• When mountain South legislatures tried to cut back railroad subsidies and impose new taxes on existing railroads, the roads used the Dartmouth College doctrine (§ ___) to fight back, arguing that their corporate charters constituted a bargain with the states which the states could not alter with new restrictions on subsidies.  Most states countered by enacting anti-Dartmouth laws providing that all corporate charters would be subject to future changes in state law.   Many courts, such as Kentucky’s supreme court in Shelby County and Tennessee’s court in Hicks, sided with the railroads but made clear, based on the new laws, that all state laws would apply to corporations chartered in future. 

• Following a rash of railroad failures the late 1860s, many mountain South municipalities (like their counterparts in parts of the Midwest, § ___) tried to escape their obligations to pay subsidies by arguing that they had lacked constitutional authority to take on such obligations.  But in cases such as Macon County, Mercer County and Hicks, mountain South courts rejected this argument and held that once they committed to aid a railroad, under the Dartmouth rule their obligation became absolute.       

“It is difficult to perceive how [local railroad aid] can be [a public purpose] with reference to the establishment of an ordinary private corporation, however great may be its influence for enhancing the property of the wealthy, or stimulating or promoting any particular private business or pursuit.”  - Justice Mordecai Hardin (dissenting), in Mercer County

“If [the Dartmouth College rule] was a new question, it would deserve the most serious consideration, and courts would now doubtless hesitate long before establishing it. …. The necessities for revenue now demand contribution from every available source.  The property of some of these roads is valuable and exemptions are now odious.”  - Justice Robert McFarland, in Hicks