"The objects for which corporations are created are universally such as the government wishes to promote. They are deemed beneficial to the country, and this benefit constitutes the consideration, and, in most cases, the sole consideration of the grant." * * "From the fact, then, that a charter of incorporation has been granted, nothing can be implied which changes the character of the institution, or transfers to the government any new power over it. The character of civil institutions does not grow out of their incorporation, but out of the manner in which they are founded, and the objects for which they are created. The right to change them is not founded on their being incorporated, but on their being the instruments of government created for its purposes. The same institution, created for the same objects, though not incorporated, would be public institutions, and, of course, controllable by the legislature. The incorporating act neither gives nor prevents this control." The doctrine above enunciated fixes the line of distinction between public and private corporations. Those created for public or governmental purposes are defined to be "public corporations," and those created for the advancement of private enterprises are "private corporations." Private corporations possess none of the attributes of sovereignty, and hence are to be treated in law as private individuals; the act of incorporation being for the purpose of affording the corporators proper facilities for transacting business. Corporations being the mere creatures of the law, they possess only those properties which the charters of their creation confer upon them. Under the decision to which we have referred, and from which we have quoted, corporations are created by statute, and are subject to the control of the power creating them. A grant from the sovereign power to an individual, or to a company, is not necessarily irrepealable, nor will it in all cases be treated as a contract. Corporations created for public or governmental purposes are binding as contracts only so far as they affect private interests, for the good reason that government cannot contract with itself.