Opinion of the Court. consolidation of the stock, franchises or property, as well as the purchase and lease of parallel and competing lines. Unless this section impairs the obligation of the contract contained in the charter, it operates as a repeal of any power that may possibly be deduced from such charter to purchase, lease or consolidate with any parallel or competing line. In this particular the case differs from that of Pearsall v. Great Northern Railway, just decided, only in the fact that the charter of the Great Northern, while conferring a power to consolidate with other roads in much clearer and more explicit language than was used in the L. & N. charter, also contained in section 17 the reservation of a power to amend in any manner not destroying or impairing the vested rights of the corporation. The opinion in that case dealt largely with the question whether a subsequent act of the legislature taking away this power so long as it was unexecuted, and so far as it applied to parallel or competing lines, impaired a vested right. Our conclusion was that it did not. We regard the issue presented in this case as involving practically the same question. While there is no general reservation clause in the charter of the L. & N. Co., we think, for the reasons stated in the Pearsall case, that under its police power the people, in their sovereign capacity, or the legislature, as their representatives, may deal with the charter of a railway corporation, so far as is necessary for the protection of the lives, health and safety of its passengers or the public, or for the security of property or the conservation of the public interests, provided, of course, that no vested rights are thereby impaired. In other words, the legislature may not destroy vested rights, whether they are expressly prohibited from doing so or not, but otherwise may legislate with respect to corporations, whether expressly permitted to do so or not. While the police power has been most frequently exercised with respect to matters which concern the public health, safety or morals, we have frequently held that corporations engaged in a public service are subject to legislative control, so far as it becomes necessary for the protection of the public interests. In the case of Munn v. Opinion of the Court. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113, Mr. Chief Justice Waite said: "Property does become clothed with a public interest when used in a manner to make it of public consequence, and affect the community at large. When, therefore, one devotes his property to a use in which the public has an interest, he, in effect, grants to the public an interest in that use, and must submit to be controlled by the public for the common good, to the extent of the interest he has thus created. He may withdraw his grant by discontinuing the use; but so long as he maintains the use, he must submit to the control." There was a difference of opinion in the court as to whether this language applied to elevators in such manner as to empower the legislature to fix their charges; but it has been too often held that railways were public highways, and their functions were those of the State, though their ownership was private, and that they were subject to control for the common good, to be now open to question. It was so expressly stated in Olcott v. Supervisors, 16 Wall. 678, 694. This power was held to extend, in New York v. Miln, 11 Pet. 102, to a law requiring the masters of emigrant vessels to report an account of their passengers; in the Railroad Commission cases, 116 U. S. 307, to the right of a State to reasonably limit the amount of charges by a railway company for the transportation of persons and property within its jurisdiction, notwith standing a statute which granted to it the right "from time to time to fix, regulate and receive the tolls and charges by them to be received for transportation;" in Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623, to legislation which prohibited the manufacture of intoxicating liquors within the limits of the State, even as to persons who, at the time, happened to own property, whose chief value consisted in its fitness for such manufacturing purposes; in Georgia Banking Co. v. Smith, 128 U. S. 174, to the prevention of extortion by railways, by unreasonable charges, and favoritism by discriminations; in Charlotte &c. Railroad v. Gibbes, 142 U. S. 386, to a requirement that the salaries and expenses of a state railroad commission be borne by the railroad corporations within the State; in New York & New England Railroad v. Bristol, 151 U. S. 556, to a statute com Opinion of the Court. pelling the removal of grade crossings; in Commonwealth v. Alger, 7 Cushing, 53, to the establishment of harbor lines, beyond which land owners shall not extend their wharves; and in Eagle Insurance Co. v. Ohio, 153 U. S. 446, to a requirement that insurance companies make returns to the proper state officers of their business conditions, etc., notwithstanding the company be organized under a special charter, which did not in terms require it to make such return. Indeed, it was broadly held in Chicago Life Insurance Co. v. Needles, 113 U. S. 574, that the grant of a corporate franchise is necessarily subject to the condition that the privileges and franchises conferred shall not be abused, or employed to defeat the ends for which they were conferred; and that, when abused or misemployed, they may be withdrawn by proceedings consistent with law. It was said in this case that an insurance corporation was subject to such reasonable regulations as the legislature might from time to time prescribe, for the general conduct of its affairs, serving only to secure the ends for which it was created, and not materially interfering with the privileges granted to it. "It would be extraordinary," said the court, (page 580,) "if the legislative department of a government, charged with the duty of enacting such laws as may promote the health, the morals and the prosperity of the people, might not, when unrestrained by constitutional limitations upon its authority, provide, by reasonable regulations, against the misuse of special corporate privileges which it has granted, and which could not, except by its sanction, express or implied, have been exercised at all." It was further held that the establishment against such a corporation before a judicial tribunal that it was insolvent, or that its condition was such as to render its continuance in business hazardous to the public; or that it had exceeded its corporate powers; or that it had violated the rules, restrictions or conditions prescribed by law, constituted a sufficient reason for the State, which created it, to reclaim the franchises and privileges granted to it. We think that the principle of these cases applies to the power of the legislature to forbid the consolidation of parallel Opinion of the Court. or competing lines, whenever, in its opinion, such consolidation is calculated to affect injuriously the public interests. Not only is the purchase of stock in another company beyond the power of a railroad corporation in the absence of an express stipulation in the charter, but the purchase of such stock in a rival and competing line is held to be contrary to public policy and void. Cook on Stockholders, & 315; Centrai Railroad Co. v. Collins, 40 Georgia, 582; Hazlehurst v. Savannah &c. Railroad Co., 43 Georgia, 13; Elkins v. Camden & Atlantic Railroad Co., 36 N. J. Eq. 5. The doctrine is peculiarly applicable to this case, in which it is shown that the Chesapeake Co. was largely aided in its construction by contributions from municipalities along its line for the very purpose of obtaining competition with the L. & N. Co. — a purpose which would, of course, be defeated by a combination with it. This restriction upon the unlimited power to consolidate with other roads is not, as the plaintiff in error suggests, called for by any new view of commercial policy, but in virtue of a settled policy which has obtained in Kentucky since 1858, in Minnesota since 1874, in Ohio since 1851, in New Hampshire since 1867, and by more recent enactments in some dozen other States-a policy which has not only found a place in the statute law of such States as apprehended evil effects from such consolidations, but has been declared by the courts to be necessary to protect the public from the establishment of monopolies. Indeed, the unanimity with which the States have legislated against the consolidation of competing lines shows that it is not the result of a local prejudice, but of a general sentiment that such monopolies are reprehensible. The fact that, in certain cases, the legislature has seen fit to sanction the consolidation of parallel roads does not militate against the general principle that the consolidation of competing lines is contrary to public policy. Parallel lines are not necessarily competing lines, as they not infrequently connect entirely different termini and command the traffic of distinct territories. For instance, a line from Toledo to Cincinnati is substantially parallel with another from Chicago to Cairo, but they could scarcely be called competing, since one is dependent upon the traffic of Opinion of the Court. the Northwest, while Cincinnati is the southern outlet of the traffic of the Northeastern States and the lower lakes. Another familiar instance is that of the three north and south railways through the State of Connecticut, one from Bridgeport to Pittsfield, in Massachusetts, another from New Haven to Springfield, and another from Norwich to Worcester. These are strictly parallel lines, but in only a limited sense competing, since they are between different termini, and each is required for the trade of its own section of the State. Even in the present case the competition is mostly confined to the through traffic. Considerations of this kind may induce legislatures, in particular instances, to permit the consolidation of parallel roads without intending thereby to relinquish their right to forbid the consolidation of such parallel lines as are in fact competing. Permission to consolidate such roads is no more to be taken as an approval of a general policy of consolidation than are the laws which have been repeatedly upheld by this court, granting corporations exclusive privileges to supply municipalities with the comforts of life for a certain number of years, of which class of monopolies the one upheld in New Orleans Gas Co. v. Louisiana Light Co., 115 U. S. 650, is a distinguished example. Such cases are, however, exceptional, and rest upon the theory of an authority expressly vested in the corporation for a limited time, in consideration of benefits likely to accrue to the public from the establishment of a particular industry. Even in such cases, however, we have held that the monopoly may be modified or abrogated, if it proved to be prejudicial to the public health or public morals. Butchers' Union Co. v. Crescent City Co., 111 U. S. 746. In this case Mr. Justice Miller, in delivering the opinion of the court, observed, p. 750: "While we are not prepared to say that the legislature can make valid contracts on no subject embraced in the largest definition of the police power, we think that, in regard to two subjects so embraced, it cannot, by any contract, limit the exercise of such powers to the prejudice of the general welfare. These are the public health and public morals. The preservation of these is so necessary to the best interests of social organi |