Morrison Waite

“ On the twenty-fifth of March the court refused to stop further proceedings, giving its reasons therefor as follows: 'The plaintiffs in this case, except one, a Spanish subject, are citizens of the state of New York, and the controversy, as appears by the pleadings, is wholly between them and the defendant Caroline Carson, who, in her answer, states that she is also a citizen of that state. She has also filed with her answer an exhibit of a previous case in the United States court relating to the same matter, in which case she was plaintiff, suing as a citizen of the state of New York. ”

“ In the present case the petition stated, in positive terms, that Mrs. Carson was, at the beginning of the suit, and still continued to be, a citizen of Massachusetts. With that fact established, the necessary citizenship for a removal existed. Whether it was a fact or not could, under the ruling in Stone v. South Carolina, only be tried in the circuit court, unless the statement in the answer filed on behalf of Mrs. Carson estopped her from denying her citizenship in New York. ”

“ Carson and her two sons. The sons after wards assigned their interest in the bonds to their mother. Mrs. Carson left South Carolina early in 1861, and went to New York to life. She has never since returned to South Carolina. Her son William came of age in 1863, but he left South Carolina before the late civil war, and has been absent ever since. James did not come of age until after the war, and the executor Blacklock was absent from the United States during the whole of it. ”