111. A trust necessarily suspends, during its continuance, the power of free and unrestrained a l iena ion of property. It is, therefore, re stricted by the minimal-law prineiple and preva lent statutory provisions. which forbid such sus pension except for a limited time measured by the lives of one or more individuals. suspen sion beyond such a period is known as a perpetu ity (q.v.) and is invalid. But property donated to trustees for charitable purposes may remain in the hand, of such trustees for all time, not withstanding the fact that the absolute power of alienation is thus indefinitely suspended. Similarly a provision for accumulation (q.v.), sold tinder the same rule in cast; of a private trust. does not impair a charitable trust.
Gifts for charitable uses are of considerable antiquity. They were known and fostered by the Christian elllperors of Dime as 'pious uses.' and it was in this form and under this description that the doctrine passed from the civil into the law of England. where, as has been said above. pious or charitable uses were enforced to some extent by the Chancellor long before the statutes of 39 and 43 Elizabeth.
In England the system of charitable trusts and the method of them is now based upon a series of modern statutes of the most enlightened diameter. known as the Charitable Trust, Aets. passed in H . 1855. ISM. 1S69, and
l•;;S'S, and, lastly, upon the Mortmain and Chari table Uses Act. passed in 1S91. In the United states the statutes of Elizabeth have not gen erally lwen enacted. but in most of the States the principle embodied in those acts and en forced by the English Court of Chancery has been judicially recognized as a part of the body of legal principles brought over from the mother country. and many trusts not strictly within flue English statute are here held to be valid by analogy. New York, long a conspicuous excep tion. has recently by statute made possible the ereation of trusts for charitable purposes, hut there are still several States in which no dis tinetion is made between charitable trusts and trusts for private purposes.
Ifinummvmtv. The literature of the subject is extensive. Among the most important works dealing with it are Shelford. Treatise on the Lace of it art main, and Charitable Uses and Trusts ( London, l~:161: Tudor, Lou' of Charities and II ort ?nail? (1.ondon, 1;00). Con sult. also, tree general treatises on trust and equity jurisdiction, as Perry, Treatise on the Lair of Trysts and Tru.stres (5th ed., Boston, 18991. and Pomeroy. 7'reat ise on Equity Jurisprudence, cle. (San Francisco. 1892). Sec 310armxix: THUST.