James Phalen, Plaintiff in Error v. the Commonwealth of Virginia

It might admit of some doubt whether the act of 1829 grants any franchise, or constitutes any contract, either with the commissioners therein appointed, or with the turnpike corporation. It imposes certain duties on each. The commissioners are required to use the license thus given, not for their own benefit, but for a public purpose. The money procured by the proposed lotteries is to be paid over to the Fauquier and Alexandria Turnpike Road Company, to be by them expended 'in the improvement and repair of the road.' It is true, that the corporation might receive greater benefits from the repair of the road than the other citizens of the state; but the act imposed no duty on them as a previous consideration. They are not required to make any repairs till they receive the money. But assuming that this would be too narrow a construction of this act, and that it conferred a privilege or benefit on the corporation in the nature of a franchise or irrevocable contract, yet in its very nature it could not be considered illimitable as to time. On the contrary, the object for which the license was granted called for immediate action. 'Three miles' of a great public thoroughfare are represented to be out of repair, and the company without immediate means to effect it. The sum to be raised being fixed and finite, and the subject of its application demanding immediate attention, the time within which the license is given cannot claim to be unlimited. And yet the commissioners and corporation have suffered eleven years to pass, before any attempt is made to perform the duty imposed on them, or avail themselves of the license or franchise conferred, and now claim a further term of twenty years, to raise the money and repair the road.