Page:United States Reports, Volume 209.djvu/527

 209 U.S. Opinion o! the Court. seen that by both the act of 1789 and that of 1888 there is a neral grant to Circuit Courts of jurisdiction over contro- versies between citizens of different States, and in each of them there is a limitation as to the district in which the action must be brought. In the light of this similarity between these two acts must the second question be cohsidered. The cont6ntion is that as this action could not have been originally brought in the Circuit Court for the Eastern Dis- trict of Missouri by reason of the last provision quoted from � it cannot under �be removed to that court, as the au- thorized removal is only of those cases of which by the prior section original jurisdiction is' given to the United States Cir- cuit Courts. But this ignores the distinction between the gen- eral description of the jurisdiction of the United States courts and the clause naming the particular district in which an ac- tion must be brought. It may be well to examine the authorities touching this matter. In Grac/e v. Palmer, 8 lleat. 699, the court, by Mr. Chief Justice Marshall, .held that: "The exemption from arrest in a district in which the de- fendant was not an inhabitant, or in which he was not found at the time of serving the process, was the privilege of the de- fendant, which he might waive by a vohintary appearance." In Teland v. Sprague, 12 Pet. 300, 330, Mr. Justice Bar- beur thus tated the nile: "Now, if the case were one of a want of jurisdiction in .the court, it would not, accoriling to ;ell-cstablished principles, be competent for the parties, by any act of thcirs to give it. But that is not the case. The court had jurisdiction over the parties and the matter in dispute; the objection was, that the party defendant, not being an inhabitant of Pennsylvania, nor found therein, personal process could not reach him; and that the process of attachment could only be properly issucd against a party under circumstances which subjected him to process in personam. Now this was a personal privilege or exemption, which it was competent for the party to waive.

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