Early American corporations required individual legislative charters and held monopoly franchises

Evidence

At the time of the Revolution, and for several generations afterward, setting up a corporation was not easy. The incorporators had to follow a long, laborious route. Corporations were chartered one by one; each charter was a special law passed by the state legislature. Most of these early corporations held “franchises”: they were little monopolies, with the right to build a bridge over some particular river or a railroad between this town and that. It seemed only right to deal with them case by case. The law was also quite strict about their powers. They were not allowed to move one step beyond what their charters specifically authorized. — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law, 771

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s Friedman History companion volume and the earlier chapter claims about early American lawmaking being case-by-case pro-growth. — connects to: Courts read charters narrowly to let new enterprises displace vested monopolies — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 1096