With Government, the Slope Is, in Fact, Slippery

It started with ferries.

Lord Chief Justice Hale considered the question of ferry regulation in De Portibus Maris in 1670. Even if a man owns the land and docks on both sides of a river, and owns a ferry that can be used to take people and cargo between them, he does not have the right to operate a public conveyance without the king's permission.