Sioux City Academy of Science and Letters. 123 
Whether or not this work of Judge Marshall and 
those who sat with him was good or bad is not the ques- 
tion now before us. The point is, that the Federal Courts 
did make decisions which enormously extended their 
power and that of the Federal government, and have 
operated powerfully to make the amendability of the 
constitution important to us, as the instrument under 
which we are chiefly governed. One of these was the 
Dartmouth College decision, which took from the States 
the power to abolish or amend the charters of corpora- 
tions which they were free to grant. This made the cor- 
poration a thing never known to English law, where the 
government always retained the visatorial power over 
them. The American State might repeal any law for 
the government of individuals; but when it made a law 
erecting a corporation, the charter so made was decreed 
by the Supreme Court of the United States to be a con- 
tract the obligation of which could not be impaired by 
any subsequent act. Under this and similar rulings, it 
is no wonder that the corporation has come to dominate 
American life. The corporation looks to the Federal 
Courts for protection against any serious meddling with 
charters, and that protection, the courts are now bound 
to give. 
Favor to corporations was shown, too, in another 
decision which has become the law, under which corpo- 
rations are held to be citizens of the State in which they 
happen to be incorporated. That a corporation, a purely 
artificial entity, could ever be regarded as a citizen of 
any state or nation, or in any sense a citizen at all, is, it 
seems to me, a startling doctrine. Yet, under this fic- 
tion, all the great corporations are able to remove to the 
United States courts all important litigation in every 
state except that of their domicile. This fact coupled 
with the enormous growth of corporations puts more and 
more of the judicial power of the land in the courts of the 
general government. 
These are only two lines of decisions, and are cited 
by way of illustration only. One or two factors more 
must be referred to, and with this branch of the inquiry 
I am done. I cannot leave the consideration of the 
growth of Federal power, and especially of the increas- 
ing power of the Federal Courts without a reference to 
