destruction or diminution by competition. It has, therefore, been a common practice in all the States to encourage enterprises having for their object the promotion of the public good, such as the construction of bridges, turnpikes, railroads, and canals, by granting for limited periods exclusive privileges in connection with them. Such grants, so far from being deemed encroachments upon any rights or powers of the United States, are held to constitute contracts, and to be within the protecting clause of the Constitution prohibiting any impairing of their obligation.

The grant to the complainant was invaded by the subsequent grant to the Pensacola and Louisville Railroad Company. If the first grant was valid, the second was void, according to all the decisions of this court, upon the power of a State to impair its grant, since the Dartmouth College Case. The court below did not hold otherwise, and I do not understand that a different view is taken here; but it decided, and this court sustains the decision, that the statute making the first grant was void, by reason of its conflict with the act of Congress of July 24, 1866.

With all deference to my associates, I cannot see that the act of Congress has any thing to do with the case before us. In my judgment, it has reference only to telegraph lines over and along military and post roads on the public domain of the United States. The title of the act expresses its purpose; namely, "To aid in the construction of telegraph lines, and to secure to the government the use of the same for postal, military, and other purposes." The. aid conferred was the grant of a right of way over the public domain; the act does not propose to give aid in any other way. Its language is, that any telegraph company organized under the laws of a State "shall have the right to construct, maintain, and operate lines of telegraph through and over any portion of the public domain, over and along any of the military and post roads which have been or may hereafter be declared such by act of Congress, and over and across the navigable streams or waters of the United States." The portion of the public domain which may be thus used is designated by reference to the military and post roads upon it. Were there any doubt that this is the

correct construction of the act, the provision which follows in the same section would seem to remove it; namely, that any of the said companies shall "have the right to take and use from such public lands the necessary stone, timber, and other materials for its posts, piers, stations, and other needful uses in the construction, maintenance, and operation of said lines of telegraph, and may pre-empt and use such portion of the unoccupied public lands, subject to pre-emption, through which its said lines of telegraph may be located, as may be necessary for its stations, not exceeding forty acres for each station, but such sections shall not be within fifteen miles of each other." In the face of this language, the Italics of which are mine, there ought not to be a difference of opinion as to the object of the act, or as to its construction. The conclusion reached by the najority of the court not only overlooks this language, but mplies that Congress intended to give aid to the telegraph companies of the country, those existing or thereafter to be created, not merely by allowing them to construct their lines over and along post-roads upon the public lands, but also over and along such roads within the States which are not on the public lands, where, heretofore, it has not been supposed that it could rightfully exercise any power.

The only military roads belonging to the United States within the States are in the military reservations; and to them the act obviously does not apply. And there are no post-roads belonging to the United States within the States. The roads upon which the mails are carried by parties, under contract with the government, belong either to the States, or to individuals, or to corporations, and are declared post-roads only to protect the carriers from being interfered with, and the mails from being delayed in their transportation, and the postal service from frauds. The government has no other control over them. It has no proprietary interest in them or along them to bestow upon any one. It cannot use them, without paying the tolls chargeable to individuals for similar uses; it cannot prevent the State from changing or discontinuing them at its pleasure; and it can acquire no ownership or property interest in them, except in the way in which it may acquire any other property in the States,—namely, by purchase, or by appropria

tion upon making just compensation. Dickey v. Turnpike Road Co., 7 Dana (Ky.), 113.

The public streets in some of our cities are post-roads, under the declaration of Congress (Rev. Stat., sect. 3964); and it would be a strange thing if telegraph lines could be erected by a foreign corporation along such streets without the consent of the municipal and State authorities, and, of course, without power on their part to regulate its charges or control its management. Yet the doctrině asserted by the majority of the court goes to this length: that, if the owners of the property along the streets consent to the erection of such lines by a foreign corporation, the municipality and the State are powerless to prevent it, although the exclusive right to erect them may have been granted by the State to a corporation of its own creation.

If by making a contract with a party to carry the mails over a particular road in a State, which thus becomes by act of Congress for that purpose a post-road, Congress acquires such rights with respect to the road that it can authorize corporations of other States to construct along and over it a line of telegraph, why may it not authorize them to construct along the road a railway, or a turnpike, or a canal, or any other work which may be used for the promotion of commerce? If the authority exist in the one case, I cannot see why it does not equally exist in the other. And if Congress can authorize the corporations of one State to construct telegraph lines and railways in another State, it must have the right to authorize them to condemn private property for that purpose. The act under consideration does not, it is true, provide for such condemnation; but if the right exist to authorize the construction of the lines, it cannot be defeated from the inability of the corporations to acquire the necessary property by purchase. The power to grant implies a power to confer all the authority necessary to make the grant effectual. It was for a long time a debated question whether the United States, in order to obtain property required for their own purposes, could exercise the right of eminent domain within a State. It has been decided, only within the past two years, that the government, if such property cannot be obtained by purchase, nay appro

priate it, upon making just compensation to the owner, Kohl v. United States, 91 U. S. 367; but never has it been suggested that the United States could enable a corporation of one State to condemn property in another State, in order that it might transact its private business there.

We are not called upon to say that Congress may not construct a railroad as a post-road, or erect for postal purposes a telegraph line. It may be that the power to establish postroads is not limited to designating the roads which shall be used as postal routes, a limitation which has been asserted by eminent jurists and statesmen. If it be admitted that the power embraces also the construction of such roads, it does not follow that Congress can authorize the corporation of one State to construct and operate a railroad or telegraph line in another State for the transaction of private business, or even to exist there, without the permission of the latter State. By reason of its previous grant to the complainant, Florida was incompetent to give such permission to the assignor of the defendant, or to any other company, to construct a telegraph line in the county of Escambia. The act of the State of Feb. 3, 1874, in the face of this grant, can only be held to authorize the construction of telegraph lines by different companies in other counties. If, therefore, the defendant has any rights in that county, they are derived solely from the act of Congress.

A corporation can have no legal existence beyond the limits of the sovereignty which created it. In Bank of Augusta v. Earle (13 Pet. 519), it was said by this court that "it must dwell in the place of its creation, and cannot migrate to another sovereignty." And in Paul v. Virginia (8 Wall. 168), we added, that "the recognition of its existence even by other States, and the enforcement of its contracts made therein, depend purely upon the comity of those States, a comity which is never extended where the existence of the corporation or the exercise of its powers is prejudicial to their interests or repugnant to their policy. Having no absolute right of recognition in other States, but depending for such recognition and the enforce

'Elliott's Debates, edition of 1836, 433, 487; Views of President Monroe accompanying his veto message of May 4, 1822; Views of Judge McLean in his dissenting opinion in the Wheeling Bridge Case, 18 How. 441, 442.

ment of its contracts upon their assent, it follows, as a matter of course, that such assent may be granted, upon such terms and conditions as those States may think proper to impose. They may exclude the foreign corporation entirely, they may restrict its business to particular localities, or they may exact such security for the performance of its contracts with their citizens as in their judgment will best promote the public interest. The whole matter rests in their discretion." If, therefore, foreign corporations can exist in the State of Florida, and do business there by the authority of Congress, it must be because Congress can create such corporations for local business, a doctrine to which I cannot assent, and which to my mind is pregnant with evil consequences.

In all that has been said of the importance of the telegraph as a means of intercourse, and of its constant use in commercial transactions, I fully concur. Similar language may be used with regard to railways; indeed, of the two, the railway is much the more important instrument of commerce. But it is difficult to see how from this fact can be deduced the right of Congress to authorize the corporations of one State to enter within the borders, of another State and construct railways and telegraph lines in its different counties for the transaction of local business. The grant to the complainant in no way interferes with the power of Congress, if it possess such power, to construct telegraph lines or railways for postal service or for military purposes, or with its power to regulate commerce between the States. The imputation that Florida designed by the grant to obstruct the powers of Congress in these respects is not warranted by any thing in her statute. A like imputation, and with equal justice, might be made against every State in the Union which has authorized the construction of a railway or telegraph line in any one of its counties, with a grant of an exclusive right to operate the road or line for a limited period. It is true the United States, equally with their citizens, may be obliged in such cases to use the road or line; but it has not heretofore been supposed that this fact impaired the right of the State to make the grant. When the general government desires to transact business within a State, it necessarily makes use of the highways and modes of transit provided under