Cases on constitutional law - 1895 Author:James Bradley Thayer Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: WALES v. STETSON. Supreme Judicial Court Of Massachusetts. 1806. [2 Mats. 143.] l An action of trespass for passing a turnpike gate without paymen... more »t of toll, and for cutting down the gate. The defence was that the plaintiffs were unlawfully obstructing an existing highway. The case was submitted on agreed facts. The Attorney-General (Suttiuan), for the plaintiff; J. Richardson, for the defendant. The opinion of the court was delivered by Parsons, C. J. After considering the several points made in this cause by the counsel, we are satisfied that the question submitted must be decided according to the legal construction of the Act incorporating the proprietors of this turnpike. We are not prepared to deny a right in the General Court to discontinue, by statute, a public highway. It is an easement common to all the citizens who are represented in the legislature. The authorizing of the erection of bridges over navigable waters is, in fact, an exercise of a similar right. We are also satisfied that the rights legally Iowa, within seven or eight years after the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the present case, came back again to the doctrine of the earlier cases, and that this is now the fixed law of the State. Stewart v. Supervise,:, 30 Iowa, 193. It is enough, however, to say that the view was one which might reasonably be held. " It will be observed that the decision of this case does not at all turn upon the clause of the Constitution of the United States relating to impairing the obligation of contracts; and it should be added that it does not in any degree turn upon a theory that the United States courts have any special rights conferred upon them by the fact that the case relates to a contract. These courts are not the special prot...« less