MR. JUSTICE STRONG.
I cannot concur in the judgment directed by the court in this case. That the charter granted by the legislature, March 8, 1867, and accepted by the company, is a contract protected by the Constitution of the United States, cannot be denied, in the face of Dartmouth College v. Woodward (4 Wheat. 518), and the long line of decisions that have followed in its wake and reasserted its doctrines. And if the company holds its rights under and by force of the contract, those rights cannot be taken away or impaired, either directly or indirectly, by any subsequent legislation. This I believe to be incontrovertible, though the opinion just delivered may seem to express a doubt of it.
What, then, was the contract created by the charter and its acceptance? The first, second, and third sections constituted certain persons named, and their successors, associates, and assigns, a body politic and corporate, to have continued succession and existence for the term of fifty years, and declared that its capital stock should be $50,000, but gave the company power to increase the same to any sum not exceeding $250,000.
The fourth and fifth sections are as follows:--
'SECT. 4. Said corporation is hereby authorized and empowered to establish and maintain chemical and other works at the place designated herein, for the purpose of manufacturing and converting dead animals and other animal matter into an agricultural fertilizer and into other chemical products, by means of chemical, mechanical, and other processes.
'SECT. 5. Said chemical works shall be established in Cook County, Illinois, at any point south of the dividing line between townships 37 and 38. Said corporation may establish and maintain depots in the city of Chicago, in said county, for the purpose of receiving and carrying off from and out of the said city any and all offal, dead animals, and other animal matter which they may buy or own, or which may be delivered to them by the city authorities and other persons.'