The Railroad Question: A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and remedies for their abusesLarrabee, William
History
The Railroad Question: A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and remedies for their abuses
Larrabee, William
Railroads; Railroads -- United States; Railroads and state -- United States
"The subordination of all private interests to the purposes
of government, subject only to the condition that the object
to be accomplished shall be one in which the public has an
interest, is no longer an open question. In its general
bearing this principle is too well settled and uniformly
recognized--underlying the adjudications by courts of all
cases involving constitutional provisions--to require more
than a mere statement."
And again he says:
"Nor is it longer necessary to seek a justification of the
common practice of regulating the rates of charges and
general management of railroads on the ground that they have
received valuable franchises of a public nature and had
important powers of sovereign character conferred upon them.
That may be an important political consideration, and as
such may strengthen the argument in favor of the right; but
the right itself rests upon firmer ground, and upon other
considerations than that of pecuniary consideration derived
from the State. The State may regulate their business, not
because they are corporations, nor yet because they are
corporations of a particular kind, but because they, like
the individuals of which they are composed, are subject to
the laws which say that when one devotes his property to a
use in which the public has an interest, he in effect grants
to the public an interest in that use, and must submit to be
controlled by the public for the common good to the extent
of the interest he has thus created."
CHAPTER XI.
RAILROADS AND RAILROAD LEGISLATION IN IOWA.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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