be the principle, it is difficult to see why its effect should be limited to these instances, and why it will not apply in any cases where the judgment has been pronounced under a law which, in the forum of jurisdiction, is held contrary to natural justice. But this would be nothing else than the doctrine that no judgment is in these cases more than prima facie evidence. It seems not improbable that in cases hereafter arising, wherein great differences of opinion as to the ethical character of the subject-matter of the judgment may be ascribed to the political peoples of the State in which it originates, and that wherein it is produced in evidence, these views may be urged in modification of the rule now received.1 From the language of some decisions it would seem that the judgments which are made conclusive evidence under the statute are discriminated from others by some doctrine of private international law, including the ordinary idea of international comity as something to be administered by the courts of law, intensified and amplified by a patriotic contemplation of the political relations of the States towards each other.' guage of Mr. Justice Johnson, in Mills v. Duryee, ante, p. 254, note, and Judge Parker's citation of it in Hall v. Williams, 6 Pick. 242; also, Gibbon, Ch. J., in Steel v. Smith, 7 Watts & Serg. 450. Some authorities speak in a vague way of impeaching judgments from other States, by showing that they were fraudulently obtained. But these cannot be sustained in connection with the general rule, except as they apply to judgments obtained by a fraudulent simulation of jurisdiction. See McRae v. Mattoon, 13 Pick. 53, and Cowen and Hill's note to Phillips on Ev. 1 Cases of the litigation of rights and obligations arising out of the existence of slavery will readily occur to the reader. In Bisselle. Briggs, 9 Mass. 478, Sewall, J., alluding to this, says:-"The comity we are disposed to extend on these occasions will not be reciprocated therefore in all the States. In adhering to the common law, we should have a system of rules which will be uniformly administered and which afford a sufficient comity for every purpose of equal and exact justice in cases where the rights of individuals are principally affected." See similar expressions, ib. p. 475; and the allusion to comity in Borden v. Fitch, 15 Johns. 143, by Thompson, Ch. J. This interpretation of the constitutional provision according to the supposed requirements of comity, is a different thing from ascribing the provision to a spirit of comity, as by Sedgwick, J., in Bartlett v. Knight, 1 Mass. 409:- As by our union a greater degree of comity is due to the proceedings of our sister States than to those of States which are in every respect foreign, the Constitution has provided," &c. But then these provisions which may have been dictated by comity, are not afterwards to be interpreted according to whatever a judge may suppose comity to require. In Baxley v. Linah, 4 Harris, 16 Penn. 249, the received doctrine is attributed to “a regard to constitutional law, to judicial uniformity and State harmony." A judge may find the measure of State harmony in constitutional law, but cannot find the measure of constitutional law in what he may consider State harmony. Catron, J., in D'Arcy v. Ketchum, 11 Howard, 175, In this connection it would be necessary to know whether this comity is, in each State, whatever the local sovereignty may allow to be such, or whether there is some general standard of comity for all the States, and one identified in authority with the quasi-international law.' § 624. In determining the force of this provision, an inquiry arises as to the extent of the word State. It has been seen in the cases cited from the reports of the United States courts, that judgments of State courts have been supposed to have in the courts of the United States the like effect which, by the force of this provision and the acts of Copgress, they can have in the courts of the several States. But the judgments of United States Circuit and District courts are not supposed to have, either in the State courts or in other United States courts, any effect attributable to this provision.' A greater difference of opinion has arisen on the question whether the District of Columbia and the Territories of the seems inclined to do this, saying:-"In construing the act of 1790, the law as it stood when the act was passed must enter into that construction; so that the existing defect in the old law may be seen and its remedy by the act of Congress comprehended. Now, it was most reasonable, on general principles of comity and justice, that among States and their citizens united as ours are, judgments rendered in one should bind citizens of other States, where defendants had been served with process, or voluntarily made defence." So Mr. Cobb (ante, p. 262, n.) indicates comity as determining what laws of the several States may be made operative in other States under his interpretation of this provision, and assumes that it is competent for the national judiciary, in the last resort, to determine the extent of its requirements. But if there is anything clear in connection with the doctrine of comity, as ordinarily understood in private international law, it certainly is that, within his own jurisdiction, each possessor of sovereign power determines independently what it is that comity requires. * Pepoon v. Jenkins, 2 Johns. Cases, 119; Mason's Adm. v. Lawrason, 1 Cranch's C. C. R., 190; Buford v. Hickman, Hempstead's C. C. R., 232. There are cases in which, without particular reference to this provision, it seems to be held that such judgments should be regarded as domestic judgments in the State courts. See Barney v. Patterson's Lessee, 6 Har. & Johns. 182, 202; St. Albans v. Bush, 4 Vern. 58; Rochelle's heirs v. Bowers, 9 Louisiana, 528. Contra, in Baldwin v. Hale, 17 Johns. 272, it is held that a circuit court of the U. S. "is to be regarded as a court of another government. Their records, therefore, as to this purpose, are foreign records." Also, Griswold v. Sedgwick, 1 Wend. 131. The judgments of the several U. S. Circuit and District courts are, as between each other, regarded as domestic judgments. But their conclusiveness in such case is not attributed to this provision. Reed v. Ross, 1 Bald. C. C. 36; Montford v. Hunt, 3 Wash. C. C. 28. The manner of proving a record prescribed by the law of Congress may, however, be adopted by a United States court as appropriate for such judgments. Tooker v. Thompson, 3 McLean 94; Buford v. Wickman, Hempstead's C. C. R. 232; and see 2 Johns. Cases (2d ed.) 119, note. United States are to be considered States in view of this provision. In the second section of the act of 1804, Congress has construed this clause as extending to such District and Territories by declaring that that act and the act to which it is a supplement shall apply as well to the public acts, &c., of the respective Territories of the United States and countries subject to the jurisdiction of the United States as to the public acts, &c., of the several States. In Haggin v. Squires (1811), 2 Bibb's Ky. 334, it was held, that a judgment in one of the courts for the Territory of Louisiana was not such a judgment as became conclusive under the Constitution.' In Seton v. Hanham (1832), R. M. Charlton, 374. By Law, Judge:-"After the most careful examination of this subject which I am capable of giving to it, I have come to the conviction that the term State, when used in the Constitution of the United States, is confined to a member of the American compact; that it does not embrace a Territory of the United States; and that, consequently, Congress had no authority under the Constitution to pass the act of March, 1804, extending the provisions of the act of 1790 to the Territories of the United States, so as to prescribe the mode of proof, or the effect to be given to a judgment of a court of a Territory in the courts of a State of the Union. So much of the act of March, 1804, is, therefore, held to be unconstitutional and inoperative upon the courts of a State. The States possess the right to legislate upon this subject." In Hughes v. Davis (1855), 8 Maryland, 271, on demurrer to nil debet, pleaded in suit on a judgment from the District of Columbia, Le Grand, Ch. J., delivering the opinion of the court, said:"The necessity of such an enactment as that of 1804 must be conceded by all; and inasmuch as it has, so far as we are informed, been treated ever since its passage as a constitutional exercise of the powers of Congress, we do not feel at liberty to declare it to be otherwise. In the writings of Justice Story and Chancellor Kent on the Constitution,' as The doctrine of Haggin v. Squires was noted, merely, in Price v. Higgins (1822), 1 Littel, 273. * These writers do not notice the question of the meaning of the term State in well as in a great number of decided cases, the act of 1804 is referred to and has been acted upon without the slightest suggestion from any quarter of its unconstitutionality." The extent of the word State in this provision will hereinafter be further considered, in connection with inquiries into the meaning of the same word in other clauses of the Fourth Article. § 625. In this provision a power is expressly given to Congress' whereby, at least after Congress has exercised the power, the provision becomes private law, or acts on private persons, determining the rights and obligations of such persons (so far at least as it determines the adjective or remedial rights of such persons), and thereby becomes identified in authority with national municipal private law. Therefore, though quasi-international in its effect, it cannot be open to that question of construction which, in the last chapter, was stated as being material in reference to the international provisions of the Constitution, when the question is of the power of Congress to legislate in view of making them effectual. It is even doubtful whether the States, in the juridical exercise of their reserved powers, are bound to regulate themselves by it,' as they are by other grants of power to Congress which are held to involve a corresponding limitation of State powers. But neither legislative action on their part nor any judicial reference to the unwritten law of the States is necessary, in order that this provision should have its intended consequences in affecting the rights and obligations of private persons. this provision, while they cite, without dispute, the authorities holding that citizens of Territories are not citizens of a State in view of the clause in the third Article defining the extent of the judicial power of the U. S. 1 Kent, p. 384. Story's Comm., § 1694. See ante, vol. I., p. 433. In order to sustain the implied power of Congress to legislate in reference to the objects of other international provisions in this Article, it may be necessary to distinguish a reason for the specific grant of legislative power in respect to the object of this. See, post, in Ch. xxvII. For it is held that the method of proof prescribed by the law of Congress does not exclude other methods, derived from the local law of the State. See 9 Mass., 466; Kean v. Rice, 12 S. & R., 208; Elmore v. Mills, 1 Haywood, 359; State v. Stade, 1 Chipman, 303; Raynham v. Canton, 3 Pick., 296; Erx parte Povall, 3 Leigh, 816. But the records of judicial proceedings so proved will not have that conclusiveness which they would have if proved according to the national statute, provided such conclusiveness is the effect of the statute. Baker . Field, 2 Yeates, 532; and see cases noted ante, p. 247, n. 4. CHAPTER XXIII. DOMESTIC INTERNATIONAL LAW OF THE UNITED STATES. THE SUB- OF THE SECOND SECTION OF THE FOURTH ARTICLE OF THE § 626. The first paragraph of the second section of the Fourth Article is in these words: "The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States." The legal effect of this provision depends 1. On the personal application of the words, "the citizens of each State," and 2. On the rights intended by the phrase, "all privileges and immunities of citizens." A distinct inquiry is presented by each phrase, but they both involve a determination of the force of the term citizen, as descriptive of a private person, or of his legal condition. In the first part of the clause it is denominative of a class of persons; in the latter part it is descriptive of a class of rights. The Constitution does not itself furnish any definition of the term citizen, nor indicate its personal extent.' It has been shown that the terms employed in these clauses must be interpreted by their previous juridical use in enunciating that international and quasi-international law which had been sanctioned by the constituting people, or those to whose political and juridical power and place they had succeeded. In each of these branches of law those constant relations must have been recognized which are expressed in those definitions or axiomatic principles which have been called "the natural or necessary law of nations.""" Before citing any authorities on this provi 1 Rawle on Const. p. 85; Taney, C. J., 19 How. 411; Curtis, ib. 577. * Ante, § 49. |