20 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. regarding the impending danger of a judgment of dissolution as a sufficient check, provided the holding of the land is not contrary to its statutes, or to the policy of its legislation.^ In case of the dissolution of a business corporation, its real estate is applied to the use of its creditors and stockholders, the old common-law doc- trine that it reverts to the grantor being now regarded as "an obsolete wrong. "^ The rule that an unlawful purchase of land, of the nature stated, concerns the State alone, does not rest on any analogy drawn from the mortmain statutes, or from the case of the alien. It springs from the necessities of modern conditions, and is based on equi- table reasons. It would not only create great inconveniences and embarrassments, if corporate titles could in such cases be collater- ally impeached, but it would be against justice, and would accom- plish a legal wrong, to permit the grantor, and those claiming under him, to raise the question ; and as to others, it may be said that the restriction is a matter of governmental policy, which does not concern individuals as such. The wrong done in violating the law is against the State alone ; and with the State alone, therefore, should rest the right to elect whether it will assent, or by proper and equitable proceedings interfere and prevent the wrong. "A private person cannot directly or indirectly usurp the functions of the government." ^ The rule appears to have been first announced in 1820, by Chan- cellor Kent.* It was applied, in 1825, in Virginia;^ in 1848, in Tennessee;^ and has since been sustained by a long line of cases.'^ 1 Barnes v. Suddard, 117 111 237; Gilbert v. Hole, So. Dakota (1891); Lancaster v. Improvement Co., 140 N. Y. 576. 2 People V. O'Brien, iii N. Y. i ; Havemeyer v. Superior Court, 84 Cal. 327. In the case of a public or charitable corporation, however, its real estate reverts upon its dissolution to the grantor or donor, unless some other course of devolution has been directed by positive law, but still subject, nevertheless, to the charitable use. Mormon Church V. United States, 136 U. S. i, 47.
- Swayne, J., in Bank v. Matthews, 98 U. S. 628.
- Silver Lake Bank v. North, 4 Johns. Ch. 370.
6 Banks v. Poitiaux, 3 Rand. 136. 8 Barrow v. Turnpike Co., 9 Humph. 304. ■^ Natoma Water Co. v. Clarkin, 14 Cal. 544; Hayward v. Davidson, 41 Ind. 212 ; Land v. Coffman, 50 Mo. 243; Blunt v. Walker, 11 Wise. 334; So. Pacific R. R. Co. v. Orton, 6 Saw. 157; Myers v. Croft, 13 Wall. 291 ; Railroad Co. v. Lewis, 53 Iowa, loi ; Alexander v. Tolleston Club, 110 111. 65 ; De Camp 7a Dobbins, 29 N. J. Eq. ■},(> ; Bank v. Matthews, 98 U. S. 621; Colwell v. Springs Co., 100 U. S. 55; Christian Unions. Yount, 101 U. S. 355; Bank v. Whitney, 103 U. S. 99; Mallet v. Simpson, 94 N. C. 37; Baker's case, 36 Minn. 185; Land Co. v. Bushnell, 11 Neb. 192; Davis w. Old Colony R. R., 131 Mass. 258, 273; Walsh v. Bouton, 24 Ohio St. 28. See contra, Occum V. Sprague Mfg. Co., 34 Conn. 529; Thweatt v. Bank, 81 Ky. i.
