such service is bad at common law, as well as under the act of Pennsylvania of 1817. In the above-mentioned case of the Middletown Manufacturing Company, it appears that an attachment had issued against the estate of a corporation established in Connecticut; and the attachment, it was contended, might issue in such a case, under the 23d section of the act of the State, which section enacts that the real and personal estate of every debtor who resides out of the State, and is indebted within it, shall be liable to be attached, and sold for the payment of his debts, in like manner, in all respects, as the estates of debtors residing within the State. The construction the court gave to this clause, from a view of the whole act, was, that the legislature intended to authorize proceedings under it against natural persons only. Spencer, J., who gave the opinion of the court, observed: "We think, a foreign corporation never could be sued here. The process against a corpora tion must be served on its head, or principal officer, within the jurisdiction of the sovereignty where this artificial body exists. If the president of a bank of another State were to come within this State, he would not represent the corporation here; his functions and his character would not accompany him, when he moved beyond the jurisdiction of the government under whose laws he derived this character; and though, possibly, it would be competent for a foreign corporation to constitute an attorney to appear, and plead to an action instituted under another jurisdiction, we are clearly of the opinion that the legislature contemplated the case of liability to arrest, but for the circumstance, that the debtor was without the jurisdiction of the process of the courts of this State; and that the act, in all its provisions, meant, that attachments should go against natural, not artificial, or mere legal entities. The first section speaks of persons, and throughout the act, natural persons only were intended to be subjected to its provisions. It is true, that there are cases in which corporate property has been held liable Nash v. Rector, &c. 1 Miles (Penn.) R. 78; Dawson v. Campbell, 2 Ib. 171. to be taxed, under acts which subject the property of inhabitants to taxation, but in all such cases, the tax operated in rem, on the estate; and it has been held, that whoever resided on the property, represented, in that respect, the corporation, and in the view of the act were inhabitants; but it would not be correct to say, abstractly, that a corporation, or mere legal entity, was an inhabitant." In this opinion of Mr. J. Spencer, the Supreme Court of Massachusetts fully concurred in a case, by which, it seems, that in an action upon a joint contract, made by the defendant, and a corporation not within the State, and not liable to be sued, it is not necessary that such corporation should be named in the writ as a co-defendant." After the property of a foreign corporation has been transferred to a receiver, for the benefit of the creditors of the corporation, and the title thereto has become vested in the receiver, under an order of the Court of Chancery of the State where the corporation is situated, such property cannot be reached by an attachment in another State, as the property of the corporation.3 $12. The principal point in controversy in Clark v. New Jersey Steam Navigation Company was whether the respondents, being a corporation created by, and having its corporate existence and organization in, the State of New Jersey, is, as a foreign corporation, liable to a suit in personam in the admiralty in the district of Rhode Island, not directly, but indirectly, through its attachable property in that district, so as to compel the appearance of the corporation to answer the suit, or at all events to subject the property attached to the final judgment and decree of the District Court. It was held by Mr. J. Story, that, though by the common law foreign corporations and non A foreign corporation is liable to be sued in New Hampshire, whenever, by the laws of that State, effective service can be made upon it or its property. Libbey v. Hodgden, 9 N. Hamp. 394; and may also be held as trustee under the foreign attachment law of that State. Ibid. 'Peckham v. North Par. of Haverhill, 16 Pick. (Mass.) R. 286. 3 Thomas v. Merchants Bank, 9 Paige (N. Y.) Ch. R. 215. resident foreigners cannot be served with process by any of the courts of common law, nor their property be attached to compel their appearance, the District Courts of the United States (as courts of admiralty) may award attachments against the property of foreign corporations, found within their local jurisdiction. In all proceedings in rem, the court having jurisdiction over the property itself, it was wholly unimportant, the learned judge asserted, whether the property belongs to a private person or to a corporation. But if this case had been one exclusively dependent on the local law of Rhode Island, the jurisdiction of the District Court would have been equally clear, as, by an act of the legislature of the State, the personal and real estate of an incorporated company established without the State is made liable to attachment upon any just demand.' 13. A late decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, in Louisville Railroad Company v. Letson,' on the construction of that clause of the constitution which extends the judicial power to controversies between "citizens of different States," which by former decisions was viewed in reference to the citizenship of the members of a corporation, and required them to be citizens of a different State from the opposite party, has overruled those decisions, and declared that a "corporation created by and doing business in a particular State is to be deemed, to all intents and purposes, as a person, and an inhabitant of the same State, for the purposes of its incorporation, capable of being treated as a citizen of that State, as much as a natural person." a The effect of the decisions in both Strawbridge v. Curtis, and Bank of the United States v. Deveaux, have had the effect to limit the jurisdiction of the 5 3 1 Clark v. N. Jersey Steam Nav. Co. 1 Story (Cir. Co.) R. 531. Strawbridge v. Curtis, 3 Cranch (U. S.) R. 267. See, also, Hope Insur- Circuit Courts, so that the practice has been, since those cases were decided, that if there be two or more plaintiffs, and two or more joint-defendants, each of the plaintiffs must be capable of suing each of the defendents in the courts of the United States, in order to support the jurisdiction, and in cases of corporations to limit jurisdiction to cases in which all the members of the corporation were citizens of the State in which the suit is brought. But at the January term of the Supreme Court of the United States, in 1844, in the above case of the Louisville railroad, the court declared, that, after mature deliberation, they felt free to say, that those cases were carried too far, and that consequences and inferences have been argumentatively drawn from the reasoning employed in the latter of those cases, which ought not to be followed. And it was moreover stated by the court, that by no one was the correctness of the decisions in those two cases more questioned, than by C. J. Marshall, who gave the opinions; and that it was within the knowledge of several of the court, that that late learned judge had repeatedly expressed regret, that these decisions had been made, and who added, whenever the subject was mentioned, that if the point of jurisdiction was an original one, the conclusion would be different. "We may safely assert," said the court, "that a majority of the members of this court have at all times partaken of the same regret, and that, whenever a case has occurred on the circuit, involving the application of the case of the Bank and Deveaux, it was yielded to, because the decision had been made, and not because it was thought to be right." Mr. J. Wayne, who gave the opinion of the court, then proceeded to consider the act of February, 1839, enlarging the jurisdiction of the courts, as follows: "The first section of that act provides, 'that wherein any suit at law or in equity, commenced in any court of the United States, there shall be several defendants, any one or more of whom shall not be inhabitants of or found within the district, where the Coal & Nav. Co. 4 Wash. (Cir. Co.) 595; Flanders v. Etna Ins. Co. 3 Mason (Cir. Co.) R. 158. suit is brought, or shall not voluntarily appear thereto, it shall be lawful for the court to entertain jurisdiction, and proceed to the trial and adjudication of such suit between the parties who may be properly before it; but the judgment or decree rendered therein shall not conclude or prejudice other parties, not regularly served with process, or not voluntarily appearing to answer.' We think, as was said in the case of Commercial Bank of Vicksburg v. Slocomb,' that this act was intended to remove the difficulties which occurred in practice, in cases both in law and equity, under that clause in the 11th section of the judiciary act, which declares, "that no civil suit shall be brought before either of said courts against an inhabitant of the United States, by any original process, in any other district than that whereof he is an inhabitant, or in which he shall be found at the time of serving the writ, but a re-examination of the entire section will not permit us to re-affirm what was said in that case, that the act did not contemplate a change in the jurisdiction of the courts as it regards the character of the parties. If the act, in fact, did no more than to make a change, by empowering the courts to take cognisance of cases other than such as were permitted in that clause of the 11th section, which we have just cited, it would be an enlargement of jurisdiction as to the character of parties. The clause, that the judgment or decree rendered shall not conclude or prejudice other parties, who have not been regularly served with process, or who have not voluntarily appeared to answer, is an exception, exempting parties so situated from the enactment, and must be so strictly applied. It is definite as to the persons of whom it speaks, and contains no particular words, as a subsequent clause, by which the general words of the statute can be restrained. The general words embrace every suit at law or in equity, in which there shall be several defendants, "any one or more of whom shall not be inhabitants of or found within the district where the suit is brought, or who shall not voluntarily appear thereto." The words, "shall not be in › Commercial Bank of Vicksburg v. Slocomb, 14 Peters (U. S.) R. |