Five-minute digest
Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge
Summary
In 1785 the Massachusetts legislature incorporated the Proprietors of the Charles River Bridge to span the river between Boston and Charlestown, where Harvard College had held a ferry right since 1650. The charter let the proprietors collect tolls for forty years and required them to pay the college two hundred pounds a year for the loss of its ferry; in 1792, when a second bridge to Cambridge was authorized, the term was lengthened to seventy years. The bridge opened in June 1786 and earned handsome returns as traffic grew. In 1828 the legislature chartered the Warren Bridge, whose Charlestown end lay only sixteen rods away, allowing tolls only until its builders were repaid and no longer than six years, after which it would become free. Once that happened, travel deserted the older bridge. The Charles River proprietors sought an injunction, arguing that their charter implied a promise by the state not to authorize a competing bridge that would destroy the value of its toll right, and that the Warren Bridge act therefore impaired the obligation of contracts in violation of Article I, Section 10. Daniel Webster, who argued for them, relied on Dartmouth College v. Woodward and on the rule that a grant carries with it whatever is needed to enjoy it. The Warren Bridge side answered that a public grant conveys only what its words express, and that a legislature cannot be presumed to have surrendered its power to provide new avenues of travel. The Massachusetts high court divided evenly, and the case was first argued in Washington in 1831 but not decided before the bench changed. In February 1837 the Court affirmed the dismissal of the bill, four justices to three. Chief Justice Taney held that public grants are construed strictly in favor of the public: nothing passes by implication, and the charter contained no words of exclusive right. He cited Providence Bank v. Billings (1830) and warned that implied monopolies along lines of travel would let old turnpike companies block the railroads and canals then transforming the country. Justice Story, joined by Justice Thompson, dissented at length, arguing from English authorities that grants of the Crown were never read to defeat their evident object, and that investors would not risk capital on public works if the state could ruin them at will. Justice McLean wrote separately that the Court lacked jurisdiction and would have dismissed the case, though he considered the merits to favor the old proprietors. The library text gives Taney's full opinion and a substantial opening portion of Story's dissent, which breaks off in his survey of royal grants; McLean's opinion and the printed footnotes are absent. The decision became the leading authority for reading corporate charters narrowly. Later cases relied on it in railroad and utility disputes, and states increasingly reserved in their charters an express power to alter or repeal them. Story's dissent is remembered as the classic defense of vested property under the Contract Clause.
Top Lessons
Doubtful words favor the public
Taney's rule is that when a state grants a franchise, the grantee takes only what the words clearly give. The reason is that a government exists to serve the community, so it should never be presumed to have bargained away its power to do so.
Security for investors
Story answered that public works depend on private capital, and that no one will build a bridge or canal if the legislature may later destroy its value by chartering a free rival next door. His dissent treats steady protection of property as a condition of public improvement.
Law and new machines
The argument about two bridges was also an argument about railroads. Taney feared that implied monopolies would freeze transportation at the level of the last century, and his opinion reads as a defense of the community's right to adopt new improvements.
Continuity and change on the bench
The case was first argued before Marshall's Court and decided after Jackson's appointees had arrived. Taney did not overrule Dartmouth College, which held that charters are contracts; he narrowed what those contracts were understood to contain.
Verified Quotes
Frequently cited
“But the object and end of all government is to promote the happiness and prosperity of the community by which it is established; and it can never be assumed, that the government intended to diminish its power of accomplishing the end for which it was created.”
Frequently cited
“While the rights of private property are sacredly guarded, we must not forget, that the community also have rights, and that the happiness and well-being of every citizen depends on their faithful preservation.”
“The millions of property which have been invested in railroads and canals, upon lines of travel which had been before occupied by turnpike corporations, will be put in jeopardy.”
“We shall be thrown back to the improvements of the last century, and obliged to stand still, until the claims of the old turnpike corporations shall be satisfied; and they shall consent to permit these states to avail themselves of the lights of modern science, and to partake of the benefit of those improvements which are now adding to the wealth and prosperity, and the convenience and comfort, of every other part of the civilized world.”
“It is a principle of common sense, as well as of law, that when a thing is granted, whatever is necessary to its enjoyment, is granted also.”
“This is an admonition, in my humble judgment, very fit to be remembered and acted upon by all judges, who are called upon to interpose between the government and the citizen, in cases of public grants.”
Medical Lens
The dispute turns on toll charters, contract rights and the construction of public grants; nothing in the opinions bears on medicine.