Cite as: 505 U. S. 247 (1992)
Scalia, J., dissenting
This reading of Deveaux is fully consistent with our subsequent decision in Osborn v. Bank of United States, 9 Wheat. 738 (1824), which construed the "sue and be sued" clause of the second Bank's charter as conferring jurisdiction on federal circuit courts. The second charter provided that the Bank was "made able and capable, in law . . . to sue and be sued . . . in all state courts having competent jurisdiction, and in any circuit court of the United States," 3 Stat. 269. By granting the Bank power to sue, not in all courts generally (as in Deveaux), but in particular federal courts, this suggested a grant of jurisdiction rather than merely of capacity to sue. And that suggestion was strongly confirmed by the fact that the Bank was empowered to sue in state courts "having competent jurisdiction," but in federal circuit courts simpliciter. If the statute had jurisdiction in mind as to the one, it must as to the other as well. Our opinion in Osborn did not invoke the "magic words" approach adopted by the Court today, but concluded that the charter language "admit[ted] of but one interpretation" and could not "be made plainer by explanation." 9 Wheat., at 817.
In distinguishing Deveaux, Osborn noted, and apparently misunderstood as the Court today does, that case's contrast between the "express grant of jurisdiction to the federal courts" over suits against directors and the "general words" of the "sue and be sued" clause, "which [did] not mention those courts." 9 Wheat., at 818. All it concluded from that, however, was that Deveaux established that "a general capacity in the bank to sue, without mentioning the courts of the Union, may not give a right to sue in those courts." 9 Wheat., at 818. There does not logically follow from that the rule which the Court announces today: that any grant of a general capacity to sue with mention of federal courts will
255, n. 6. Quite the opposite is true: The Court's simple statement that the grant of jurisdiction must "be expressed" is obviously a call, not to reach for the cryptograph, but to discern the plain meaning of the statutory language.
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