Public Aid—A Constitutional Question. 
351 
the transportation facilities it offers; but in all other respects 
is private. The road, with all its rolling stock, buildings, fix¬ 
tures and other property pertaining to it, is private property, 
owned, operated, and used by the company for the exclusive 
benefit of the stockholders. This constitutes a private cor¬ 
poration in the fullest sense of the term. ” All private corpora¬ 
tions are more or less for public use. If they were considered 
of no public utility or advantage it is presumed they would 
never be chartered. “Private corporations are for banks, in¬ 
surance, roads, canals, bridges, etc., where the stock is owned 
by individuals, but their use may be public. In all the last 
named, and other like corporations, the acts done by them are 
done with a view to their own interest, and if thereby 
they incidentally promote that of the public, it cannot be reason¬ 
ably supposed they do it from any spirit of liberality they 
have beyond that of their fellow citizens. Both the property and 
sole object of every such corporation are essentially private , and 
from them the individuals composing the company corporate are 
to derive profit. ” 1 Railroad companies invite capitalists into 
their field of enterprise, not as public servants, charged with a 
public duty, but as private corporations, whose privileges are 
to be exercised, if at all, under limitations and restrictions look¬ 
ing to the benefit of travelers and patrons of the work. All 
these arguments, elaborated in detail, clearly establish the 
private nature of railroad corporations, and the unconstitutional¬ 
ity of taxation for donations to such bodies. 
But the dissenting opinion deserves a little more attention 
than we have accorded it thus far. Aside from an academic 
eulogy on the mission of railroads, the propriety of which may 
be drawn into question, the decision contains several more in¬ 
teresting sentences. The court had admitted that the validity 
of subscriptions even had been doubted. The dissenting opin¬ 
ion discusses a long line of decisions which had held stock-sub¬ 
scriptions valid, and then adds: “Tn my opinion it was 'wholly 
immaterial, so far as the question of power was concerned” 
whether the money was donated or used to purchase stock. “If 
the purpose is public, the tax is valid without the stock; if private 
1 Bonaparte vs. Camden & Amboy R. R. Co., 1 Baldwin, C. C. 223. 
