JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY STUDIES IN HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCE Under the Direction of the Departments of History, Political Economy, and CONTENTS CHAPTER IV. The Dartmouth College Case CHAPTER V. The Obligation of Contracts Clause as PAGE PREFACE The general purpose of this study is the examination of the questions which have been decided by the Supreme Court of the United States in cases arising under that clause of Article I, section 10, of the United States Constitution which provides that “ no States shall . . pass any law im pairing the obligation of contracts" (and which will, for convenience, be referred to, hereafter, as the "contracts clause"), in so far as these questions relate, in any way, to special privileges granted by the States. By "special privileges" reference is had to what are commonly known as "franchises," such as the privilege of being a corporation, the privileges of engaging in certain public service businesses such as that of common carriage, the privilege of exercising the state's power of eminent domain, the privilege of using the public streets and highways for tracks, pipes, wires, etc.; and also to those privileges which may be distinguished from "franchises" by the designation of “immunities," such as the immunity or exemption from taxation by the state, or from rate regulation. This use of these terms is adopted because it calls attention to an important distinction between the two kinds of privileges. The usage is not universal, however. Blackstone designates all special privileges by the general term "franchises." A survey of the decisions will show that the questions arising in these cases, when viewed most broadly, divide themselves into two rather different fields of inquiry. The first field is concerned with the questions which are peculiar to the "contracts clause," per se-such as, What is a "contract"?—and which are fundamental to a true understanding of the clause. The second field is concerned with the construction of particular grants of privileges. Here the leading principle is the so-called doctrine of the strict con |