The legal interest, in every such literary and charitable institution, is in trustees, and to be asserted by them, which they claim or defend on behalf of the society or community for the object of religion, charity, or education, for which they were originally created, and the private donations made. Contracts of this kind, creating such charitable or educational institutions, should be at all times protected by the state, and their rights maintained by the courts administered by a pure and just judiciary. Conquests or revolutions cannot change the rights acquired under such contracts, and no state should by any act transfer the rights of property theretofore acquired, nor transfer from the trustees appointed according to the will of the founders or donors. The will of the state should not be substituted for the will of the donors, or convert an institution, moulded according to the will of its founders, and placed under the control of people of their own selection, into government property. Such action is of course subversive of the original compact on the faith of which the donors invested their gifts, donations, or devises, and is, therefore, repugnant to every idea of honesty and good morals, for enforcing which governments are instituted.
A grant to a private trustee, for the benefit of a particular _cestui que trust_, or for any special, private, or public charity, cannot be the less a contract because the trustee takes nothing for his own benefit. Nor does a private donation vested in a trustee for objects of a general nature thereby become a public trust, which a government may at its pleasure take from the trustee. A government cannot even revoke a grant of its own funds, when given to a corporation or private person for special uses. It has no other remaining authority but what is judicial to enforce the proper administration of the trust. Nor is such a grant less a contract though no beneficial interest accrues to the possessor. All incorporeal hereditaments, as immunities, dignities, offices, and franchises, are rights deemed valuable in law, and whenever they are the subject of contract or grant they should be held as legal estates. They are held as powers coupled with interests, and consequently are vested rights, and of which the possessors should not be divested by any legislative body without their consent.