146 



CONGKESS, UNITED STATES. 



question of residence of the individuals com- 

 posing the corporation. 



" We have reached a point where the citi- 

 zen is almost powerless in a litigated contest 

 with an immense corporation, and yet we give 

 foreign corporations, or those that are not 

 wholly within a single State, an advantage over 

 the resident citizen in the right to remove the 

 cause to a distant court. Without the people, 

 through their representatives, rise in their le- 

 gal might and check them, I fear that the day 

 is not far distant when individual property and 

 constitutional liberty may both give way in the 

 unequal contest. Let us take railroad corpora- 

 tions for an example. They are allowed the full 

 protection of the law along their lines, as is the 

 citizen, which is right. They even have the 

 privilege of charging the resident on the line 

 more per mile for carrying his freight than is 

 charged for carrying freight the full length of 

 the line. But, when the citizen conceives him- 

 self aggrieved and sues, he may find himself 

 suddenly carried into the Federal court, to wait 

 for years, and expend much in costs before he 

 gets justice administered. Year after year the 

 people pour out their treasures and build new 

 roads, and year by year larger corporations 

 swallow them up at reduced prices. They 

 never die. If a small road ceases to exist un- 

 der its charter name, it is only to begin a state 

 of immortality as a branch of a large corpora- 

 tion. Daniel Webster and the Baltimore and 

 Ohio road were in Washington together. The 

 great constitutional lawyer has been gathered 

 to his fathers a quarter of a century, but the 

 corporation which bore him to ' the Monumen- 

 tal City ' is yet in its infancy, and only strength- 

 ened by the years which have elapsed. When 

 another century shall have passed, and the 

 United States teem with two hundred millions 

 of people, these roads will be more active and 

 powerful than to-day by the increase of com- 

 merce from an increase of population. 



' Men may come and men may go, 

 But they flow on for ever.' 



" Where is the necessity for extending su- 

 perior advantages to those so able to take care 

 of themselves and so able to crush out the in- 

 dividual? Let favoritism for them cease. Let 

 those who build or support corporations be 

 placed on an equality before the law with them. 

 Let corporations be subject to the judicial au- 

 thority of the State where they do business. 

 If there is no conflict between the citizen and 

 the corporation, no injury can result from this 

 course. If there is a conflict, let us give the 

 people an equal chance in that conflict. 



" To illustrate the maternal care with which 

 our Federal system hovers over and protects 

 corporations, let us look to the decisions of the 

 courts concerning them. An act was passed 

 by the Legislature of Wisconsin in 1870, pro- 

 viding 



" That any fire-insurance company, association, or 

 partnership, incorporated by or organized under the 

 laws of any other State 01 the United States, desiring 



to transact any such business as aforesaid by any agent 

 or agents in this State, shall first appoint an attorney 

 in this State, on whom process of law can be served, 

 containing an agreement that such company will not 

 remove the suit for trial into the United States Circuit 

 Court or Federal courts, and file in the office of the 

 Secretary of State a written instrument, duly signed 

 and sealed, certifying such appointment, which shall 

 continue until another attorney is substituted. 



" This statute being in force, the Home In- 

 surance Company of New York, a corporation 

 organized under the laws of the State of New 

 York, established an agency in Wisconsin, 

 complying with the requirements of the act 

 quoted, and agreeing as follows : 



" And said company agrees that suits commenced 

 in the State courts of Wisconsin shall not be removed 

 by the acts of said company into the United States cir- 

 cuit or Federal courts. 



" The Supreme Court of the United States, 

 in the case of the Insurance Company vs. Moss, 

 20 Wallace, 445, have held that notwithstand- 

 ing this State statute, notwithstanding the sol- 

 emn agreement of the corporation to the con- 

 trary, it may remove the suit to the United 

 States court. The same has been held in the 

 case of the Hartford Fire Insurance Company 

 rs. Doyle, reported in 3 Central Law Journal, 

 41. 



" It is not my purpose to enter into any 

 argument concerning the soundness of these 

 decisions. It is sufficient for us to know that 

 they stand. They are a barrier over which no 

 State Legislature or State Constitution can pass 

 and take hold of corporations. The people, af- 

 ter years of patient, hopeful, but unavailing 

 forbearance, cry out for relief. There is but 

 one tribunal on earth which can give it to 

 them, and that is the Congress of the United 

 States. I hope that this, their only city of 

 refuge, will not close its gates against them. 

 They ask nothing more than to be placed on 

 an equality before the courts with corporations, 

 and nothing less should be accorded them. 



"Congress can not, and should not attempt 

 to, interfere with the rightful and constitution- 

 al jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. There 

 are also some classes of cases which are prop- 

 erly triable in the inferior United States courts. 

 But Congress may regulate the jurisdiction 

 and practice of such inferior courts, and should 

 do so to the extent of relieving us of the hard- 

 ships which the present, system entails. 



''The evil does not stop with civil causes. 

 Congress has, by various acts which I will not 

 delay the House by reading, given the district 

 and circuit courts of the United States juris- 

 diction to remove criminal causes thereto, 

 which arise in the State courts against inter- 

 nal-revenue officers and their assistants for 

 offenses committed by them against the State 

 laws. The gentleman from Indiana [Mr. 

 Orth], in a speech delivered here on this sub- 

 ject, defends the right and propriety of the 

 giving of this jurisdiction to the inferior courts 

 of the United States, and says : 



" Such jurisdiction of both civil and criminal cases 



