Vicksburg Waterworks Company v. Vicksburg

The sole question for our consideration is whether the bill, as originally filed and as amended, presented a Federal question. As the party plaintiff and the party defendant were both corporations and citizens of the same State, the Circuit Court of the United States could not take jurisdiction of the controversy between them, unless the complainant laid grounds for that jurisdiction by asserting rights arising under the Constitution or laws of the United States, and such assertion must appear in the complainants statement of its own claim. Metcalf v. Watertown, 128 U.S. 586; State of Tennessee v. Planters Bank, 152 U.S. 454; Blackburn v. Portland Mining Co., 175 U.S. 571.