McKIM v. ODOM.—3 BLAND. 417

agency of natural persons, they may cause it so far to depart from
the purposes of its establishment, as, by means of its servants to
commit a trespass, or tort, or unlawfully to refuse to make compen-
sation for that by which it had been, upon its own request, mate-
rially benefited; and, therefore, redress is allowed to be had against
it by an action of trespass, trover, or assumpsit, as may be best
suited to the true nature of the case. Com. Dig. tit. Franchises,
F, 19; Yarborough v. The Bank of England, 16 East, 6; The Bank
of Columbia v. Patterson, 7 Cran. 299; McDonough v. Templeman,
1 H. & J. 156; The Bank of the United States v. Norwood, 1 H. &
J. 423; Kennedy v. The Baltimore Insurance Company, 3 H. & J.
367; Union Bank of Maryland v. Ridgely, 1 H. & G. 419.

The adjudications by which these modes of proceeding have
been sanctioned, manifest a sensible and strong disposition in the
Courts of justice, so to control and modify the ancient distinction
between the artificial and natural capacities of those of whom cor-
porations may be composed, as to prevent them from withholding
a disclosure of the truth; or from perpetrating wrong and fraud,
under cover of their artificial capacity; because of the quaint
notion that, as such, they have no soul; or because, in general,
they can only act, or bind themselves in the manner prescribed by
means of their corporate seal.

On the other hand it may often become necessary to proceed
personally against the officers and members of a body politic, who
have been entrusted with its concerns, so as to prevent them from
exposing its property to seizure and loss by reason of their negli-
gence or contumacy. In a suit against a body politic, which can
only be considered as an auxiliary of the government of the
Republic, it would certainly be very unjust to seize upon its prop-
erty, * and stop or embarrass its operations, merely for the
purpose of compelling its mayor, president, or directors, to 422
answer to a suit which had been brought against it. Indeed it
would, in most instances, be doing a gross injury to the public,
only as a means of reaching and coercing a delinquent corporator,
whose separate and personal interests could not be at all affected
by any such proceeding. For, the Mayor and Council of a city;
the Justices of a Levy Court: the governors and visitors of a col-
lege; the president and directors of a hospital, or the trustees of
the poor, could not have their private interests, in any manner,
affected by the most destructive sequestration that could be made
of the corporate property which they held in their artificial capa-
city. Even with regard to bodies politic of the second class,
whose sole object is the aggrandizement of their own members, it
certainly must be admitted to be unjust to injure all, by an indis-
criminate sequestration, merely because some one, or a lew of
their members have been negligent, or contumacious, in not an-
swering to a suit as was required.
27 3 B.