George Shiras, Jr.

“ Courts created by statute can have no jurisdiction but such as the statute confers. No one of them can asser a just claim to jurisdiction exclusively conferred on another, or withheld from all. The constitution has defined the limits of the judicial power of the United States, but has not prescribed how much of it shall be exercised by the circuit court. ”

“ To sustain their first objection, plaintiffs in error cite numerous cases going to show that parol evidence is not admissible to vary the contract of indorsement, or the agreement of the parties as fixed under the law by the fact of indorsement.
Certainly, as against a third party who has become, in good faith, the holder of a promissory note, a defendant, whether a maker or an indorser, will not be permitted to escape from the legal import of his formal contract by an offer of parol evidence. ”

“ Kennedy, 9 Wall. 387, 391, Chief Justice Chase, in delivering the opinion of the court, said: 'It may be observed that the denial of jurisdiction of suits by assignees has never been taken in an absolutely literal sense. It has been held that suits upon notes payable to a particular individual or to bearer may be maintained by the holder, without any allegation of citizenship of the original payee, though it is not to be doubted that the holder's title to the note could only be derived through transfer or assignment. ”