Mr. Justice CAMPBELL.
I dissent from that portion of the opinion of the court which affirms the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court in this case. The question involves a construction of a clause in the Constitution, and arises under circumstances which make it proper that I should record the reasons for the dissent.
The conditions under which corporations might be parties to suits in the courts of the United States engaged the attention of this court not long after its organization. At the session of the court, in 1809, three cases exhibited questions of jurisdiction in regard to them, under three distinct aspects. The Bank of the United States v. Deveaux, was the case of a corporation plaintiff, whose corporators were described as citizens of Pennsylvania suing a citizen of Georgia in the Federal Court of that State. The case of Wood v. Maryland Insurance Company, was that of a corporation defendant, whose corporators were properly described, sued in the State of its charter. And the case of Hope Insurance Company v. Boardman, was that of a 'legally incorporated body,' sued in the State from which it derived its charter, and was 'legally established,' but of whose corporators there was no description, 5 Cranch, 57, 61, 78.
The cases were argued together by counsel of eminent ability, with preparation and care, and were decided by the court with much deliberation and solemnity. Chief Justice Marshall declared the opinion of the court to be 'that the invisible, intangible, and artificial being, the mere legal entity, a corporation aggregate, is certainly not a citizen, and consequently cannot sue or be sued in the courts of the United States unless the rights of the members in this respect can be exercised in the corporate name.' As it appeared in the two cases first mentioned that the corporators might sue and be sued in the courts of the United States under the circumstances of the cases, the court on those cases treated them 'as a company of individuals who, in transacting their joint concerns, had used a legal name,' and for the reason 'that the right of a corporation to litigate depended upon the character (as to citizenship) of the members which compose it, and that a body corporate cannot be a citizen within the meaning of the Constitution. The judgment in the last case was reversed for want of jurisdiction.'
In Sullivan v. Fulton Steamboat Company, 6 Wheat. 450, the defendant was described as a body corporate, incorporated by the Legislature of the State of New York, for the purpose of navigating, by steamboats, the waters of East River or Long Island Sound, in that State.' This corporation was sued in New York. Upon appeal, this court determined that the Circuit Court had no jurisdiction of the defendant. In Breithaupt v. The Bank of Georgia, that corporation was sued in that State, but this court certified 'that as the bill did not aver that the corporators of the Bank of Georgia are citizens of the State of Georgia, the Circuit Court had no jurisdiction of the case.' In the Vicksburg Bank v. Slocomb, 14 Pet. 60, a corporation was sued by a citizen of a different State, in the State of its charter, but it appearing by plea, that two of its corporators were citizens of the same State as the plaintiff, this court declined jurisdiction for the federal tribunals. This was in accordance with the circuit decisions, 4 Wash. C. C. 597; 3 Summ. 472; 1 Paine; and their doctrine was repeated in Irvine v. Lowrey, 14 Pet. 293. Such was the condition of the precedents in this court when, in 1844, the case of Louisville Railroad Company v. Letson, 2 How. 497, arose. The case was one of a New York plaintiff suing a South Carolina corporation, in that State, and describing its corporators as citizens. It appeared by plea, among other things, not material to the present discussion, 'that two of the corporators were citizens of North Carolina.'