144 BINNEY'S CASE

tions, as to jurisdiction, which may, in the progress of things,
frequently arise, since there have been many bodies politic created,
like this, by the concurrent acts of several state governments with
property lying, or extending beyond the jurisdiction of each one of
its creators. In Maryland there have been several canal, bridge,
and turnpike-road companies constituted in this manner, (k)

The legislative enactment of Maryland, by which The Chesa-
peake and Ohio Canal Company has been incorporated, distinctly
authorizes, so far as it can give any such authority, the extension
of its works beyond the confines of this state; and over territory
belonging to other, and, in this respect, independent and uncon-
nected governments. Each of which has communicated to it the
same powers. The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company must,
therefore, be regarded as a corporation, one and indivisible in its
nature; yet as a body politic which stretches itself, in an unbroken
line, under the separate jurisdictions of several governments; hold-
ing and occupying portions of the territory of each; and as an
artificial being formed by an infusion of the spirit and power of all.
According to this constitution of its existence, it has received its
funds, makes all its expenditures, and must hold its estate To
ascertain whether, in point of fact, any of the disbursements of this
body were for corporate purposes or not, it would seem to be pro-
per to dismiss from the inquiry every consideration as to the diffe-
rent sources from which it deduced its existence; and simply to
determine, whether the authority to make the expenditure was
given by the act of incorporation or not; taking it to be a law of
one single government only.

The question here presented, however, is not whether the expen-
diture is for corporate purposes or not; but one preliminary to that,
which is, whether the determination of that question belongs exclu-
sively, or to what extent, to the judicial authority of any one of the
governments by which this single corporation has been erected ?

No court of justice can act upon any controverted matter where
both the person and the thing are beyond its reach; and every tri-
bunal, not acting under the law of nations, has some local limits to
its jurisdiction; indeed those which have been charged with the
administration of justice, under our common law code, have a very
special and peculiar reference and adaptation to the territorial
divisions of the state. (1) But the jurisdiction of the High Court

(k) 1799, ch. 16; 1809, ch. 64; 1813, ch. 126; 1815, ch. 33; 1818, ch. 73; 1829,
ch. 42, 67.—(l) Kame's Prin. Eq. b, 3, c. 7.