of certain governmental rights in
his favor, subject to withdrawal at will."[1687]

The Court shortly afterward applied the same reasoning in a case in
which was challenged the right of Louisiana to invade the exclusive
privilege of a corporation engaged in the slaughter of cattle in New
Orleans by granting another company the right to engage in the same
business. Although the State did not offer to compensate the older
company for the lost monopoly, its action was sustained on the ground
that it had been taken in the interest of the public health.[1688] When,
however, the City of New Orleans, in reliance on this precedent, sought
to repeal an exclusive franchise which it had granted a company for
fifty years to supply gas to its inhabitants, the Court interposed its
veto, explaining that in this instance neither the public health, the
public morals, nor the public safety was involved.[1689]

Later decisions, nonetheless, apply the principle of inalienability
broadly. To quote from one: "It is settled that neither the 'contract'
clause nor the 'due process' clause has the effect of overriding the
power to the State to establish all regulations that are reasonably
necessary to secure the health, safety, good order, comfort, or general
welfare of the community; that this power can neither be abdicated nor
bargained away, and is inalienable even by express grant; and all
contract and property rights are held subject to its fair
exercise."[1690] Today, indeed, it scarcely pays a company to rely upon
its charter privileges or upon special concessions from a State in
resisting the application to it of measures claiming to have been
enacted by the police power thereof. For if this claim is sustained by
the Court, the obligation of the contract clause will not avail; while
if it is not, the due process of law clause of the Fourteenth Amendment
will furnish a sufficient reliance. That is to say, the discr