The opinion of the Court was delivered by

The question for decision depends on considerations that did riot enter into the case of The Union Canal Co. v. Landis, (9 Watts 228). In that case, the grant to the individual contained a reservation in favour of the company to whom a prior right had been granted, which put at rest every pretence of claim to damages for acts subsequently done to the prejudice of the second grantee. The reservation was perhaps superfluous; but it seems to have been thought a judicious precaution, because a license followed by a permanent erection for the enjoyment of it is generally irrevocable; and it might have been deemed a contract, in that instance, which the State could not impair. But what grant is there in the statute of 1803 to require a reservation? That statute gave riparian owners liberty to erect dams of a particular structure on navigable streams, without being indictable for a nuisance; and their exercise of it was consequently to be attended with expenditure of money and labour. But was this liberty to be perpetual, and for ever to tie up the power of the State? or is not the contrary to be inferred from the nature of the license ? The object was not to give a new and an irrevocable right; but. to restore the qualified use of an old one, so long as it should consist with the public good, by remitting the owner of the soil to the situation in which he stood before the stream was made a highway; and the statute did no more than operate a partial repeal of the Act which had declared it to be so. It reconciled a modified enjoyment of the owner's ancient right, to the present enjoyment of the public right of navigation and fishery. Hence it provided that the owner of land on the shore of a navigable river, declared by law to be a highway, might erect a dam on it, *113if it were so constructed as not to “ obstruct or impede the navigation, or prevent the fish from passing up the same.” Is there anything like the offer of a bargain in that? So far was ,the Legislature from seeming to abate one jot of the State’s control, that it barely agreed not to prefer an indictment for a nuisance, except on the report of viewers, to the Quarter Sessions. But the repeal of a penalty is not a charter; and the alleged grant was no more than a mitigation of the penal law. It barely placed the owner of the soil in a position almost as favourable as that in which the declarative law had found him; and if that position were to secure him from disturbance, by any further measure of public improvement, the State would be incompetent to declare any river a highway on which thefe happened to be a mill-dam.' The statute is pro tanto a repealing one, which offers no express compact to any one; and such a compact is never to be implied. It was ruled in The Charles River Bridge v. The Warren Bridge, (11 Peters 420), that the State is not presumed to have surrendered a public franchise, in the absence of proof of an unequivocal intention to do so. It would seem that the public dominion may be parted with, but not without an expljcit renunciation of it. And this relieves the case from the pressure of that clause in the Constitution which declares that no State shall pass a law impairing the obligation of contracts.

It is contended, however, not so much that the power of the Legislature falls short of a case like the present, as that it can be exerted only on the basis of compensation made or secured ; and that for damage done by the authority of the State, there is, in every case without it, redress by action : in other words, that the authority is void. We must not forget, however, that the State is a sovereign who cannot be sued against her consent; and that there are no other limitations to her power over private property than those that are placed upon it by the Constitution. What are they? “No person shall, for the same offence, be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall any man’s property be taken or applied to public use without the consent of his representatives, and without just compensation being given.” Again: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused hath a right to be heard by himself and his counsel; to demand the nature and cause of the accusation against him; to meet the witnesses face to face; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favour; and, in prosecutions by indictment or information, a speedy trial by an impartial jury of the vicinage: he cannot be compelled to give evidence against himself; nor can he be deprived of his life, liberty or property, unless by the judgment of his peers, or the law of the land.” Now, it cannot be said that the plaintiff’s mill was taken or applied, in any legitimate sense, by the State, or by the company invested with its power; nor can it be said that he was deprived of it. In the case of The Philadelphia and Trenton Rail*114road, (6 Whart. 25), the words in the first paragraph were allowed to have their obvious and popular meaning, so as to be restrained to property taken away, and not extended to property injured by an act which did not amount to an assumption of the possession; and the same rule of interpretation would give the same meaning to the word “ deprived,” in the second. It is true, that a nuisance by flooding a man’s land was originally considered so far a species of ouster, that he might have had remedy for it by assize of novel disseisin, or assize of nuisance, at his election; but we are not to suppose that the framers of the Constitution meant to entangle their meaning in the mazes of the jus antiquum. It was aptly said by Chief Justice Tilghman, in The Farmers’ and Mechanics’ Bank v. Smith, (3 Serg. & Rawle 69), that conventions to regulate the conduct of nations are not to be interpreted like articles of agreement at the common law; and that where multitudes are to be affected by the construction of an instrument, great regard should be paid to the spirit and intention. And the reason for it is an obvious one. A constitution is made, not particularly for the jnspection of lawyers, but for the inspection of the million, that they may read and discern in it their rights and their duties; and it is consequently expressed in the terms that are most familiar to them. Words, therefore, which do not of themselves denote that they are used in a technical sense, are to have their plain, popular, obvious, and natural meaning; and, applying this rule to the context of the Constitution, we have no difficulty in saying that the State is not bound beyqnd her will to pay for property which she has not taken to herself for the public use.

If, then, the State would not be bound to pay for the damage done to the plaintiffs’ mill, had she been the immediate cause of it, how is the defendant bound 1 The company acted by her authority, as well as for the public benefit; and consequently,with no greater responsibility than is imposed by the Constitution, which, it must be admitted, has narrowed the protection that the delegation of her power would otherwise have afforded. “ The Legislature,” it is said in the tenth article and fourth section, “ shall not invest any corporate body or individual with the privilege of taking private property for public use, without requiring such corporation or individual to make compensation to the owner of such property, or give adequate security therefor before such property shall be taken.” A corporation, then, must pay or secure the price of the property before it is taken; but the State must provide the means of payment at the passing of the Act. The difference is less in reality than appearance; and, in every other respect, the delegation of a valid authority protects the agents of the State as amply as it protects the State herself. Still, it is only to a case of taking that the obligation extends; and when a corporation acts by virtue of a constitutional law, it is subject to no other responsibility for acts of consequential damage, than is spe*115cially provided for. But there is no provision for consequential damage in the statute by which the defendant has been incorporated. The eighth section provides for damage to the shores; and the sixteenth, which authorized the owners of private dams to make them part of the public works, has been repealed without giving them the same compensation for damages to their mills, as suggested by the company, that is given to the owners of the shores for damage to the soil. . But the suggested provision would scarce have reached the case before us; for the plaintiffs’ mill is seated, not on the Monongahela, which is the river that was in legislative view, but on the Youghiogeny, several miles above its confluence. Moreover, the compensation could have been had only by an award of freeholders, appointed by the parties or a justice of the peace, pursuant to the act of incorporation, and not by an action at the common law. If, then, the statute is constitutional, as it undoubtedly is, there is an end of the question; for a valid law necessarily affords a defence for acts commanded or authorized by it.

It is not, therefore, enough to set before us a case of moral wrong, without showing us that we have legal power to redress it. Beyond constitutional restraint or legislative power, thei^e is none but the legislative will, tempered by its sense of justice, which has happily been sufficient, in most cases, to protect the citizen. Compensation has been provided for every injury which could be foreseen, whether within the constitutional injunction or not, in all laws for public works by- the State or a corporation; though cases of damage have occurred'which could neither be anticipated nor brought within the benefit of the provision by the most strained construction. In one instance, a profitable ferry on the Susquehanna, at its confluence with the Juniata, was destroyed by the Pennsylvania canal; and, in another, an invaluable spring of water, at the margin of the river, near Selinsgrove, was drowned. These losses, like casualties in the prosecution of every public work, are accidental, but unavoidable; and they are but samples of a multitude of others; so that the plaintiffs have at least the miserable good luck to know that they have companions in misfortune: would that it were in our power to afford them more solid consolation !

dissentiente. — As I cannot, after the most deliberate consideration, concur in the opinion of the majority of the court, I shall state my reasons.

The Youghiogeny was declared a highway on the 13th April 1782. It is not so long a stream as Pine Creek or Toby Creek, and perhaps does not pass, in a year, so much water as either of those streams, or as French Creek, or Bald Eagle, or Fishing Creek, in Columbia county, or some other streams, called creeks, in this State. It is, therefore, within the letter and spirit of the *116Act of 23d March 1803, which permits persons holding lands on any navigable stream declared by law a highway, to erect a dam for a mill or other water-works on the same stream, adjoining his own lands, and to keep the same in good repair, and to lead off the water, &c., with a proviso as to obstructing the navigation, and a proviso that the person so erecting said dam shall not in-* fringe upon or injure the rights or privileges of any owner or possessor of any private property on such stream. Before this stream was declared a public highway, the right of the riparian owner was the same as it became by this law, except that the law restricted the height and slope of the dam.

I understand the opinion of the court as admitting (what could not be denied) that a license, which could not be enjoyed without, and which was followed by the expenditure of money and labour, is irrevocable. In this case it was followed by a dam across the stream about two feet high, but so constructed as not to injure the navigation, and a large stone mill, two stories high — and to erect these cost much labour and expense. It restored the owner of this mill to the same right as -before the Act of 1782, except as to the height and shape of the dam. His dam was no longer a nuisance, and no person could remove or injure it with impunity. 3 Serg. Rawle 273; Criswell v. Clugh, (3 Watts 330). The State, after a mill had been erected under this law, had the same right as it had in all other cases, viz. to take the water of this stream or to overflow this mill, in improving the navigation of that stream, or any other navigation, upon payment for the damage, and it had no other right, and could give no other right.

There is sometimes a little confusion as to what is a contract. There is as much contract as to this dam and mill, as to the land adjoining, or to any house or barn or land in this State; and rather more, for there is an express legislative permission to make the dam and build the mill. I do not contend that the operation of the Act of 1803 ties up the State from making public improvements, but it puts the dam and mill under the protection of the law, and they cannot be taken or destroyed without compensation.

I shall not cite authorities to prove that a man specially injured shall in all cases have remedy by action. It was at one time doubted whether actions of trespass or case lay against a corporation. It has been long settled that a corporation is as liable and suable as an individual. In Turnpike Co. v. Rutter, (4 Serg. & Rawle 6); and Riddle v. Merrimack Canal, (7 Mass. 169), this point was very fully argued and considered. But I have higher authority. By the Constitution of this State, art. 9, § 10, no man’s property shall be taken or applied to public use without the consent of his representatives, and without just compensation being made. § 11: That all courts shall be open, and every man, for an injury done him in his lands, goods, person or reputation, shall have remedy by due course of law, and right and justice adminis*117tered without sale, denial or delay; and in article 7, § 4, the Legislature shall not invest any corporate body or individual with the privilege of taking private property for public use, without requiring such corporation or individual to make compensation to the owner of said property, or give adequate security therefor, before such property shall be taken.

It is remarkable that neither the plaintiff nor the defendant read these clauses of the Constitution. The assertion that property could not be taken was made; but the 11th section, giving the right to sue and obtain redress, was never mentioned, nor, as I recollect, alluded to; and, in my opinion, it is most material and compulsory on the court to grant redress.- I have more than once expressed my opinion as to the frequent resort to constitutional question, where there is no such question in the case. There is, and must be, an unlimited power, on certain subjects, in every government; and it is often right, and often practised by the Legislature, to acton this principle. The use of a written Constitution is to fix limits to this otherwise absolute power; and in this sense peculiarly it is the supreme law of the land. Whatever is absolutely prohibited or positively enjoined cannot be altered until the Constitution is changed by the people, or by a revolution. The last words of the Constitution are : “To guard against transgressions of the high powers we have delegated, we declare that everything in this 'article is excepted out of the general powers of Government, and shall for ever remain inviolate.” Now the prohibition to take or apply private property without compensation, and the command to the courts to give redress, are both in that article, and the act of a Legislature which should so take or apply it, or of a court which should refuse redress, would each be contrary to the letter and spirit of that instrument.

But an opinion, not called for in that case, given, too, after all that was material had been rightly and clearly decided, has been cited in this case. 6 Wharton 45, 6. The court had rightly decided that the street of an incorporated town or city was a public highway, (so much so, by-the-bye, that the Quarter Sessions cannot vacate it as they can common highway), and that no one person had more right to it, as a highway, than every other person had. Instead of stopping here, it went on to say that taking, meant taking away altogether. 5 Conn. 166; 6 Cow. 525. Now where no person has an exclusive right to a way, he cannot be deprived of any individual right, so long as it is an open highway; and whether it is changed to a turnpike or macadamized road or a railroad, it is still a highway; belongs to the public, and may be improved, altered, &c. by the Legislature. No individual has any private right in it, and none can be taken from him.

But Clark’s Ferry and Richter’s Spring have been mentioned. The Susquehanna was a public highway before any right in Clark; he purchased both shores, and had a ferry. The northern road to *118Pittsburgh and the road up the Susquehanna crossed at his ferry. Long before any canal, the Northern Turnpike kept above the mouth of the Juniata, and the ferry was moved to suit the travel-ling. Soon after, a bridge was erected over the Susquehanna, just below the ferry, and everybody crossed on the bridge, and the ferry was abandoned. The same thing happened at Harrisburg, where two ferries, one below and the other above the island, were abandoned, though no canal was near them, and at Sunbury, and Derr’s Towm, and Dansville, &c. As to Richter’s Spring, the injury to it was only a figurative one in the counsel, and the court (opinion by myself) did not know that the canal was on the island, and the spring was near the main shore, with a branch of the river between it and the island, and no dam below to throw the water back on it, nearer than the mouth of the Juniata, about thirty miles below it.

Judgment reversed.