Roger B. Taney

“ This Ohio act does not pretend to create a corporation. It only 'recognises, confirms, and adopts the charter of said company as enacted by the Legislature of the State of Indiana.' But the point is not, where has the corporation been recognised, but where was it created? It has never been pretended that, touching the question of the jurisdiction of the Federal courts, a corporation is a citizen of any State except that which created it. ”

“ But the legal entity or person, which exists by force of law, can have no existence beyond the limits of the State or sovereignty which brings it into life and endues it with its faculties and powers. The President and Directors of the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad Company is, therefore, a distinct and separate corporate body in Indiana from the corporate body of the same name in Ohio, and they cannot be joined in a suit as one and the same plaintiff, nor maintain a suit in that character against a citizen of Ohio or Indiana in a Circuit Court of the United States. ”

“ We believe that it is not pretended by the plaintiff that any act of Ohio referring specially to this corporation was ever passed till after said Indiana act took effect. We suppose, indeed, that all the acts of Ohio concerning this corporation were private acts, and that, not being pleaded, they cannot be noticed by this court. It seems that acts creating private corporations, as this is, are private statutes, unless the Legislature makes them public. ”