"To deprive a Board of Trustees of their Charter rights, after they have been accused of gross misconduct in office, without requiring any proof whatever of such misconduct, appears to your remonstrants unjust, and not conformable to the spirit of the free and happy government under which we live. If the property has been misapplied, if there has been any abuse of power upon the part of the Trustees, they are fully sensible of their high responsibility; but they have always believed, and still believe, that a sound construction of the powers granted to the Legislature, gives them, in this case, only the right to order, for good cause, a prosecution in the judicial courts.
"A different course effectually blends judicial and legislative powers, and constitutes the Legislature a judicial tribunal.
"The undersigned also beg leave to remonstrate against the passage of the bill, on the ground of inexpediency. A corporation is a creature of the law, to which certain powers, rights, and privileges are granted; and amongst others that of holding property. Destroy this creature, this body politic, and all its property immediately reverts to its former owners. This doctrine has long been recognized and established in all governments of law. Any material alteration of the corporation, without its consent, and certainly such essential alterations as the bill under consideration is intended to make, will be followed with the same effect. The funds belonging to the college, although not great, are highly important to the institution; and a considerable proportion of them were granted by, and lie in, the State of Vermont. The undersigned most earnestly entreat the Honorable Legislature not to put the funds of the college in jeopardy; not to put at hazard substantial income, under expectations which may or may not be realized."
After alluding to lack of precedent for the proposed action, and the necessary increase of expenditures which would result from its consummation, they proceed to say: "If the provisions of this bill should take effect, we greatly fear that the concerns of the college will be drawn into the vortex of political controversy. We refer particularly to that section of the bill which gives the appointment of Trustees and Overseers to the Governor and Council. The whole history of the United States for the last twenty years teaches us a lesson which ought not to be kept out of view. Our literary institutions hitherto have been preserved from the influence of party. The tendency of this bill, unless we greatly mistake, is to convert the peaceful retreat of our college into a field for party warfare.
"Whilst the undersigned deem it their indispensable duty to remonstrate in the most respectful terms against the passage of the bill referred to, they have no objection, and they have no reason to believe their fellow Trustees have any objection, to the passage of a law connecting the government of the State with that of the college, and creating every salutary check and restraint upon the official conduct of the Trustees and their successors that can be reasonably required, and with respectful deference they would propose the following outlines of a plan for that purpose.
"The Councillors and Senators of New Hampshire together with the Speaker of the House of Representatives for the time being, shall constitute a Board of Overseers of Dartmouth College, any ten of whom shall be a quorum for transacting business. The Overseers shall meet annually at the college, on the day preceding Commencement. They shall have an independent right to organize their own body, and to form their own rules; but as soon as they shall have organized themselves they shall give information thereof to the Trustees. Whenever any vote shall have been passed by the Trustees it shall be communicated to the Overseers, and shall not have effect until it shall have the concurrence of the Overseers. Provided, nevertheless, that if at any meeting a quorum of the Overseers shall not be formed, the Trustees shall have full power to confer degrees, in the same manner as though there were no Overseers; and also to appoint Trustees or other officers (not a president or professor), and to enact such laws as the interests of the institution shall indispensably require; but no law passed by the Trustees shall in such case have force longer than until the next annual meeting of the Boards, unless it shall then be approved by the Overseers. Neither of the Boards shall adjourn, except from day to day, without the consent of the other. It shall be the duty of the president of the college, whenever in his opinion the interests of the institution shall require it, or whenever requested thereto by three Trustees, or three Overseers, to call special meetings of both Boards, causing notice to be given in writing to each Trustee and Overseer, of the time and place; but no meeting of one Board shall ever be called except at the same time and place with the other. It shall be the duty of the president of the college annually, in the month of May, to transmit to his Excellency, the Governor, a full and particular account of the state of the funds, the number of students and their progress, and generally the state and condition of the college.
"If the plan above suggested should meet the approbation of the Honorable Legislature, and good men of all parties give it their sanction, we may all anticipate, with high satisfaction, the future prosperity of the college, and its incalculable usefulness to the State; but if a union of the friends of literature and science, of all parties and sects, cannot be attained; if the triumph of one party over the other be absolutely indispensable; fearful apprehensions must fill the mind of every considerate man, every dispassionate friend of Dartmouth College.
Thos. W. Thompson,
Elijah Paine,
Asa M'Farland.
"June 19, 1816."
The effect of this proposed compromise was a modification of the bill in some of its important features. Against the amended bill, which was passed a few days afterward, there was a farther protest, from which we make brief extracts.
"The undersigned would not trouble the Honorable Legislature with any remarks in addition to those contained in their remonstrance of the 19th inst. did they not believe it was a duty not to be omitted."
Referring to the amended bill, they continue:
"They have not been able to obtain a sight of it, but have heard it contains provisions for an increase of the Board of Trustees to the number of twenty-one, a majority of whom to constitute a quorum, and that the additional number are to be appointed by His Excellency the Governor and the Honorable the Council. To many of the topics of argument, suggested in their former remonstrance (which are equally applicable against the passage of the bill in its present shape) they respectfully ask leave to add, that the bill in its present shape destroys the identity of the corporation, known in the law by the name of the Trustees of Dartmouth College, without the consent of the corporation, and consequently the corporation to be created by the present bill must and will be deemed by courts of law altogether diverse and distinct from the corporation to which all the grants of property have hitherto been made; and therefore the new corporation cannot hold the property granted to the corporation created by the charter of 1769.
"By the Charter of Dartmouth College a contract was made by the then supreme power of the State with the twelve persons therein named, by which, when accepted by the persons therein named, certain rights and privileges were vested in them and their successors, for the guarantee of which the faith of government was pledged by necessary implication. In the same instrument the faith of government was pledged that the corporation should consist of twelve persons and no more. The change in the government of the State, since taken place, does not in the least possible degree impair the validity of this contract—otherwise nearly all the titles to real estate, held by our fellow citizens, must be deemed invalid.
"The passage of the bill now before the Honorable House will, in the deliberate opinion of the undersigned, violate the plighted faith of the government. If the undersigned are correct in considering the Charter of 1769 in the nature of a contract, and if the bill, in its present shape, becomes a law, we think it necessarily follows that it will also violate an important clause in the 10th section of the 1st article in the Constitution of the United States, which provides, that no State shall pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts.
"The