by so doing the rights of others are not interfered with; disabilities may be removed; the legislature as parens patriæ, when not forbidden, may grant authority to the guardians or trustees of incompetent persons to exercise a statutory control over their estates for their assistance, comfort, or support, or for the discharge of legal or equitable liens upon their property; but every one has a right to demand that he be governed by general rules, and a special statute which, without his consent, singles his case out as one to be regulated by a different law from that which is applied * in all similar cases, would not be legiti- [* 392] mate legislation, but would be such an arbitrary mandate as is not within the province of free governments. Those who make the laws “are to govern by promulgated, established laws, not to be varied in particular cases, but to have one rule for rich and poor, for the favorite at court and the countryman at plough." i This is a maxim in constitutional law, and by it we may test the authority and binding force of legislative enactments.2 Teft v. Teft, 3 Mich. 671; Simonds v. Simonds, 103 Mass. 572. See, for the same principle, Alter's Appeal, 67 Penn. St. 341. The authority in emergencies to suspend the civil laws in a part of the State only, by a declaration of martial law, we do not call in question by any thing here stated. Nor in what we have here said do we have any reference to suspensions of the laws generally, or of any particular law, under the extraordinary circumstances of rebellion or war. effect of such general law, leaving all 1 Locke on Civil Government, § 142; have any operation or effect upon the State v. Duffy, 7 Nev. 349. 2 In Lewis v. Webb, 3 Me. 326, the validity of a statute granting an appeal from a decree of the Probate Court in a particular case came under review. The court say: "On principle it can never be within the bounds of legitimate legislation to enact a special law, or pass a resolve dispensing with the general law in a particular case, and granting a privilege and indulgence to one man, by way of exemption from the operation and A persons, rights, or property of Archelaus Lewis or John Gordon, such a proviso would receive the sanction or even the countenance of a court of law? And how does the supposed case differ from the present? resolve passed after the general law can produce only the same effect as such proviso. In fact, neither can have any legal operation." See also Durham v. Lewiston, 4 Greenl. 140; Holden v. James, 11 Mass. 396; Piquet, Appellant, 5 Pick. 64; Budd Special courts cannot be created for the trial of the rights and obligations of particular parties; and those cases in which legislative acts granting new trials or other special relief in judicial proceedings, while they have been regarded as usurpations of judicial authority, have also been considered obnoxious to the objection that they undertook to suspend general [*393] laws in special * cases. The doubt might also arise whether a regulation made for any one class of citizens, entirely arbitrary in its character, and restricting their rights, privileges, or legal capacities in a manner before unknown to the law, could be sustained, notwithstanding its generality. Distinctions in these respects must rest upon some reason upon which they can be defended, like the want of capacity in infants and insane persons; and if the legislature should undertake to provide that persons following some specified lawful trade or employment should not have capacity to make contracts, or to receive conveyances, or to build such houses as others were allowed to erect, or in any other way to make such use of their property as was permissible to others, it can scarcely be doubted that the act would transcend the due bounds of legislative power, even though no express constitutional provision could be pointed out with which it would come in conflict. To forbid v. State, 3 Humph. 483; Van Zant v. Waddell, 2 Yerg. 260; People v. Frisbie, 26 Cal. 135; Davis v. Menasha, 21 Wis. 497; Lancaster v. Barr, 25 Wis. 560; Brown v. Haywood, 4 Heisk. 357; Wally's Heirs v. Kennedy, 2 Yerg. 554. In the last case it is said: "The rights of every individual must stand or fall by the same rule or law that governs every other member of the body politic, or land, under similar circumstances; and every partial or private law, which directly proposes to destroy or affect individual rights, or does the same thing by affording remedies leading to similar consequences, is unconstitutional and void. Were it otherwise, odious individuals and corporations would be governed by one law; the mass of the community and those who made the law, by another; whereas the like general law affecting the whole com munity equally could not have been passed." See further, Officer v. Young, 5 Yerg. 320; Griffin v. Cunningham, 20 Grat. 31 (an instructive case); Dorsey v. Dorsey, 37 Md. 64; s. c. 11 Am. Rep. 528; Trustees v. Bailey, 10 Fla. 238; Lawson v. Jeffries, 47 Miss. 686; s. c. 12 Am. Rep. 342; Arnold v. Kelley, 5 W. Va. 446; ante, pp. *95-*96. 1 As, for instance, the debtors of a particular bank. Bank of the State v. Cooper, 2 Yerg. 599. Compare Durkee v. Janesville, 28 Wis. 464, in which it was declared that a special exemption of the city of Janesville from the payment of costs in any proceeding against it to set aside a tax or tax sale was void. In matter of Nichols, 8 R. I. 50, a special act admitting a tort debtor committed to jail to take the poor debtor's oath and be discharged, was held void. to an individual or a class the right to the acquisition or enjoyment of property in such manner as should be permitted to the community at large, would be to deprive them of liberty in particulars of primary importance to their "pursuit of happiness;"1 and those who should claim a right to do so ought to be able to show a specific authority therefor, instead of calling upon others to show how and where the authority is negatived. Equality of rights, privileges, and capacities unquestionably should be the aim of the law; and if special privileges are granted, or special burdens or restrictions imposed in any case, it must be presumed that the legislature designed to depart as little as possible from this fundamental maxim of government.2 1 Burlamaqui (Politic Law, c. 3, § 15) defines natural liberty as the right which nature gives to all mankind of disposing of their persons and property after the manner they judge most consonant to their happiness, on condition of their acting within the limits of the law of nature, and so as not to interfere with an equal exercise of the same rights by other men. See 1 Bl. Com. 125. Lieber says: 66 Liberty of social man consists in the protection of unrestrained action in as high a degree as the same claim of protection of each individual admits of, or in the most efficient protection of his rights, claims, interests, as a man or citizen, or of his humanity manifested as a social being." Civil Liberty and Self-Government. Legal liberty," says Mackintosh, in his essay on the Study of the Law of Nature and of Nations, consists in every man's security against wrong.' 66 * In the Case of Monopolies, Darcy . Allain, 11 Rep. 81, the grant of an exclusive privilege of making playing cards was adjudged void, inasmuch as the sole trade of any mechanical artifice, or any other monopoly, is not only a damage and prejudice to those who exercise the same trade, but also to all other subjects; for the end of all these monopolies is for the private gain of the patentees." And see Norwich Gas Light Co. v. Norwich City Gas Co., 25 Conn. 19; State v. Cincinnati, &c. Gas Co., 18 Ohio, N. s. 262. Compare with these State v. Milwaukee Gas Light Co., 29 Wis. 454. On this ground it has been denied that the State can exercise the power of taxation on behalf of corporations who undertake to make or to improve the thoroughfares of trade and travel for their own benefit. The State, it is said, can no more tax the community to set one class of men up in business than another; can no more subsidize one occupation than another; can no more make donations to the men who build and own railroads in consideration of expected incidental benefits, than it can make them to the men who build stores or manufactories in consideration of similar expected benefits. People v. Township Board of Salem, 20 Mich. 452. See further, as to monopolies, Chicago v. Rumpff, 45 Ill. 90; Gale v. Kalamazoo, 23 Mich. 344. In State v. Mayor, &c. of Newark, 35 N. J. 157, s. c. 10 Am. Rep. 223, the doctrine of the text was applied to a case in which by statute the property of a society had been exempted from "taxes and assessments; and it was held that only the ordinary public taxes were meant, and the property might be subjected to local assessments for municipal purposes. The State, it is to be presumed, has no favors to bestow, and designs to inflict no arbitrary deprivation of rights. Special privileges are always obnoxious, and discriminations against persons or classes are still more so; and, as a rule of construction, it is to be presumed they were probably not contemplated or designed. It has been held that a statute requiring attorneys to render services in suits for poor persons without fee or reward, was to be confined strictly to the cases therein prescribed; [* 394] and if by its terms it * expressly covered civil cases only, it could not be extended to embrace defences of criminal prosecutions. So where a constitutional provision confined the elective franchise to "white male citizens," and it appeared that the legislation of the State had always treated of negroes, mulattoes, and other colored persons in contradistinction to white, it was held that although quadroons, being a recognized class of colored persons, must be excluded, yet that the rule of exclusion would not be carried further.2 So a statute making parties witnesses against themselves cannot be construed to compel them to disclose facts which would subject them to criminal punishment.3 And a statute which authorizes summary process in favor of a bank against debtors who have by express contract made their obligations payable at such bank, being in derogation of the ordinary principles of private right, must be subject to strict construction. These cases are only illustrations of a rule of general acceptance.5 There are unquestionably cases in which the State may grant privileges to specified individuals without violating any constitutional principle, because, from the nature of the case, it is impossible they should be possessed and enjoyed by all; and if it is 1 Webb v. Baird, 6 Ind. 13. 2 People v. Dean, 14 Mich. 406. See Bailey v. Fiske, 34 Me. 77; Monroe v. Collins, 17 Ohio, N. s. 665. The decisions in Ohio were still more liberal, and ranked as white persons all who had a preponderance of white blood. Gray v. State, 4 Ohio, 354; Jeffres v. Ankeny, 11 Ohio, 372; Thacker v. Hawk, 11 Ohio, 376; Anderson v. Millikin, 9 Ohio, N. s. 406. But see Van Camp v. Board of Education, 9 Ohio, N. s. 406. Happily all such questions are now disposed of by constitutional amendments. It seems, however, in the opinion of the Supreme Court of California, that these amendments do not preclude a State denying to a race, e. g. the Chinese, the right to testify against other persons. People v. Brady, 40 Cal. 198; s. c. 6 Am. Rep. 604. 3 Broadbent v. State, 7 Md. 416. See Knowles v. People, 15 Mich. 408. 4 Bank of Columbia v. Okely, 4 Wheat. 241. 5 See 1 Bl. Com. 89, and note. important that they should exist, the proper State authority must be left to select the grantees. Of this class are grants of the franchise to be a corporation. Such grants, however, which confer upon a few persons what cannot be shared by the many, and which, though supposed to be made on public grounds, are nevertheless frequently of great value to the corporators, aud therefore sought with avidity, are never to be extended by construction beyond the plain terms in which they are conferred. No rule is better settled than that charters of incorporation are to be construed strictly against the corporators.2 The * just presumption in every such case is, that the State [* 395] has granted in express terms all that it designed to grant at all. "When a State," says the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, "means to clothe a corporate body with a portion of her own sovereignty, and to disarm herself to that extent of the power that belongs to her, it is so easy to say so, that we will never believe it to be meant when it is not said. . . . In the construction of a charter, to be in doubt is to be resolved; and every resolution which springs from doubt is against the corporation. If the usefulness of the company would be increased by extending [its privileges], let the legislature see to it, but remember that nothing but plain English words will do it." This is sound doctrine, and should be vigilantly observed and enforced. 1 In Gordon v. Building Associa- 3 Wall. 51; State v. Krebs, 64 tion, 12 Bush, 110, it is decided that N. C. 604. a special privilege granted to a particular corporation to take an interest on its loans greater than the regular interest allowed by law is void; it not being granted in consideration of any obligation assumed by the corporation to serve the public. 2 Providence Bank v. Billings, 4 Pet. 514; Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge, 11 Pet. 544; Perrine v. Chesapeake and Delaware Canal Co., 9 How. 172; Richmond, &c. R. R. Co. v. Louisa R. R. Co., 13 How. 71; Bradley v. N. Y. & N. H. R. R. Co., 21 Conn. 294; Parker v. Sunbury and Erie R. R. Co., 19 Penn. St. 211; Wales v. Stetson, 2 Mass. 143; Chenango Bridge Co. v. Binghamton Bridge Co., 27 N. Y. 87, and 8 Pennsylvania R. R. Co. v. Canal Commissioners, 21 Penn. St. 22. And see Commonwealth v. Pittsburg, &c. R. R. Co., 24 Penn. St. 159; Chenango Bridge Co. v. Binghamton Bridge Co., 27 N. Y. 93, per Wright, J.; Baltimore v. Baltimore, &c. R. R. Co., 21 Md. 50; Richmond v. Richmond and Danville R. R. Co., 21 Grat. 614; Holyoke Co. v. Lyman, 15 Wall. 500; Delancey v. Insurance Co., 52 N. H. 581. We quote from the Supreme Court of Connecticut in Bradley v. N. Y. and N. H. R. R. Co., 21 Conn. 306: "The rules of construction which apply to general legislation, in regard to those subjects in which the public at large are interested, are essentially different from those which |