KEY EVENTS:
Problems of industrialization: the railroad subsidy wars Hanson v. Vernon – Iowa, 1869 (27 Iowa 28); People ex rel. Detroit & Howell Railroad Co. v. Township Board of Salem – Michigan, 1870 (20 Mich. 452); Whiting v. Sheboygan & Fond du Lac R. Co. – Wisconsin, 1871 (25 Wis. 167)
| Chicago, 1868 (courtesy Wikimedia Commons) “[T]hough the money demanded of the citizen is called a tax, it is not such, but is, in fact, a coercive contribution favor of private railway corporations, and violative, not only of the general spirit of the Constitution as to the sacredness of private property, but of that specific provision which declares that no man shall be deprived of his property without due process of law.” - Justice John Dillon, in Hanson
“There is a point … in the affairs of men where patience ceases to be a virtue, and outrages upon individual rights will not be peaceably submitted to even when attempted under a bastard decision of a corrupted or profligate judge or court. If these bondholders and their attorneys attempt to press their tyranny too far, they may find it to be unhealthy for them to lay round loose in this country.” -Keokuk [Iowa] Gate City, April 5, 1870 . “How is [property] taken for a public use when it is taken, as my Brother Dillon says, for the use of a private corporation? The answer is plain, though the majority cannot see it. The public use is most economically and efficiently accomplished and enjoyed through the instrumentality of a corporation. But, the use is none the less public.” - Justice Chester Cole, in Hanson
“[T]he discrimination by the State between different classes of occupations, and the favoring of one at the expense of the rest, whether that one be farming or banking, merchandising or milling, printing or railroading, is not legitimate legislatuion, and is an invasion of that equality of right and privilege which is a maxim in State government. … Moreover, … when the State once enters the business of subsidies, we shall not fail to discover that the strong and powerful interests are those most likely to control legislation, and that the weaker will be taxed to enhance the profits of the stronger.” -Justice Thomas Cooley, in Salem |
- OTHER ASPECTS OF MIDWEST LEGAL HISTORY DURING THIS PERIOD
- OTHER PERIODS OF MIDWEST LEGAL HISTORY
- THE LEGAL HISTORY OF OTHER REGIONS