CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



139 



crued may have been carrying on any business author- 

 ized by the law creating it, except in like cases in 

 which said courts are authorized by this act to take 

 original cognizance of suits between citizens of the 

 same State. Nor shall any such suit between such a 

 3rporation and a citizen or citizens of a State in which 

 may be doing business be removed to any circuit 

 )urt of the United States except in like cases in 

 which such removal is authorized by the foregoing 

 provisions in suits between citizens of the same State. 



"Mr. Speaker, I desire the Clerk to read the 

 following extract from a late speech made by 

 the Senator from Delaware [Mr. Bayard]." 



The Clerk read as follows : 



I do not shut my eyes, Mr. President, to the fact 

 that the equal and wholesome distribution of property 

 which it was hoped by the founders of our Govern- 

 ment would be attained by the abolition of the rules 

 of primogeniture, of eutailments, of perpetuities, and 

 the division of intestate estates among daughters and 

 sons alike, has been greatly defeated. And I am in- 

 clined to/belicve the system of incorporation which 

 we have introduced into all 'brandies of industrial 

 pursuits will be found nearly equal to the effects of 

 primogeniture and mortmain combined in its influence 

 upon the aggregation of wealth into a single and 

 never-dying grasp. 



Mr. Culberson : "The effect of the amend- 

 ment is simply to place such corporations upon 

 the same plane with citizens of a State in which 

 they carry on their business. I, for one, believe 

 that the time has arrived when Congress should 

 intervene in every constitutional method to 

 protect the people against ' the never-dying 

 grasp' of associated capital, and to place a 

 check upon the greed, rapacity, and oppres- 

 sion by which corporations dominate the en- 

 tire business of the country." 



Mr. Wellborn, of Texas : " Mr. Speaker, it is 

 claimed that in every suit against a Federal 

 corporation it necessarily has a defense arising 

 under, because chartered by, a law of the 

 United States, and therefore that all suits 

 against tbese corporations are removable un- 

 der section 640. Nor is the claim unsupported 

 by authority. As has already been indicated 

 by my colleague, the Supreme Court of the 

 United States as far back as 1824, through 

 Chief-Justice Marshall, enunciated and applied 

 the general principle tbat a Federal corpora- 

 tion could in no instance have a case for judi- 

 cial cognizance which did not arise literally as 

 well us substantially under the law of its cre- 

 ation. Fifty years later, in the eighth circuit, 

 Judge Miller, construing this very law of 1868, 

 sustained the right of removal upon this same 

 general principle. Other eminent jurists, with- 

 out undertaking to determine the question, pro- 

 nounce it to be a close one. What authorita- 

 tive construction the Supreme Court will ulti- 

 mately place upon tbe law is of course a mere 

 matter of conjecture. 



"So we are confronted with this state of 

 things: a Federal corporation probably not 

 to use a stronger word probably can remove 

 at its option from a State court into a Federal 

 court for trial any suit commenced against it 

 in the former, no matter what may be the char- 

 acter of the litigation, no matter what may be 



the issues which it really presents for adjudi- 

 cation, and no matter whether or not any of 

 those issues involve the construction of tbe 

 Constitution or any law or treaty of the United 

 States. This unrestricted right of removal, so 

 convenient and valuable to these corporations, 

 so onerous, so hurtful to the general public 

 with whom they deal, constitutes one of the 

 most striking anomalies, most flagrant sole- 

 cisms in our whole judicial system, and was, 

 as reference to the debates in the Senate of the 

 Fortieth Congress will show, conceived in the 

 interest of those corporations which under 

 different titles of Pacific Railroads have con- 

 structed and are now operating our lines of 

 transcontinental railway. 



" Now, Mr. Speaker, when we consider the 

 great length of theee lines of road, the immense 

 extent of territory they traverse, the innumer- 

 able thousands of people with whom they come 

 in contact and have business relations, the 

 widespread wrong and injustice of this law 

 must become obvious to the commonest un- 

 derstanding. All causes of complaint, all 

 grounds of defense, whether they in point of 

 fact involve or not a construction of a law of 

 the United States, can probably be removed 

 into the Federal courts." 



Mr. Willits, of Michigan : " When the morn- 

 ing hour closed yesterday I was commenting 

 on the amendment which strikes out the right 

 to bring suits in the United States courts on 

 assigned promissory notes, thereby restoring 

 the law as it was prior to the act of March 3, 

 1875. I need not make any extended remarks 

 on the evils that have arisen under the law as 

 it now is. Suffice it to say that under it great 

 injustice has been done in what are called 

 patent-right cases, or notes given for patent 

 rights, in nominally assigning in innumerable 

 instances causes of action to citizens of other 

 States than the one in which the contract was 

 made or in which the defendant resides, for 

 the express purpose of their prosecution in the 

 Federal courts. In all these cases the cause is 

 on the removal more than half won by the 

 plaintiff, and in many instances the cause is 

 wholly won by reason of the different con- 

 structions of the law given by the State and 

 Federal courts. In my judgment the assigned 

 contract should have the same tribunal that 

 the unassigned contract would have. Section 2 

 of the bill confers upon defendants the power 

 of removal in all cases of which the United 

 States Circuit Court has original jurisdiction by 

 section 1. The law of 1789 gave this right of 

 removal to defendants only. The law of 1875 

 gave it to either party, plaintiff or defendant. 

 This bill takes away the right of a plaintiff to 

 remove his cause. He has selected his forum, 

 and let him abide by it. 



" The only changes in section 3 of the act of 

 March 3, 1875, preceding line 126 of this bill, 

 are in reference to the time when the defend- 

 ant may remove his cause and the amount, to 

 wit, $2,000, requisite for the removal. Under 



