BINNEY'S CASE. 147

Although the power of our government constitutionally to create
a corporation beyond its jurisdiction, or to confer the rights and
privileges of a body politic upon any but its own immediate citi-
zens, so as thus to give an extra territorial operation to its legisla-
tive enactments, may well be doubted; yet the establishment of a
body politic, clothed with authority to conduct expensive and pro-
fitable operations beyond the limits of the state by which it was
created; and under governments by which its corporate existence
has not been recognized, it is believed, is a matter of no very
extraordinary or rare occurrence. The East India Company, and
The South Sea Company of England, (t) and The Temascaltepec
Mining Company of Baltimore, -The Tlalcotal Mining Company of
Baltimore; and some others here, are corporations having such
powers, (u) If an individual has a well founded claim, arising
from, or is likely to suffer by the foreign operations of such a cor-
poration, and the case be of an equitable character, this court may
take cognizance of it, and grant relief, if the body politic or its
property are to be found within reach of its process, (v) And so
too a corporation which has been created by a foreign government,
is a legal entity of which the courts of this republic will take
notice, and allow to sue, and maintain its rights here; and have
funds here applied to its use out of the limits of the state, (w)

But a corporation cannot, on the ground of its foreign origin, or
on the ground of its being an artificial creature of a different state
from that of which the opposite party is a citizen, be allowed to sue
or be sued in the federal courts; because the jurisdiction given to
those courts, founded on the character of the litigants, is put upon
the foot of their being natural persons, integral members of society,
who are citizens of different states. Corporations, therefore, can-
not be qualified to sue in those courts upon that ground, otherwise
than by looking, according to a most latitudinous construction of
the federal constitution, to the natural character and citizenship of
all the individuals of which the artificial body is composed, (x)

(t) The Company of Merchant Adventurers v. Rebow, 3 Mod. 126: Jacob's Law
Diet V. Turkey Company.—(u) 1826, ch. 81; 1827, ch. 174; 1828, ch. 57 &
132; 1829, ch. 42.—(v) Nabob of the Carnatic v. East India Company, 1 Ves. Jun,
371; S. C. 2 Ves. Jun. 56.—(u) Henriques v. Dutch West India Company, 2
L'Raym. 1532; Attorney-General v. The Mayor of London, 3 Bro. C. C. 171; 8.
C. 1 Ves. Jun. 244; Barclay v. Russell, 3 Ves. 424; The National Bank of St.
Charles v. De Bernalis, 11 Com. Law Rep. 475; The Society, &c. v. New Haven,
8 Wheat. 482; Agnew u. The Bank of Gettysburg, 2 H. & G. 479.—(x) Hepburn