tiontion of the United States * * * constitutes, as we think, a wrong and injury not the subject of compensation by a mere money standard, but fairly within the doctrine where exemplary damages have been allowed." And the court held that for this invasion of such a right the jury would have been entitled to give a verdict for the full amount claimed, which, being six thousand dollars, of course bore no relation to the few dollars of mere property actually involved. Indeed, so far as the exercise of liberty in relation to national trade is concerned, it is peculiarly close in analogy to the cases of franchises, which have always been held to be governed by the rule of policy applicable to real and personal property—only in this case the sanctions behind protection are peculiarly high. For the right to engage in national trade is a franchise, whether secured to individuals or corporations, emanating not from the common law, but the Constitution itself—the supreme law of the land!
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