Report of the Forest Commissioner of the State of Maine, Issue 7

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The [9th] report contains "Wood-using industries of Maine by J.C. Nellis." Title-page omits "Report."

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Page 36 - But neither the amendment — broad and comprehensive as it is — nor any other amendment, was designed to interfere with the power of the state, sometimes termed its police power, to prescribe regulations to promote the health, peace, morals, education, and good order of the people, and to legislate so as to increase the industries of the state, develop its resources, and add to its wealth and prosperity.
Page 37 - We think it is a settled principle, growing out of the nature of well ordered civil society, that every holder of property, however absolute and unqualified may be his title, holds it under the implied liability that his use of it may be so regulated, that it shall not be injurious to the equal enjoyment of others having an equal right to the enjoyment of their property, nor injurious to the rights of the community.
Page 38 - Rights of property, like all other social and conventional rights, are subject to such reasonable limitations in their enjoyment, as shall prevent them from being injurious, and to such reasonable restraints and regulations established by law, as the legislature, under the governing and controlling power vested in them by the constitution, may think necessary and expedient.
Page 38 - First, such property is not the result of productive labor, but is derived solely from the state itself, the original owner; second, the amount of land being incapable of increase, if the owners of large tracts can waste them at will without state restriction, the state and its people may be helplessly impoverished and one great purpose of government defeated. * * * We do not think the proposed legislation would operate to "take" private property within the inhibition of the constitution.
Page 36 - Still more recently however, the tendency seems to go back to the principles enunciated in the earlier cases. In Massachusetts, one of the earliest states to adopt the constitutional provision, and in Maine, adopting the same provision in succession, the courts have uniformly considered that it was to be construed strictly as against the police power of the legislature. Commonwealth versus Tewkesbury, u Met. 55, decided in 1846, was a case where the legislature prohibited the owners from removing...
Page 38 - Name of the Council Established at Plymouth in the County of Devon, for the Planting, Ruling, Ordering and Governing of New England in America...
Page 35 - The Legislature shall convene on the first Wednesday of January, annually, and shall have full power to make and establish all reasonable laws and regulations for the defense and benefit of the people of this State, not repugnant to this Constitution, nor to that of the United States.
Page 38 - Massachusetts at least), we do not think the proposed legislation would operate to " take " private property within the inhibition of the constitution. While it might restrict the owner of wild and uncultivated lands in his use of them, might delay his taking some of the product, might defer his anticipated profits, and even thereby might cause him some loss of profit, it would nevertheless leave him his lands, their product and increase, untouched, and without diminution of title, estate, or quantity....
Page 38 - Strictly speaking, private property can only be said to have been taken for public uses when it has been so appropriated that the public have certain and well defined rights to that use secured, as the right to use the public highway, the turnpike, the ferry, the railroad and the like.
Page 35 - ... diminishing injurious erosion of the land and the filling up of the rivers, ponds and lakes, and as an efficient means necessary to this end, has the Legislature power under the Constitution...

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