by said court of common pleas to the penitentiary of this state, equal to the fees of the sheriff of Alexander county, for like services, under "An act entitled 'an act to regulate the fees and compensations of sheriffs and collectors in certain counties,' approved Feb. 16, 1865, and the amendments thereto."

I am not prepared to assert with absolute confidence that the act under consideration is a "local law" within the true intent and meaning of the 23d section of the 3d article of the State constitution, which provides that "no private or local law which may be passed by the General Assembly shall embrace more than one subject, and that shall be expressed in the title," though as the object of the constitutional provision is that neither the members of the General Assembly nor the public shall be misled by the title of a bill, it seems clearly within the mischief intended to be prevented by the constitution.

Deferring to the judgment of the General Assembly upon this point, I am upon another ground compelled to the conclusion that the sixth section of the bill is in direct conflict with the constitution.

It is declared b the 33d section of the 3d article of the constitution that "the General Assembly shall never grant or authorize extra compensation to any public officer, agent, servant or contractor, after the services shall have been rendered or the contract entered into." The persons described in this section as the marshal and ex-marshal of the city of Cairo, are or were public officers, and have, as appears by the language employed, already received the full compensation allowed them by the laws in force at the time the services were rendered, and by this act it is proposed to authorize and require the Auditor of Public Accounts to pay them an extra compensation for the same services. It would be difficult to imagine a case more distinctly and clearly within the constitutional prohibition than this, and for that reason I am constrained to withhold my signature from the bill.

JOHN M. PALMER.

RAILROAD RATES FOR THE CONVEYANCE OF PASSENGERS. EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, SPRINGFIELD, ILL., February 5, 1869,

To the Honorable the Speaker of the Senate:

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The bill for "An act concerning railroad rates for the conveyance of passengers in the State of Illinois," which originated in the Senate, and passed both branches of the General Assembly, was laid before me on the 30th ultimo.

I have given the bill the most deliberate and careful consideration, and, after doing so, am unable to persuade myself that it should become a law.

The first section of the bill prohibits all railroads organized and doing business, or which may hereafter be organized and do business, in this State, under any act of incorporation or general law of this State now in force, or which may hereafter be in force, from taking or receiving any greater rate for the conveyance of passengers in this State, than is now or may hereafter be prescribed by law.

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The second section of the bill declares that after the first day of March, 1569, no such railroad corporation shall charge or receive, for the conveyance of any passengers over its road, or over any portion thereof, a greater sum than three cents per mile, nor for any person under ten years of age more than one-half that sum per mile.

The third section imposes penalties upon railroad corporations and their employees, for taking a greater sum for the transportation of passengers than the sums limited by this act.

The fourth section defines and fixes the meaning of the term "railroad corporations," when used in this act, and provides that the provisions of the act shall not be applicable to horse railroads, and shall not be construed nor have the effect to release the Illinois Central Railroad Company from the payment of the per centum of the gross proceeds of its earnings, as provided in its charter; and the fifth section excludes all railroads now in process of construction, or which shall hereafter be constructed, from the operation of the restrictions contained in this act, for the term of ten years, after thirty miles of such road shall be actually constructed, and railroads not exceeding thirty miles in length are excepted from the limitation of rates, unless such roads shall become consolidated or form running connections with some other line of railroad; and it is further provided that the act shall not be construed so as to impose any greater restrictions upon railroads hereafter to be created than upon railroads now in existence. It is not to be denied that the bill is conceived in the most liberal spirit toward the interests to be affected by it. The maximum rate of three cents per mile is believed to afford a liberal compensation to the owners of railroads, for the service of transporting passengers over their roads, under all ordinary circumstances, and the exceptions made in the bill in favor of new enterprises and short roads amounts to a, discrimination in favor of the excepted interests which gives them great advantages over the older and better established lines.

The act must also be regarded as the expression of a conviction in the minds of the representatives of the people of the State that the great subject to which it belongs demands legislative interference for its proper regulation and control.

The extensive application of the corporate method of organization in modern times, the facilities it affords for bestowing the character and properties of individuality on a collective and changing body of men, and the employment of their united means and resources for some common object of public and personal advantage, renders it probable that at no distant period the principle, under proper restraints, and with adequate guards for the security of public rights, will be engrafted upon or take the place of every other species of co-operative effort, and be employed in every variety of business where unity of effort and means are profitable or desirable.

Whatever may have been the prejudices of the people of the State, at an earlier period of our history, against corperations, and however general and deep-seated the conviction is that with their immense capital and the power they possess to unite and consolidate their property and influence for the attainment of a common object, it is now settled that they are fixed in our system, and are hereafter to exercise even a more important influence on our financial and economical interests than they now do.

Now, almost all the great commercial and industrial enterprises of the country are managed by the means of corporate agencies. Incorporated partnerships, with large powers already conceded by the State, are the proprietors of banks, railroads, canals, lines of boats and shipping upon our great rivers and lakes; they light our cities, and indeed connect themselves with or undertake almost every branch of industry, and engage in every profitable pursuit. Under these circumstances it is the business of the Legislature of the State to devise and adopt some wise, just and effective system for the proper regulation and control of interests so vast and varied-a system which will at once secure to the people all that will promote the prosperity of the State, and at the same time control or repress the abuses which are incidental to the very nature of corporations, or that result from the lawless and grasping spirit which sometimes characterizes and disgraces their management.

As leading to this desirable result it is necessary first to determine with certainty what measures to that end are within the constitutional powers of the General Assembly; but in prosecuting this inquiry it must not be forgotten that to this department is delegated only a part of the great and complete powers of the State,

By the constitution, the powers of the government are divided into three distinct departments, "those which are legislative to one, those which are executive to another, and those which are judicial to another," and "no person or collection of persons, being one of these departments, shall exercise any power properly belonging to either of the others, except as hereinafter expressly directed or permitted, and all acts in contravention of this section shall be void."

The general incorporation laws of the state, and the special statutes for the creation of incorporations for objects which were deemed by successive general assemblies to be of sufficient public importance to merit this method of encouragement, are, in themselves complete, and if in violation of no constitutional provision, valid exercises of legislative power. For public considerations, they tender to corporators, who are invited to accept them, important and valuable franchises. The franchises proposed are defined by the Legislature, and are coupled with such conditions as to their management and use as the General Assembly have thought proper to prescribe; and these franchises and privileges, when accepted by the person to whom they are offered, become binding upon the parties accepting them; and upon principles of reason and justice, the grant is binding upon the State.

If this statement of the relations of the State to the persons incorporated is correct, it may be asked, after the State acting through the appropriate department of the government has, for reasons of advantage to its citizens, tendered to all who may choose to avail themselves of the general laws, or to particular persons, the rights and powers defined by itself in special enactments, and such powers and rights are accepted, what remains with respect to them for the legislative department to do?

If the offer of the State, acting through its Legislature and with the approval of its executive, is once accepted by those to whom it is made, the corporate charter, in all essential circumstances, takes upon itself the qualities of a contract, and at that instant passes from legislative and becomes subject to judicial control.

Such a contract, upon well settled principles of constitutional law, cannot be impaired; and this proposition exc'udes as well the idea of modification or change, as of total subversion, by the Legislature.

The rights of the State and of the corporators, so far as they are involved in the essential element of the contract, are fixed beyond recall or change, and are therefter only to be ascertained, determined and enforced by that department of the State government to which the constitution has confided all its judicial powers.

The bill under consideration is then, in my judgment, objectionable, because it assumes for the General Assembly judicial powers.

As I had occasion to argue in my inaugural address, legislative permission to construct and operate a railroad for the transportation of passengers and freight, carries with it to the corporators, and those who may legally succeed to their rights, the power and right to demand compensation for their services; and this incidental power is expressly recognized and confirmed by the provisions of the general railroad law, and all the special acts of incorporation under which railroads have been constructed and operated in this State. There is then, I believe, no doubt entertained by any one, as to the existence of the right of railroad corporations, under these contracts with the State, to demand and collect some compensation for the transportation of passengers by their lines; nor is it claimed by any one that the power to defeat this right altogether, resides in the General Assembly. The only doubt is as to the extent and measure of this conceded right. It being then assumed, as an undeniable proposition, that the right to some compensation is so vested in railroad corporations by their charters as to be beyond the power of the Legislature to destroy it, and their charters containing no words by which the measure of the right is limited or defined, it follows that the power of fixing the limitation must be either in the corporations interested, or in some or all of the departments of the government of the State. Any claim that the railroad corporations interested have the right to fix such rates at their own discretion, does not deserve a moment's attention. Independent of all other considerations that might be adverted to in answer to such a pretense, it is sufficient to say that the General Assembly has no power to confer upon them the authority to conclusively determine the measures of their own rights.

The customers of such corporations have rights as well as they, and may with as much show of reason demand to control the question. Nor is it more reasonable or consistent with correct principles to assert such a power for the General Assembly. It is true, and it must be conceded, that no such right to fix the rates for the transportation of passengers is distinctly claimed by the bill. It only proposes to fix the maximum rates for such service; but the rate proposed by it is arbitrary, and rests alone upon a claim of power in the Legislature to determine the question by force of its own authority, independent of every other consideration. The rate selected and fixed may be all that the public ought, with reference to the principles of justice and reason, be required to pay for the service specified in the bill, or itmay be more than the corporations ought be allowed in good conscience to demand, and these considerations alone demonstate that the power asserted for the General Assembly by the bill can not exist. If the maximum rate permitted by the bill is under any circumstances more than the public, with reference to the principles of justice, ought to be required to pay, the railroad corporations ought not to be permitted to demand it. If it is less than the railroad corporations embraced within the provisions of the bill ought, under some circumstances, to be permitted to demand, they ought not to be prohibited from doing 80. In fact the bill is based upon a misconception both of the rights of the corporations and of the public. The rights of all are secured by the contract between the proprietors of the corporate franchise and the State. They have undertaken the performance of important duties, in which the public are deeply interested, for a reasonable reward, and the people may well demand the performance of that undertaking. What is reasonable for the transportation of passengers under any given circumstances, must in the nature of things be dependent upon facts that can only be investigated in tribunals organized for that purpose. It is for the courts to inquire into the facts, to construe and interpret contracts, and finally adjudicate upon the rights that depend upon them. The bill under consideration, then, so far as it proposes to establish a rate of compensation to railroad corporators for the transportation of passengers, founded alone upon the authority of the General Assembly, irrespective of the exact measure of reason and right, impairs the obligation of the contracts of the State, and if it rests for its support upon any claim of the General Assembly of a right to interpret this class of contracts, it invades the constitutional power of the judicial department, and would be void even if clothed by my approval with the forms of law.

It is not, by what has already been said, intended to deny that railroad corporations are properly subject to the police power of the State, under which many wholesome restrictions have been imposed upon them, but only to maintain that the rights of the people and the corporations referred to are alike secured by the laws, to be interpreted and enforced by the department of the government to which that class of duties has been confided by the constitution. It seems to me to be proper, before concluding, that I reiterate the opinion expressed on a former occasion, that all the powers conferred upon all classes of corporations by law are coupled with the inseparable condition that they shall be reasonably and properly exercised, and that upon acknowledged principles they may be punished for any abuse of the privileges conferred upon them. The proposition that railroad corporations have the right to demand reasonable compensation for their services in the transportation of persons and property, is so consistent with right and justice that it will hardly be denied and its cheerful recognition is necessary if the State is hereafter to derive all the benefits anticipated from the extension of this indispensable aid to improvement and progress; and if this right is conceded to them nothing more can properly be demanded. The State, which has clothed them with the valuable