All laws granting to railroad or other corporations organized for pecuniary profit, special and exclusive privileges, which encroach upon the rights of the public, should be repealed. The most prominent argument against repeal exists in the doctrine that railroads are public highways, and that a charter granted to a railroad corporation by the legislature is in the nature of a contract, and is therefore irrepealable. By the constant and persistent assertion of these propositions, and by frequent adjudication of the questions, candor compels us to admit that the current of judicial decisions supports this doctrine. Yet as the ancient dogma of tyrants, "The king can do no wrong," does not obtain in this country, we beg leave to call in question the soundness of this doctrine. If railroads are public highways, there can be no question as to the right of legislatures to exercise the same control over them that they assert in regard to common public roads. If they are public, private parties cannot have the exclusive control of them; nor can the legislature grant away the rights of the public by exclusive charters to private parties, for the reason that the legislature (the department of government that enacts all statutes) cannot, by the enactment of a statute, take from the whole people one of the rights belonging to them and confer it upon a private corporation. The legislature has no power to enact a statute declaring a foundry, or mill, built by an individual or a company with private capital (the absolute title vesting in such party) to be a public foundry or mill. If such a statute were enacted, it would not change the title to the property, nor would it prevent the owner from using and enjoying it as his own, exclusively. Whether it be called public or private would not change the nature of the ownership or convert the interest into public property. No matter by what name it might be called, it is still private property. The same is true of railroads. They are built and owned by private corporations; are under the control of their owners, who retain for their own use the earnings of their roads. If these roads are public highways, then the legislature, acting for the public good, occupies the anomalous position of granting charters to private parties to construct public highways, and to own them after their construction. The supreme court of the United States, and the courts of some of the states, have decided that they are public highways, and, according to the usual custom, these decisions are to be received as final.