In
the previous post, “The
Great Bridge Over the Charles,” we saw the effects of a huge
public bridge project, but by the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries, it had become common for the state to grant
incorporation to private companies that did much of the development
work in the city, including building new bridges. The companies
building bridges were often in direct competition with each other,
and this competition sparked more building, intense debate, and
lawsuits – including one that made it to the Supreme Court.
East
Cambridge was sparsely populated before the West Boston Bridge opened
in 1793. When the bridge opened, speculators bought lots where they
developed housing and storefronts. People, businesses, and industries
moved in.1
A few companies also made the terrain ready for more buildings by
diking the marshland and digging a canal.2
In the early 1800s, two bridges and four highways to Boston spurred
the development of East Cambridge and Cambridgeport.3
(For more information on this growth, see A
Very Brief History of Cambridge, 1800-1900 Part I: Cambridge Changes
Shape and Size.)
As
development continued, a serious rivalry emerged between the
proprietors of the West Boston Bridge and those of the Canal Bridge,
built in 1809 and popularly called Craigie's bridge.4
Each company built several new roads in Cambridge, naturally
directing traffic towards their own bridge and creating business
opportunities for specific areas of town. Each time, it was
resolutely opposed by the other company, and sometimes by the
businesses who benefited from the other bridge.5
A
particularly protracted battle began in December of 1805 and lasted
until 1809, and resulted in the creation of Cambridge and Mount
Auburn Streets.6
Controversially, Andrew Craigie, the main proprietor of the Canal
Bridge, was one of the landowners who was paid damages because the
new road that he had advocated for cut through his private property.7
The town took legal action against Craigie, and in 1813, the court
decided that because he would benefit from the road as much or more
as he would be hurt by it, he was not eligible for damages. This
became legal precedent in Massachusetts.8
Despite the conflicts, nearly all the proposed streets were built in
the end.9
The
General Court began discussing the possibility of purchasing both
major bridges and making them free as early as 1828.10
In 1846, the court granted a charter to the proprietors of the
Hancock Free Bridge, allowing them to build this bridge between the
West Boston and Canal Bridges if they bought both of them. They were
authorized to collect tolls until they had earned an amount equal to
the outlay plus expenses plus a fund for the future maintenance of
the bridges.11
Then, in 1857, the court passed an act authorizing the proprietors to
give both bridges to the city once the accumulated fund reached a
certain point. The bridges were transferred the following year and
became free bridges at that point. The city gave a well-attended
public procession to mark the occasion.12
The bridges that went directly to
Boston did not have an exclusive claim on controversy. The
Massachusetts Legislature granted a charter to a company to build the
Charles River Bridge to Charlestown in 1785. The bridge was in the
same location as the ferry that Harvard had owned since 1650, and
replaced the ferry entirely. Ferries had been running from Cambridge
since the 1630s, and they had always been government-sanctioned and
had the right to collect tolls. The proprietors of the new bridge
were entitled to collect tolls for forty years, but during that time
they were required to make a fixed annual payment to Harvard, to
compensate for the loss of fares collected on the ferry.13
Several other bridges were built in
Cambridge in the subsequent decades, but in 1828, the Legislature
granted a charter to a company to build the Warren Bridge a very
short distance away from the Charles River Bridge. This bridge would be made free and public after
six years, which meant that it would very soon direct traffic away
from the older bridge where tolls were still collected.
The proprietors of the Charles River
Bridge sued, claiming that in granting the Warren
Bridge charter, the legislature violated Article I, section 10 of the
U.S. Constitution, which forbids states from making laws or decisions
that impair the obligation of contracts. The case made it to the
Supreme Court in 1831, but the court did not reach a decision, and
the case was heard again in 1837.
The Proprietors of the Charles River
Bridge argued that they had the same rights originally given to the
ferry that the bridge had replaced. Since the ferry owner (in this
case, Harvard) had the right to be compensated when a bridge made the
ferry obsolete, they argued that they also had the right not to be
made obsolete by a new bridge. The court decided there was no reason
to believe that the privileges conferred on the ferry also applied to
the bridge. Chief Justice Taney wrote, “the charter to the bridge is a written instrument
which must speak for itself and be interpreted by its own terms.”
The plaintiffs also argued that the
state had previously acted as if they had an obligation not to create
competition for the Charles River Bridge. In 1792, in the same act
that chartered the West Boston Bridge, the Legislature acknowledged
that this newer bridge would compete with the Charles River Bridge,
and as compensation, the Legislature extended the term that
the older bridge could collect tolls by thirty years. However, the
Court found that the wording in the act which explained the extension
was granted “for the encouragement of enterprise” showed that
this was not about obligation, but about incentives for development
that ultimately benefited the public.
Ultimately, the Court decided in favor
of the Warren Bridge – that is, they decided that granting the
charter for the competing bridge was constitutional.
The decision drew on English†
and American precedent that when a corporation is granted the right
to do something that benefits the public, any ambiguity in the terms
should be interpreted in the best interests of the public. More
broadly, it relied on on the precedent that in this type of contract,
there is no implied right to protection from competition. Chief
Justice Taney explained,
The continued existence of a Government would
be of no great value if, by implications and presumptions, it was
disarmed of the powers necessary to accomplish the ends of its
creation, and the functions it was designed to perform transferred to
the hands of privileged corporations.
A modern reader may wonder why the
Charles River plaintiffs thought they had a case at all, but in fact,
the case was controversial in its day, and two Supreme Court justices
dissented from the majority opinion. This case about Cambridge
bridges helped to determine how we think about the idea of
competition and contracts today.
Many Cambridge residents are familiar
with the story of the Longfellow Bridge, named for the poet because
he walked over it regularly while courting his future wife and later
wrote a poem about the bridge.14
Another favorite is the story of MIT fraternity brothers making their
mark on the Harvard Bridge by measuring it in lengths of a pledge
named Oliver Smoot.15
But the history of Cambridge's bridges goes deeper than these
stories, and encompasses political, economic, and legal change.
†In
nineteenth-century America, English law and court decisions from
before the American Revolution were often looked to as a legitimate
source of insight into legal precedent, since much of our legal
system was based on its English origins.
1Paige,
Lucius. History of Cambridge, Massachusetts,
1630-1877. (H. O. Houghton and company,
1877), 176.
2Paige
178.
3 City's Life and Times: Cambridge in the Twentieth Century. Ed. Daphne Abeel. (Cambridge: Cambridge Historical Society, 2007)
2.
4Paige
199.
5Paige
203.
6Paige
203-7.
7Paige
207.
8Paige
209.
9Paige
203.
10Paige
201.
11Paige
201.
12Paige
201-2.
13
Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge - 36 U.S. 420 (1837). Justia
US Supreme Court Center.
http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/36/420/case.html
14http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Wadsworth_Longfellow#Courtship_of_Frances_Appleton
15http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot
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