ABSTRACT
The Doctrine of Ultra Vires is of modern growth. Its appearance as a distinct fact and as a guiding or misleading principle in the legal principles of this country, being first prominently mentioned in the cases in equity, of Colman v. Eastern Counties Ry. Co. in 1846; and at law of East Anglian Ry. Co. v. Eastern Counties Ry. Co. in 1851. In England, the freedom enjoyed by corporations was sharply attacked in the late seventeenth century in the struggle between the Crown and the City of London. Ultra vires has attracted much criticism, not least from one of its earliest commentators, but in one way it may be said to have served a useful function. Given the potential power of corporations in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, some measure of state control was essential and ultra vires provided this without the sledgehammer approach and highly inconvenient consequences of destroying the company.
