122 BINNEY'S CASE.—2 BLAND.

mac, along the course of the river itself as high up as practicable.
All its provisions, with the exception of only two sections, 1784,
ch. 33, s. 13, 19, have relation to this object exclusively. And that
private property might be in no respect capriciously dealt with,
even for that great purpose, it appears, that the company, after
they had once made a selection of the location of any canal or cut,
forming a portion of the proposed new line of navigation, could
not abandon it, and have other lands valued and condemned to
them for the same purpose. If the canal, or the locks got out of
repair, other land could not be taken, and condemned for making
another canal, or new locks along side of the old. Because, there
was one, and but one distinct provision made for any such con-
demnation. The power of condemnation given to this company, ;
was not, in its nature, a continuing one, which might have been ;
repeated at their pleasure; nor is there anything, in their Act of
incorporation, which contemplates a repetition of it for any pur-
pose whatever; when the authority, thus granted, was once
exercised, the law thereby spent itself, and the power of the com-
pany, in that respect, was exhausted and gone, The King v. The
Glamorganshire Canal Company, 12 JEast, 157; S. C. 14 Com. Law
Rep. 112; Blakemore v. The Glamorganshire Canal Navigation, 6
Cond. Chan. Rep. 544; Grossler v. The Corporation of Georgetown,
6 Wheat. 593; and this intention is strongly manifested in that
part of the incorporating Act, which provides for the calling of a
jury to make a further assessment for any damages that should
arise, which "had not been before considered and valued." 1784,
ch. 33, s. 11.

*This power to condemn private property, is a portion of
129 the eminent domain of the government, granted to this body
politic, which should never be exercised by the government itself,
but with great caution, and in cases most obviously for the public
good. When, a.s has been justly observed in our country, the
Legislature undertakes to give away what is not their own, when
they attempt to take the property of one man, which he has fairly
acquired, and the general law of the land protects, in order to
transfer it to another, even upon a complete indemnification, it will
naturally be considered an extraordinary act of legislation, which
ought to be viewed with jealous eyes, examined with critical exact-
ness, and scrutinized with all the severity of legal exposition. An
act of this sort deserves no favor; to construe it liberally would
be sinning against the rights of property. Vanhorne's Lessee v.
Dorrance, 2 Dall. 318. In England, it has been said that all
Courts have, for obvious reasons, at all times, construed such leg-
islative enactments most strictly. Whatever such enactments
require to be done, as a condition precedent to the extraordinary
right of making roads or canals over private property, has always