Covington Drawbridge Company v. Shepherd et al. bridge Company, in the Circuit Court of the United States for the district of Indiana. The only error assigned here is, that upon the declaration and pleadings in the case, the Circuit Court had no jurisdiction. This objection is founded upon the description of the parties in the declaration, which is in the following words: "Alexander O. Shepherd, Elijah F. Gillan, James Davidson, Samuel McClure, Samuel Peters, and George Willard, citizens of the State of Ohio, plaintiffs in this suit, complain of the Covington Drawbridge Company, citizens of the State of Indiana, defendants in this suit, in a plea of trespass on the case." The plaintiff in error, who was defendant in the court below, contends that it does not appear by this averment that the Drawbridge Company was a corporation chartered by Indiana, and had its principal place of business in that State; and that, unless this appears in the pleadings, the averment that they were citizens of that State was not sufficient to give jurisdiction to the Circuit Court. It is very true, that where individuals voluntarily associate together, and adopt a name or description intended to embrace all of its members, and under which its contracts and engagements are made, and its business carried on, such a company can neither sue nor be sued by the name they have adopted, and under which they act, in any court of common law, whether it be the court of a State or of the United States. They must sue and be sued in their individual names as partners in the company. But the answer to the objection taken by the plaintiff in error is, that the twenty-seventh section of the fourth article of the Constitution of Indiana provides that "every statute shall be a public law, unless otherwise declared in the statute itself." The statute of the Legislature of Indiana, incorporating the Covington Drawbridge Company, is therefore a public law, of which the Circuit Court and this court are bound to take judicial notice, without its being pleaded or offered in evidence. For wherever a law of a State is held to be a public one, to be judicially taken notice of by the State courts, it must be regarded in like manner by a court of the United States, when it is required to administer the laws of the State. This being the case in this instance, the averment that the Covington Drawbridge Company are citizens of the State of Indiana is sufficient, according to the decision of this court in the case of the Louisville, Cincinnati, and Charleston Railroad Company v. Letson, 2 How., 497, which has ever since been adhered to, and must now be regarded as the settled law of the court. Covington Drawbridge Company v. Shepherd et al. The question as to the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States in cases where a corporation is a party, was argued and considered in this court, for the first time, in the cases of the Hope Insurance Company v. Boardman, and of the Bank of the United States v. Deveaux, 5 Cr., 57 and 61. These two cases were argued at the same term, and were, as appears by the report, decided at the same time. And in the last-mentioned case, the court held that in a suit by or against a corporation, in its corporate name, this court might look beyond the mere legal being which the cuarter created, and regard it as a suit by or against the individual persons who composed the corporation; and an averment that they were citizens of a particular State (if such was the fret) would be sufficient to give jurisdiction to a court of the United States, although the suit was in the corporate name, and the individual corporators not named in the suit or the averment. But in the case of the Louisville, Cincinnati, and Charleston Railroad Company v. Letson, the court overruled so much of this opinion as authorized a corporation to plead in abatement, that one or more of the corporators, plaintiffs or defendants, were citizens of a different State from the one described, and held that the members of the corporate body must be presumed to be citizens of the State in which the corporation was domiciled, and that both parties were estopped from denying it. And that, inasmuch as the corporators were not parties to the suit in their individual characters, but merely as members and component parts of the body or legal entity which the charter created, the members who composed it ought to be presumed, so far as its contracts and liabilities are concerned, to reside where the domicil of the body was fixed by law, and where alone they could act as one person; and to the same extent, and for the same purposes, be also regarded as citizens of the State from which this legal being derived its existence, and its faculties and powers. And in the case of the Bank of Augusta v. Earle, 13 Pet., 519, the court said that a corporation can have no legal existence outside of the dominion of the State by which it is created. Consequently, the Covington Drawbridge Company being chartered by the State of Indiana, it necessarily has its home and place of business in that State; and the only averment in the declaration necessary to show a case for jurisdiction, was that of the citizenship of the parties who composed the company. In the case of the Lafayette Insurance Company v. French, the declaration stated that the corporation itself was a citizen of Indiana. Now, no one, we presume, ever supposed that the artificial being created by an act of incorporation could be a Covington Drawbridge Company v. Shepherd et al. citizen of a State in the sense in which that word is used in the Constitution of the United States, and the averment was rejected because the matter averred was simply impossible. But it appeared from other parts of the pleadings that the corporation was chartered by Indiana, and had its principal place of business in that State. And the court, therefore, applied the principle decided in the case of the Louisville, Cincinnati, and Charleston Railroad Company v. Letson, and held that the members of the corporate body must be presumed to be citizens of the same State. The citizenship of the corporators was regarded as the necessary and legal consequence of the facts stated in the pleadings without any positive and direct averment to that effect. The case of Marshall against the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company was decided upon the same ground. But in the case before us, the citizenship of the corporators is not left to be inferred by the court from other facts stated in the pleadings, but is directly and positively averred, and consequently freed from all objection on that head. Indeed, it is the same form of pleading in this respect that was used in the case of the Bank of the United States v. Deveaux, and which this court ruled to be good. If the act of incorporation had not been a public law, which the court is bound to notice, then, undoubtedly, the proper description of the defendants would have been "The Covington Drawbridge Company, citizens of the State of Indiana, incorporated by that name, by the said State, and having their principal place of business therein." But in the case before us, the averment of the citizenship of the members of the corporation is all that is required, because the existence and domicil of the corporate body is judicially known to the court. The judgment of the court below is therefore affirmed. Mr. Justice CAMPBELL concurs in the result of the opinion of the court. Mr. Justice DANIEL. In dissenting from the decision of the court in this cause, it is not designed to reiterate objections which in several previous instances have been expressed. I will merely remark, with reference to the present decision, and to others in this court, numerous as they are said to have been, that they have wholly failed to bring conviction to my mind, that a corporation can be a citizen, or that the term citizen can be correctly understood in any other sense than that in which it was understood in common acceptation when the Constitution was adopted, and as it is universally by writers on government explained, without a single exception. White et al. v. Burnley. SAMUEL A. WHITE, WILLIAM M. COOKE, CHAMBERS ETLER, In the present case, the land granted in Texas was alleged to be within the em- The fact that the surveyor included more land than was called for, does not avoid the grant. Whatever the State might do to annul it, third parties have no right to consider it void. A grantee having been compelled to leave Texas, there was no evidence of his voluntary and final abandonment of the country. As there was no evidence. the jury could not express an opinion upon the subject. Nor was there any evidence which would justify the court in leaving it to the jury to decide whether or not this grantee was an alien enemy when he made a conveyance, he being then a resident of Louisiana. The mere fact of his being a Spaniard was not sufficient for an inference that he was an enemy of Texas. The averment in the deed that he was a citizen of Mexico was not sufficient. Where a deed of land in Texas was executed in Louisiana, and recorded in a notary's books, a copy of it which had been compared with the original by a witness who was acquainted with the handwriting of the notary (being dead) and the subscribing witness, was properly admitted in evidence. It was also admitted as a record of another State. In order that the statute of limitations shall begin to run, the defendant, claiming under a younger title to land which conflicts in part with an elder title, should have been in actual possession of the part which was overlapped by the elder title. THIS case was brought up, by writ of error, from the District Court of the United States for the district of Texas. It was an action of trespass, to try title brought by Burnley against the plaintiffs in error, in the District Court of the United States for the district of Texas, to recover a league of land, situated in Calhoun county, of that State. Upon the trial, Burnley traced his title in this manner: 1. A document purporting to be the original testimonio, in Spanish, of a colonial grant in the colony of Martin De Leon, made by Fernando De Leon, commissioner, to one Benito Morales. The date of it was 11th April, 1835. 2. A deed from Benito Morales to Leonardo Manso, dated 27th May, 1835. 3. Conveyance from Manso to Peter W. Grayson, dated 6th April, 1836. This deed was executed in the parish of St. Landry, Louisiana, before Pierre Labiche, a notary of that place. 4. Conveyance from the executors of Grayson to Burnley and Jones, dated 22d of May, 1844. The second and fourth of these deeds were given in evidence without objection. The first and third were objected to. White et al. v. Burnley. The objection to the original grant constituted the subject of the first bill of exceptions. The defendants, by their counsel, objected to its admission, on the ground that the want of authority in the commissioner of the colony to make the grant, appears upon the face of the grant itself, viz: that it appears therein that it includes more than one sitio or league of land, which was the limit of his authority; and thereupon, the court expressing a willingness to hear testimony as to law and usage on this subject, evidence was produced on both sides, when the court allowed the grant to be read in evidence to the jury. To this ruling the defendants excepted. The plaintiff then proceeded with the deduction of his title, and read the deed from Morales to Manso, without objection. The next step in his title was the deed from Manso to Grayson, which was executed in Louisiana. What was offered in evidence purported to be a copy taken from a notary's books, and began in this way: "Be it known that this day, before me, Pierre Labiche, notary public in and for the parish of St. Landry, duly commissioned and sworn, personally came and appeared Leonardo Manso, citizen of the Republic of Mexico, who declared," &c., &c. This deed was certified in such a manner as to induce the counsel for the defendants to agree as follows: "I admit the sufficiency of the certificates to the foregoing deed as conformably to the act of Congress, March 27th, 1804, waiving want of notary's seal, &c.; but do not admit that the deed could be certified under that law. "GEORGE W. PASCHALL, "Attorneys for Reuss S. Bendewald." There was also offered the deposition of a witness that he had examined the deed on file, a certified copy of which was paraphed by him; that he was acquainted with the notary's handwriting, &c., &c. To the admission of which copy of said deed of conveyance the defendants by their counsel objected, on the following grounds, that is to say First. Because it was not executed in accordance with the then existing law of Texas in this, to wit: 1. That it did not appear that it was executed before any notary or other officer authorized by law to take and authenticate public instruments. 2. That it does not appear that the foreign notary, before whom it purports to have been passed and executed, made out |