Peter Vivian Daniel

“ Under either system, the term used is designed to apply to man in his individual character, and to his natural capacities; to a being, or agent, possessing social and political rights, and sustaining, social, political, and moral obligations. It is in this acceptation only, therefore, that the term, citizen, in the article of the Constitution, can be received and understood. When distributing the judicial power, that article extends it to controversies between citizens of different States. ”

“ But, as all personal rights die with the person; and, as the necessary forms of investing a series of individuals, one after another, with the same identical rights, would be inconvenient, if not impracticable; it has been found necessary, when it is for the advantage of the public to have any particular rights kept on foot and continued, to constitute artificial persons, who maintain a perpetual succession, and enjoy a kind of legal immortality. ”

“ But, in the writers of other nations, and under systems of polity deemed less liberal than that of England, we find the term citizen familiarly reviving, and the character and the rights and duties that term implies, particularly defined. ”

“ Sir Edward Coke has declared, that a corporation cannot commit treason, felony, or other crime; neither is it capable of suffering a traitor's or felon's punishment; for it is not liable to corporeal penalties-that it can perform no personal duties, for it cannot take an oath for the due execution of an office; neither can it be arrested or committed to prison, for its existence being ideal, no man can arrest it ”

“ An examination of this case will present a striking instance of the error into which the strongest minds may be led, whenever they shall depart from the plain, common acceptation of terms, or from well ascertained truths, for the attainment of conclusions, which the subtlest ingenuity is incompetent to sustain. ”

“ This same distinguished writer, in the first book of his Commentaries, p. 123, says, 'The rights of persons are such as concern and are annexed to the persons of men, and when the person to whom they are due is regarded, are called simply rights; but when we consider the person from whom they are due, they are then denominated, duties,' And again, cap. 10th of the same book, treating of the PEOPLE, he says, 'The people are either aliens, that is, born out of the dominions or allegiance of the crown ”

“ This must mean the natural physical beings composing those separate communities, and can, by no violence of interpretation, be made to signify artificial, incorporeal, theoretical, and invisible creations. ”

“ Thus, Vattel, in his 4th book, has a chapter, (cap. 6th,) the title of which is: 'The concern a nation may have in the actions of her citizens.' A few words from the taxt of that chapter will show the apprehension of this author in relation to this term. 'Private persons,' says he, 'who are members of one nation, may offend and ill-treat the citizens of another ”