The Wheeling Bridge Suit: A Notice of Its History and Objects, Addressed to the Legislature of PennsylvaniaJohn C. Clark, 1852 - 20 páginas |
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The Wheeling Bridge Suit: A Notice of Its History and Objects, Addressed to ... Charles Ellet, Jr,Pennsylvania General Assembly Pré-visualização indisponível - 2015 |
Palavras e frases frequentes
92 feet abutment accustomed to navigate Belmont Bridge Company boats bridge at Wheeling bridges as post canal channel charter Chief Justice Taney citizens commissioner committee commonly accustomed Commonwealth constitution construct a bridge court cross the Ohio declare decree E. B. OLDS eastern elevation enterprise fact feet above low feet high feet higher fourteenth section Hempfield Rail Road high-pipe steamboats highest floods inconvenience judicial Justice Daniel learned judge legislative Legislature of Pennsylvania legislatures of Virginia low water March 19 memorialists military roads national road navigating the Ohio obstruct the navigation OFFICE AND POST Ohio at Wheeling Ohio river opinion passage Pennsylvania Rail Road post routes prosecution public nuisance question regulate commerce river at Wheeling Robert Armstrong Shaler & Stanton Steubenville suspension bridge Terre Haute testimony thirty navigating tion trade and travel TRIPARTITE BRIDGE United Virginia and Ohio Wheeling and Belmont Wheeling Bridge Company wire-suspension bridge Zane's island Zanesville
Passagens conhecidas
Página 7 - ... is or is not injurious to the public. The cases in the State courts, and in the Circuit Courts of the United States, referred to in the argument, which I shall not stop here to examine, in my opinion maintain this doctrine ; and upon principle, independently of adjudications, it cannot be otherwise. A structure which promotes the convenience of the public, cannot be a nuisance to it. And the public, whose interests are to be looked to in this case, is not the public of any particular town, or...
Página 2 - That our Senators in Congress be instructed, and our Representatives be requested, to use their best exertions to procure the passage of a law...
Página 8 - ... tendered by the defendants, to prove the usefulness and importance of the bridge, either to the local population or as a public and commercial facility. This irregularity in the commissioner is of no small significance, as it betrays a bias on his part, however honest, which led him to throw the weight of his opinion against the usefulness of the bridge; a fact entering essentially into its character, as being a nuisance or otherwise, and to withhold from this court evidence by which the value...
Página 6 - Congress have the power to declare the obstruction of a navigable stream an offence against the United States, and to authorize the courts of the United States to abate it as a nuisance; and any law of a State to the contrary would be unconstitutional and void. If, therefore, there be an evil, it may easily be corrected by the legislative authority of the general government. But if Congress have not thought proper, or do not think proper, to exercise this power, and public mischief has arisen, or...
Página 8 - ... activity and diffusion by increased facilities, operating a just equality of right and competition and advantage to all. And here it may be premised, that throughout the discussion of this cause, a reigning fallacy has been assumed and urged upon the court, a fallacy, which, if successful, may subserve the grasping pretensions of the plaintiff, but which, by an enlightened view of this case, must be condemned as destructive to the extended commercial prosperity of the country.
Página 6 - ... the bridge is erected. Virginia has authorized it, and congress have acquiesced in it. Congress have made no regulation declaring such a structure unlawful, or authorizing any judicial proceeding against it. If congress, to whom the power is granted to regulate commerce, have acquiesced, how can the court, to whom the power is not granted, undertake to regulate it, and declare this bridge an obstruction, and the law of Virginia unconstitutional and void? With all my respect for my brethren, I...
Página 6 - ... government has better means, too, of obtaining information, than the narrow scope of judicial proceedings can afford. It may adopt regulations by which courts of justice may be guided in an inquiry like this with some degree of certainty, instead of leaving them to the undefined discretion which must now be exercised in every case that may be brought before us, without being able to lay down any certain rule, by which this discretion may be limited. It is too near the confines of legislation;...
Página 7 - I think, for the reasons above stated, that in the absence of any legislation upon the subject by Congress, this proceeding cannot be maintained. I shall, therefore, very briefly express my opinion on the evidence. I am by no means prepared to say, that this bridge would be a public nuisance even at common law. The evidence of the degree in which it obstructs navigation is exceedingly voluminous, and it is impossible to go fully into an examination of its comparative weight, in a manner that would...