Nor could the legislature confer exclusive privileges upon a corporation, the exercise of which would deprive the people of the rights guaranteed to them in the constitution; for the reason that the attempt to clothe a corporation with such privileges would be an unauthorized act on their part. In the case of "Providence Bank _vs_. Billings & Pittman," decided by the same court, in 1830, it is said that "The great object of an incorporation is to bestow the character and properties of individuality on a collective and changing body of men. This capacity is always given to such a body; any privileges which may exempt it from the burdens common to individuals do not flow necessarily from the charter, but must be expressed in it or they do not exist." The doctrine obtained that corporations can take nothing by implication, and that unless the power to regulate and control them has been surrendered by the legislature, that power remains undiminished. The rule that grants of privileges to corporations are to be strictly construed, when the rights of the public are affected, is recognized in this case. We are warranted in saying that it is only since corporations have become all-powerful in the land that a different rule has obtained. Under the statutes of the United States, and as formerly held by the supreme court, a promissory note given by a citizen of a state to another citizen of the same state, but transferred to a citizen of another state, could not be sued in the United States courts, but the holder was compelled to bring his action in the state courts. This rule obtained until counties, cities, and towns began to issue their bonds to railroad companies, and was then disregarded. Railroad companies had sold and delivered these bonds to parties in Wall street, or elsewhere; they had failed to fulfil their contracts with the parties from whom they had received the bonds, and when suit was brought upon them in the state courts the bondholders were beaten. Suits were then commenced in the federal courts, the plain letter of the statute was disregarded, the established decisions of the supreme courts were overruled, state statutes and constitutions were treated with contempt, the decisions of the supreme court of a state, which had been followed for years, were called "_oscillations_," and the interests, frauds, and deceits of railroad corporations were fully protected and sustained; not because this course was supported by the statutes or precedents, but because such a course would subserve these harmful interests. This action on the part of the supreme court was not the result of any dishonest or partisan intent, but it was made to prevent what the court was pleased to term great wrongs about to be inflicted on _innocent_ holders of bonds purchased of railroad companies. In many instances the _innocent_ bondholders were the same parties who, as railroad men, had cheated the