Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 12.djvu/21

 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. Vol. XII. APRIL 25, 1898. No. 1. JURISDICTION OVER FOREIGN CORPORATIONS. THE theories of the courts with regard to jurisdiction over foreign corporations have been modified by changes in the conditions to which they have been applied. The principle that a corporation cannot migrate, but must dwell in the place of its creation, was confronted by the fact that corporations did send their agents into other States and make contracts there, and it became necessary to decide whether such contracts were not void for want of power to make them, and also whether the foreign cor- porations could be sued upon such contracts in the courts of the State where they were made. With respect to the former question the courts declared that although a corporation could have no legal existence out of the sovereignty by which it was created, and must be regarded as a person living there and there only, yet if it sent its agents into another State and made contracts there, its existence might be recognized by that State, and the contract, if not contrary to the laws of that State, would be a valid contract, and the corpora- tion might bring a suit upon it there. Such was the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Bank of Augusta v. Earle,^ in which the principle was maintained by Daniel Webster, in an elaborate argument, and affirmed in the opinion of Chief Justice Taney. The question was not whether the court of the 13 Peters, 519. I