Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 8.djvu/324

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HARVARD LAW REVIEW.
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308 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. and that it may be performed according to the will of the majority. The power of a majority, whether expressed or in- ferred, is the power of an agent to act for his principal, and of a principal to act for himself. A, B and C are the firm, and agents of the firm. This is one form of the proposition that they are principals, and agents of each other. What shall they plant? What produce shall they sell? When shall they sell or buy any- thing, and at what price? What blacksmith shall they employ? Of what material shall they build a fence? If, between A and his copartners, he is bound by their decision of such questions, not- withstanding his dissent, it is because the questions decided are within the partnership jurisdiction, and his agreement that the farm shall be carried on by the firm for the firm makes his partners his agents, and authorizes a majority to control in the cultivation and management required by their contract. The implied agency of a majority to carry on that business for A, B and C as principals, like the implied agency of one of them, is not exercised by a trans- fer of the whole business to D as lessee and sole principal for ninety-nine years. The partners engaging in the business of carrying on Farm No. 2 can rescind or modify their contract. They can abandon that business, lease the farm to D for ninety-nine years, and be- come mere landlords, receiving rent from the tenant who takes the place of principal in the business from which they withdraw. But the partnership agreement, made by three, cannot be altered by one or two. It is an agreement made by each one, on one side, with the other two, on the other side. Each is bound by his own contracting power, exercised by himself originally, or by himself or his agents afterwards. The agency of B and C to act for A in the execution of the partnership contract is not a power to alter A's agreement, or to make an alteration in the partnership busi- ness that would be a violation of the contract. The business need not always be continued precisely as it is begun. Improvements required for its successful prosecution are ways and means sup- posed to be contemplated. But the contract to be performed until it is annulled or changed, is an agreement that the farm shall be carried on, not by anybody for anybody, but by the firm, and for the firm, as principals. So long as that is the contract, the ques- tion of law raised by a lease to D for ninety-nine years against A's protest, is, not whether the transfer of the whole business from the firm to a different principal is judicious, nor whether a majority's