be irrespective of any specific license, or other, tax imposed by law upon such company for the privilege of carrying on its business in this State, or upon its franchise or property; and for the making, by every such corporation (at the time of paying such annual registration fee), of such report to the State Corporation Commission, of the status, business or condition of such corporation, as the General Assembly may prescribe.  No foreign corporation shall have authority to do business in this State, until it shall have first obtained from the commission a license to do business in this State, upon such terms and conditions as may be prescribed by law.  The failure by any corporation for two successive years to pay its annual registration fee, or to make its said annual reports, shall, when such failure shall have continued for ninety days after the expiration of such two years, operate as a revocation and annulment of the charter of such corporation if it be a domestic company, or, of its license to do business in this State if it be a foreign company; and the General Assembly shall provide additional and suitable penalties for the failure of any corporation to comply promptly with the requirements of this section, or of any laws passed in pursuance thereof.  The commission shall compel all corporations to comply promptly with such requirements, by enforcing, in the manner hereinbefore authorized, such fines and penalties against the delinquent company as may be provided for, or authorized by, this article; but the General Assembly may relieve from the payment of the said registration fee any purely charitable institution or institutions.

Sec. 158.  Every corporation heretofore chartered in this State, which shall hereafter accept, or effect, any amendment or extension of its charter, shall be conclusively presumed to have thereby surrendered every exemption from taxation, and every non-repealable feature of its charter and of the amendments thereof, and also all exclusive rights or privileges theretofore granted to it by the General Assembly and not enjoyed by other corporations of a similar general character; and to have thereby agreed to thereafter hold its charter and franchises, and all amendments thereof, under the provisions and subject to all the requirements, terms and conditions of this Constitution and of any laws passed in pursuance thereof, so far as the same may be applicable to such corporation.

Sec. 159.  The exercise of the right of eminent domain shall never be abridged, nor so construed as to prevent the General Assembly from taking the property and franchises of corporations and subjecting them to public use, the same as the property of individuals; and the exercise of the police power of the State shall never be abridged, nor so construed as to permit corporations to conduct their business in such manner as to infringe the equal rights of individuals or the general well-being of the State.