On behalf of the plaintiff it has been urged, that by the pleas interposed in bar of a recovery in the court below, (which pleas both in fact and in law are essentially the same with the objections averred in abatement,) the defence in abatement has been displaced or waived; that it could therefore no longer be relied on in the Circuit Court, and cannot claim the consideration of this court in reviewing this cause. This position is regarded as wholly untenable. On the contrary, it would seem to follow conclusively from the peculiar character of the courts of the United States, as organized under the Constitution and the statutes, and as defined by numerous and unvarying adjudications from this bench, that there is not one of those courts whose jurisdiction and powers can be deduced from mere custom or tradition; not one, whose jurisdiction and powers must not be traced palpably to, and invested exclusively by, the Constitution and statutes of the United States; not one that is not bound, therefore, at all times, and at all stages of its proceedings, to look to and to regard the special and declared extent and bounds of its commission and authority. There is no such tribunal of the United States as a court of _general jurisdiction_, in the sense in which that phrase is applied to the superior courts under the common law; and even with respect to the courts existing under that system, it is a well-settled principle, that _consent_ can never give jurisdiction. The principles above stated, and the consequences regularly deducible from them, have, as already remarked, been repeatedly and unvaryingly propounded from this bench. Beginning with the earliest decisions of this court, we have the cases of Bingham _v._ Cabot et al., (3 Dallas, 382;) Turner _v._ Eurille, (4 Dallas, 7;) Abercrombie _v._ Dupuis et al., (1 Cranch, 343;) Wood _v._ Wagnon, (2 Cranch, 9;) The United States _v._ The brig Union et al., (4 Cranch, 216;) Sullivan _v._ The Fulton Steamboat Company, (6 Wheaton, 450;) Mollan et al. _v._ Torrence, (9 Wheaton, 537;) Brown _v._ Keene, (8 Peters, 112,) and Jackson _v._ Ashton, (8 Peters, 148;) ruling, in uniform and unbroken current, the doctrine that it is essential to the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States, that the facts upon which it is founded should appear upon the record. Nay, to such an extent and so inflexibly has this requisite to the jurisdiction been enforced, that in the case of Capron _v._ Van Noorden, (2 Cranch, 126,) it is declared, that the plaintiff in this court may assign for error his own omission in the pleadings in the court below, where they go to the jurisdiction. This doctrine has been, if possible, more strikingly illustrated in a later decision, the case of The State of Rhode Island _v._ The State of Massachusetts, in the 12th of Peters.