It has also been decided, that a grant by a State before the Revolution is as much to be protected as a grant since.[52] But the case of Terrett v.  Taylor, before cited, is of all others most pertinent to the present argument.  Indeed, the judgment of the court in that case seems to leave little to be argued or decided in this.  “A private corporation,” say the court, “created by the legislature, may lose its franchises by a misuser or a nonuser of them; and they may be resumed by the government under a judicial judgment upon a quo warranto to ascertain and enforce the forfeiture.  This is the common law of the land, and is a tacit condition annexed to the creation of every such corporation.  Upon a change of government, too, it may be admitted, that such exclusive privileges attached to a private corporation as are inconsistent with the new government may be abolished.  In respect, also, to public corporations which exist only for public purposes, such as counties, towns, cities, and so forth, the legislature may, under proper limitations, have a right to change, modify, enlarge, or restrain them, securing, however, the property for the uses of those for whom and at whose expense it was originally purchased.  But that the legislature can repeal statutes creating private corporations, or confirming to them property already acquired under the faith of previous laws, and by such repeal can vest the property of such corporations exclusively in the State, or dispose of the same to such purposes as they please, without the consent or default of the corporators, we are not prepared to admit; and we think ourselves standing upon the principles of natural justice, upon the fundamental laws of every free government, upon the spirit and letter of the Constitution of the United States, and upon the decisions of most respectable judicial tribunals, in resisting such a doctrine.”

This court, then, does not admit the doctrine, that a legislature can repeal statutes creating private corporations.  If it cannot repeal them altogether, of course it cannot repeal any part of them, or impair them, or essentially alter them, without the consent of the corporators.  If, therefore, it has been shown that this college is to be regarded as a private charity, this case is embraced within the very terms of that decision.  A grant of corporate powers and privileges is as much a contract as a grant of land.  What proves all charters of this sort to be contracts is, that they must be accepted to give them force and effect.  If they are not accepted, they are void.  And in the case of an existing corporation, if a new charter is given it, it may even accept part and reject the rest.  In Rex v.  Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge,[53] Lord Mansfield says:  “There is a vast deal of difference between a new charter granted to a new corporation, (who must take it as it is given,) and a new charter given to a corporation already in being, and acting