of flowage, by
private contract with the land-owners; and in such States, probably, the
legislatures would be as slow to interfere with rights of flowage, as
with other rights. Yet, there are cases where, for the preservation of
the health of the community, and for the general convenience,
governments have everywhere exercised the power of interfering with
private property, and limiting the control of the owners. To preserve
the public health, we abate as nuisances, by process of law,
slaughter-houses, and other establishments offensive to health and
comfort, and we provide, by compulsory assessments upon land-owners, for
sewerage, for side-walks, and the like, in our cities.

Everywhere, for the public good, we take private property for highways,
upon just compensation, and the property of corporations is thus taken,
like that of individuals.

Again, we compel adjacent owners to fence their lands, and maintain
their proportion of division fences of the legal height, and we elect
fence viewers, with power to adjust equitably, the expenses of such
fences. We assess bachelors and maidens, in most States, for the
construction of schoolhouses, and the education of the children of
others, and, in various ways, compel each member of society to
contribute to the common welfare.

How far it may be competent, for a State legislature to provide for, or
assist in, the drainage of extensive and unhealthy marshes; or how far
individual owners should be compelled to contribute to a common
improvement of their lands; or how far, and in what cases, one
land-owner should be authorized to enter upon land of another, to secure
or maintain the best use of his own land--these are questions which it
is unnecessary for us to attempt to determine. It is well that they
should be suggested, because they will, at no distant day, engage much
attention. It is well, too, that the steps which conservative England
has thought it proper to take in this direction, should be understood,
that we may the better determine whether any, and if any, what course
our States may safely take, to aid the great and leading interest of our
country.

The swamps and stagnant meadows along our small streams and our rivers,
which are taken from the farmer, by flowage, for the benefit of mills,
are often, in New England, the most fertile part of the townships--equal
to the bottom lands of the West; and they are right by the doors of
young men, who leave their homes