p is determined
by domicile or residence, for the determination of which various tests
have been stated: removal to a State, acquiring real estate there, and
paying taxes;[517] residence in a State for a considerable time;[518]
and removal to a State with the intent of making it one's home for an
indefinite period of time.[519] Where citizenship is dependent on
intention, acts may disclose it more satisfactorily than
declarations.[520] The fact that removal to another State is motivated
solely by a desire to acquire citizenship for diversity purposes does
not oust the federal courts of jurisdiction so long as the new
residence is indefinite or the intention to reside there indefinitely is
shown.[521] But a mere temporary change of domicile for the purpose of
suing in a federal court is not sufficient to effectuate a change in
citizenship.[522] Exercise of the right of suffrage is a conclusive test
of citizenship in a State, and the acquisition of the right to vote
without exercising it is sufficient to establish citizenship.[523]

CITIZENSHIP, CORPORATIONS

In Bank of United States _v._ Deveaux,[524] Chief Justice Marshall
declared: "That invisible, intangible, and artificial being, that mere
legal entity, a corporation aggregate, is certainly not a citizen; and
consequently cannot sue or be sued in the courts of the United States,
unless the rights of the members, in this respect, can be exercised in
their corporate name." He proceeded then to look beyond the corporate
entity and hold that the bank could sue under the diversity provisions
of the Constitution and the Judiciary Act of 1789 because the members of
the bank as a corporation were citizens of one State and Deveaux was a
citizen of another. This holding was reaffirmed a generation later, in
Commercial and Railroad Bank of Vicksburg _v._ Slocomb,[525] at a time
when corporations were coming to play a more important role in the
national economy. The same rule, combined with the rule that in a
diversity proceeding all the persons on one side of a suit must be
citizens of different States from all persons on the other side,[526]
could in the course of time have closed the federal courts in diversity
cases to the larger corporations having stockholders in all or most of
the States.

If such corporations were to have the benefits of diversity
jurisdiction, either the Deveaux or the Strawbridge rule would have to
yield. By 1844, only four years after the Slocomb