has also his own
individual franchise in such right of election and appointment, is
according to the language of all the authorities. Lord Holt says: "It is
agreeable to reason and the rules of law, that a franchise should be
vested in the corporation aggregate, and yet the benefit of it to
redound to the particular members, and to be enjoyed by them in their
private capacity. Where the privilege of election is used by particular
persons, _it is a particular right, vested in every particular
man_."[47]

It is also to be considered, that the president and professors of this
college have rights to be affected by these acts. Their interest is
similar to that of fellows in the English colleges; because they derive
their living, wholly or in part, from the founders' bounty. The
president is one of the trustees or corporators. The professors are not
necessarily members of the corporation; but they are appointed by the
trustees, are removable only by them, and have fixed salaries payable
out of the general funds of the college. Both president and professors
have freeholds in their offices; subject only to be removed by the
trustees, as their legal visitors, for good cause. All the authorities
speak of fellowships in colleges as freeholds, notwithstanding the
fellows may be liable to be suspended or removed, for misbehavior, by
their constituted visitors.

Nothing could have been less expected, in this age, than that there
should have been an attempt, by acts of the legislature, to take away
these college livings, the inadequate but the only support of literary
men who have devoted their lives to the instruction of youth. The
president and professors were appointed by the twelve trustees. They
were accountable to nobody else, and could be removed by nobody else.
They accepted their offices on this tenure. Yet the legislature has
appointed other persons, with power to remove these officers and to
deprive them of their livings; and those other persons have exercised
that power. No description of private property has been regarded as more
sacred than college livings. They are the estates and freeholds of a
most deserving class of men; of scholars who have consented to forego
the advantages of professional and public employments, and to devote
themselves to science and literature and the instruction of youth in the
quiet retreats of academic life. Whether to dispossess and oust them; to
deprive them of their office, and to turn t