Mr. JOHNSON. The proposition of the honorable member from. ligan involves 2 questions. The 1st is the most material; the other, as far as the law is concerned, such a law as we may pass beneficially, is comparatively unimportant. The 1st question is, whether the power to pass bankrupt laws em. braces corporations. The 2nd is, if it does embrace corporations, to what extent we may apply the remedy which the bankrupt law affords. The power conferred upon Congress to pass uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcy is of course as comprehensive as it could be made; and the only question, therefore, is whether a corporation can be a bankrupt. What is bankruptcy? What is being a bankrupt?, Bankruptcy is an inability to pay debts. A bankrupt is the party who is unable to pay his debts. Then, whether a corporation can get itself brought into a state of bankruptcy and be, in the estimation of the law, a bankrupt, depends upon this inquiry: what is, in contemplation of i. a corporation? Is it not a person named a corporation? That the Supreme Court has decided. The 1st case that arose I speak now from recollection, but I know I am right in substance in the Supreme Court was, whether a corporation could sue in the courts of the U.S. unless all the corporators were citizens of the same State and the party sued was a citizen of another State, and the court decided that the jurisdiction did not attach unless it was averred, and proved if denied, that all the corporators were citizens of the one State. The court soon corrected their error. I say their error, because they admitted it to be an error. It was found exceedingly pernicious, and in a great measure to defeat the object of the jurisdiction of the courts of the U.S., to inhibit a corporation from suing in the U.S. courts, which was practically a positive inhibition, if it was necessary to prove as well as to aver that all the corporators were citizens.of one State. Some ten or 15 years ago, therefore, when the question was again Presented, the court, I be: lieve by an opinion in which the judges all concurred, decided that in the view of the judicial clause of the Constitution of the U.S. conferring jurisdiction upon the courts of the U.S. a corporation is a citizen of the State which incorporates it and where it has its location.