There are divers sorts of corporations; and it may be safely admitted that the legislature has more power over some than others.[9] Some corporations are for government and political arrangement; such, for example, as cities, counties, and towns in New England.  These may be changed and modified as public convenience may require, due regard being always had to the rights of property.  Of such corporations, all who live within the limits are of course obliged to be members, and to submit to the duties which the law imposes on them as such.  Other civil corporations are for the advancement of trade and business, such as banks, insurance companies, and the like.  These are created, not by general law, but usually by grant.  Their constitution is special.  It is such as the legislature sees fit to give, and the grantees to accept.

The corporation in question is not a civil, although it is a lay corporation.  It is an eleemosynary corporation.  It is a private charity, originally founded and endowed by an individual, with a charter obtained for it at his request, for the better administration of his charity.  “The eleemosynary sort of corporations are such as are constituted for the perpetual distributions of the free alms or bounty of the founder of them, to such persons as he has directed.  Of this are all hospitals for the maintenance of the poor, sick, and impotent; and all colleges both in our universities and out of them."[10] Eleemosynary corporations are for the management of private property, according to the will of the donors.  They are private corporations.  A college is as much a private corporation as a hospital; especially a college founded, as this was, by private bounty.  A college is a charity.  “The establishment of learning,” says Lord Hardwicke, “is a charity, and so considered in the statute of Elizabeth.  A devise to a college, for their benefit, is a laudable charity, and deserves encouragement."[11]

The legal signification of a charity is derived chiefly from the statute 43 Eliz. ch. 4.  “Those purposes,” says Sir William Grant, “are considered charitable which that statute enumerates."[12] Colleges are enumerated as charities in that statute.  The government, in these cases, lends its aid to perpetuate the beneficent intention of the donor, by granting a charter under which his private charity shall continue to be dispensed after his death.  This is done either by incorporating the objects of the charity, as, for instance, the scholars in a college or the poor in a hospital, or by incorporating those who are to be governors or trustees of the charity.[13] In cases of the first sort, the founder is, by the common law, visitor.  In early times it became a maxim, that he who gave the property might regulate it in future.  “Cujus est dare, ejus est disponere.”  This right of visitation descended from the founder to his heir as a right of property, and precisely as his other property went to his heir; and in default