When the general assembly met again, in 1866, the matter of railroad discriminations against our people had assumed a still more momentous shape. The greater portion of our time during that session was occupied with that question. Weeks after weeks were spent mainly discussing whether or not the state had the right to prevent unjust discrimination or in any way control railroad corporations as to their charges. The then attorney general (Hon. F. E. Bissell, now deceased) gave it as his official opinion that the state possessed no such right; but that in the matter of tariff charges, those corporations were above and beyond all legislative control. Whether the fact that he was a "railroad attorney," as well as attorney general for the state, had anything to do with influencing his "opinion," is not for me to say. We had able lawyers of the very opposite opinion, but the fact of this announcement gave great encouragement to the railroad party, and was calculated to dishearten those of us who believed that the people had some rights which even corporations should respect. It was now openly declared by eminent attorneys, both in the legislature and in the powerful "lobby" that hung around us, that in the original "charter," or grant, the state, while reserving the right to "enact rules and regulations," had either failed or neglected to reserve, in specific and "_express terms_," the particular right to regulate and limit tariff charges, and therefore she could not now exercise that right, and could never regain it.