Governor Plumer communicated this message to Jefferson, who replied in his letter of July 21, 1816: "It is replete with sound principles, and truly republican. Some articles, too, are worthy of notice. The idea that institutions established for the use of the nation cannot be touched nor modified, even to make them answer their end, because of rights gratuitously supposed in those employed to manage them in trust for the public, may, perhaps, be a salutary provision against the abuses of a monarch, but it is most absurd against the nation itself. Yet our lawyers and priests generally inculcate this doctrine, and suppose that preceding generations held the earth more freely than we do; had a right to impose laws on us, unalterable by ourselves; and that we, in like manner, can make laws and impose burdens on future generations, which they will have no right to alter; in fine, that the earth belongs to the dead, and not to the living." The following action shows the result: "The undersigned, three of the members of the Board of Trustees of Dartmouth College, having this morning seen a printed copy of a bill before the Honorable House [of the New Hampshire Legislature], the provisions of which, should they go into effect would set aside the Charter of the college, and wholly change the administration of its concerns, beg leave respectfully to remonstrate against its passage. The provisions of the bill referred to change the name of the corporation; enlarge the number of Trustees; alter the number to constitute a quorum; render persons living out of the State, who are now eligible, hereafter ineligible; vacate the seats of those members who are not inhabitants of the State; deprive the Trustees of the right of electing members to supply vacancies; and give to the new Board of Trustees an arbitrary power of annulling everything heretofore transacted by the Trustees; and this last without the concurrence of the proposed Board of Overseers. The consent of the present Board of Trustees is in no instance contemplated as necessary to give validity to the new act of incorporation. "In the opinion of the undersigned, these changes, modifications, and alterations effectually destroy the present Charter of the college and constitute a new one. "Should the bill become a law, it will be obvious to our fellow citizens that the Trustees of Dartmouth College will have been deprived of their Charter rights without having been summoned or notified of any such proceeding against them. It will be equally obvious to our fellow citizens that the facts reported by the committee of investigation [of the last Legislature] did not form the ground and basis of the new act of incorporation; and that no evidence of facts of any sort, relating to the official conduct of the Trustees, other than the report of the committee of investigation, was submitted to your Honorable Bodies.