254
Opinion of the Court
theless, that it had "the same generality and natural import" as the clause contained in the first Bank charter. Thus, we followed Deveaux and found in the failure to authorize federal court litigation expressly no grant of federal jurisdiction. 241 U. S., at 304-305.
Last came D'Oench, Duhme, where we held that the FDIC's charter granted original federal jurisdiction. That jurisdiction was not, we explained, "based on diversity of citizenship. Respondent, a federal corporation, brings this suit under an Act of Congress authorizing it to sue or be sued 'in any court of law or equity, State or Federal.' " 315 U. S., at 455-456 (citation and footnote omitted). It is perfectly true, as respondents stressed in argument, that in an accompanying footnote we quoted without comment another part of the same statute, providing that " '[a]ll suits of a civil nature at common law or in equity to which the Corporation shall be a party shall be deemed to arise under the laws of the United States: Provided, That any such suit to which the Corporation is a party in its capacity as receiver of a State bank and which involves only the rights or obligations of depositors, creditors, stockholders and such State bank under State law shall not be deemed to arise under the laws of the United States.' " Id., at 455-456, n. 2.4 The footnote did not, however, raise any doubt that the Court held federal jurisdiction to rest on the terms of the "sue and be sued" clause. Quite the contrary, the footnote's treatment naturally expressed the subordinate importance of the provision it quoted. While as a state bank's receiver the FDIC might lose the benefit of the deemer clause as a grant of federal
4 The "sue and be sued" language was originally enacted in the statute creating the FDIC, see Banking Act of 1933, ch. 89, § 8, 48 Stat. 162, 172, and was reenacted in the 1935 amendments to that statute, see Banking Act of 1935, ch. 614, § 101, 49 Stat. 684, 692. The 1935 amendments also enacted for the first time the deemer provision we quoted in footnote 2 of our opinion in D'Oench, Duhme & Co. v. FDIC, 315 U. S. 447, 455 (1942). See 49 Stat. 684, 692.
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