Page images
PDF
EPUB

Rundle et al. v. Delaware and Raritan Canal Company.

to their injury, for the purpose of private emolument only, with or without license, or authority of either of its sovereign owners. The case before us requires us only to decide, that by the laws of Pennsylvania, the River Delaware is a public, navigable river, held by its joint sovereigns, in trust, for the public; that riparian owners of land have no title to the river, or any right to divert its waters, unless by license from the State. That such license is revocable, and in subjection to the superior right of the State, to divert the water for public improvements.

It follows, necessarily, from these conclusions, that, whether the State of Pennsylvania claim the whole river, or acknowledge the State of New Jersey, as tenant in common, and possessing equal rights with herself; and whether either State, without consent of the other, has or has not, a right to divert the stream, it will not alter or enlarge the plaintiff's rights. Being a mere tenant at sufferance to both, as regards the usufruct of the water, he is not in a condition to question the relative rights of his superiors. If Pennsylvania chooses to acquiesce in this partition of the waters, for great public improvements, or is estopped to complain by her own acts, the plaintiff cannot complain, or call upon this court to decide questions between the two States, which neither of them sees fit to raise. By the law of his own State, the plaintiff has no remedy against a corporation authorized to take the whole river for the purpose of canals or improving the navigation; and his tenure and rights are the same as regards both the States.

With these views, it will be unnecessary to inquire whether the compact of 1783, between Pennsylvania and New Jersey, operated as a revocation of the license or toleration implied from the proviso of the colonial acts of 1771, as that question can arise only in case the plaintiffs' dam be indicted as a public nuisance.

Nor is it necessary to pass any opinion on the question of the respective rights of either of these co-terminous States w whom this river belongs, to divert its waters, without the consent of the other.

The question raised is not without its difficulties; but being bound to resolve it by the peculiar laws of Pennsylvania, as interpreted by her own courts, we cannot say that the court below has erred in its exposition of them, and therefore affirm the judgment.

Mr. Justice MCLEAN and Mr. Justice DANIEL dissented. Mr. Justice CATRON gave a separate opinion; and Mr. Justice CURTIS dissented from the judgment of the court, on the merits, but not from its entertaining jurisdiction.

Rundle et al. v. Delaware and Raritan Canal Company.

The following are the opinions of Mr. Justice CATRON and Mr. Justice DANIEL.

Mr. Justice CATRON.

My opinion is, and long has been, that the mayor and aldermen of a city corporation, or the president and directors of a bank, or the president and directors of a railroad company, (and of other similar corporations,) are the true parties that sue and are sued as trustees and representatives of the constantly changing stockholders. These are not known to the public, and not suable in practice, by service of personal notice on them respectively, such as the laws of the United States require. If the president and directors are citizens of the State where the corporation was created, and the other party to the suit is a citizen of a different State, or a subject or citizen of a foreign government, then the courts of the United States can exercise jurisdiction under the third article of the Constitution. In this sense I understood Letson's case, and assented to it when the decision was made; and so it is understood now.

If all the real defendants are not within the jurisdiction of the court, because some of the directors reside beyond it, then the act of February 28, 1843, allows the suit to proceed, regardless of this fact, for the reasons stated in Litson's case. How. 597.

2

If the United States courts could be ousted of jurisdiction, and citizens of other States and subjects of foreign countries be forced into the State courts, without the power of election, they would often be deprived, in great cases, of all benefit contemplated by the Constitution; and, in many cases, be compelled to submit their rights to judges and juries who are inhabitants of the cities where the suit must be tried, and to contend with powerful corporations, in local courts, where the chances of impartial justice would be greatly against them; and where no prudent man would engage with such an antagonist, if he could help it. State laws, by combining large masses of men under a corporate name, cannot repeal the Constitution; all corporations must have trustees and representatives, who are usually citizens of the State where the corporation is created; and these citizens can be sued, and the corporate property charged by the suit; nor can the courts allow the constitutional security to be evaded by unnecessary refinements, without inflicting a deep injury on the institutions of the country

Mr. Justice DANIEL.

In the opinion of the court, just announced in this cause, I am unable to concur.

Were the relative rights and interests of the parties to this

Rundle et al. v. Delaware and Raritan Canal Company.

controversy believed to be regularly before this court, I should have coincided in the conclusions of the majority; for the reason, that all that is disclosed by the record, either of the traditions or the legislation of the States of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, shows an equal right or claim on the part of either of those States to the River Delaware, and to the uses to which the waters of that river might be applied. From such an equality in each of those States, it would seem regularly to follow, that no use or enjoyment of the waters of that river could be invested in the grantees of one of them, to the exclusion of the like use and enjoyment by the grantees of the other. The permission, therefore, from Pennsylvania to Adam Hoops, or his assignees, to apply the waters of the Delaware in the working of his mill, whatever estate or interest it might invest in such grantee, as against Pennsylvania, could never deprive the State of New Jersey of her equal privilege of applying the waters of the same river, either directly, in her corporate capacity, or through her grantee, the Delaware and Raritan Canal Company. My disagreement with my brethren in this case has its foundation in a reason wholly disconnected with the merits of the parties. It is deducible from my conviction of the absence of authority, either here or in the Circuit Court, to adjudicate this cause; and that it should therefore have been remanded, with directions for its dismission, for want of jurisdiction.

The record discloses the fact, that the party defendant in the Circuit Court, and the appellee before this court, is a corporation, styled in the declaration, "a corporation created by the State of New Jersey." It is important that the style and character of this party litigant, as well as the source and manner of its existence, be borne in mind, as both are deemed material in considering the question of the jurisdiction of this court, and of the Circuit Court. It is important, too, to be remembered, that the question here raised stands wholly unaffected by any legislation, competent or incompetent, which may have been attempted in the organization of the courts of the United States; but depends exclusively upon the construction of the 2d section of the 3d article of the Constitution, which defines the judicial power of the United States; first, with respect to the subjects embraced within that power; and, secondly, with respect to those whose character may give them access, as parties, to the courts of the United States. In the second branch of this definition, we find the following enumeration, as descriptive of those whose position, as parties, will authorize their pleading or being impleaded in those courts; and this position is limited to "controversies to which the United States are a party; contro

Rundle et al. v. Delaware and Raritan Canal Company.

versies between two or more States, — between citizens of different States,-between citizens of the same State, claiming lands under grants of different States, and between the citizens of a State and foreign citizens or subjects."

Now, it has not been, and will not be, pretended, that this corporation can, in any sense, be identified with the United States, or is endowed with the privileges of the latter; or if it could be, it would clearly be exempted from all liability to be sued in the Federal courts. Nor is it pretended, that this corporation is a State of this Union; nor, being created by, and situated within, the State of New Jersey, can it be held to be the citizen or subject of a foreign State. It must be, then, under that part of the enumeration in the article quoted, which gives to the courts of the United States jurisdiction in controversies between citizens of different States, that either the Circuit Court or this court can take cognizance of the corporation as a party; and this is, in truth, the sole foundation on which that cognizance has been assumed, or is attempted to be maintained. The proposition, then, on which the authority of the Circuit Court and of this tribunal is based, is this: The Delaware and Raritan Canal Company is either a citizen of the United States, or it is a citizen of the State of New Jersey. This proposition, startling as its terms may appear, either to the legal or political apprehension, is undeniably the basis of the jurisdiction asserted in this case, and in all others of a similar character, and must be established, or that jurisdiction wholly fails. Let this proposition be examined a little more closely.

The term citizen will be found rarely occurring in the writers upon English law; those writers almost universally adopting, as descriptive of those possessing rights or sustaining obligations, political or social, the term subject, as more suited to their peculiar local institutions. 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. 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 text 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; it remains for us to examine what share a state may have in the actions of her citizens, and what are the rights and obligations of sovereigns in that respect." And again: "Whoever uses a citizen ill, indirectly offends the state, which is bound to protect this citizen." The meaning of the term citi

[blocks in formation]

Rundle et al. v. Delaware and Raritan Canal Company.

zen or subject, in the apprehension of English jurists, as indicating persons in their natural character, in contradistinction to artificial or fictitious persons created by law, is further elucidated by those jurists, in their treatises upon the origin and capacities and objects of those artificial persons designated by the name of corporations. Thus, Mr. Justice Blackstone, in the 18th chapter of his 1st volume, holds this language: "We have hitherto considered persons in their natural capacities, and have treated of their rights and duties. But, as all personal rights die with the person; and, as the necessary form 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. These artificial persons are called corporations."

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; or natives, that is, such as are born within it." Under our own systems of polity, the term, citizen, implying the same or similar relations to the government and to society which appertain to the term, subject, ir. England, is familiar to all. 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. 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. A corporation, therefore, being not a natural person, but a mere creature of the mind, invisible and intangible, cannot be a citizen of a State, or of the United States, and cannot fall within the terms or the power of the above-mentioned article, and can therefore neither plead nor be impleaded in the courts of the United States. Against this position it may be urged, that the

« EelmineJätka »