STATE OF THE LAW TODAY: QUAERE

Upon summation one may speculate as to whether the doctrine of divisible divorce, as developed by Justice Douglas in Estin v. Estin, 334 U.S. 541 (1948), has not become the prevailing standard for determining the enforceability of foreign divorce decrees. If such be the case, it may be tenable to assert that an ex parte divorce, founded upon acquisition of domicile by one spouse in the State which granted it, is effective to destroy the marital status of both parties in the State of domiciliary origin and probably in all other States and therefore to preclude subsequent prosecutions for bigamy, but not to alter rights as to property, alimony, or custody of children in the State of domiciliary origin of a spouse who was neither served nor personally appeared.

DECREES AWARDING ALIMONY, CUSTODY OF CHILDREN

Resulting as a by-product of divorce litigation are decrees for the payment of alimony, judgments for accrued and unpaid instalments of alimony, and judicial awards of the custody of children, all of which necessitate application of the full faith and credit clause when extrastate enforcement is sought for them. Thus a judgment in State A for alimony in arrears and payable under a prior judgment of separation which is not by its terms conditional, nor subject by the law of State A to modification or recall, and on which execution was directed to issue, is entitled to recognition in the forum State. Although an obligation for accrued alimony could have been modified or set aside in State A prior to its merger in the judgment, such a judgment, by the law of State A, is not lacking in finality.[71] As to the finality of alimony decrees in general, the Court had previously ruled that where such a decree is rendered, payable in future instalments, the right to such instalments becomes absolute and vested on becoming due, provided no modification of the decree has been made prior to the maturity of the instalments.[72] However, a judicial order requiring the payment of arrearages in alimony, which exceeded the alimony previously decreed, is invalid for want of due process, the respondent having been given no opportunity to contest it.[73] "A judgment obtained in violation of procedural due process," said Chief Justice Stone, "is not entitled to full faith and credit when sued upon in another jurisdiction."[74]

A recent example of a custody case was one involving a Florida divorce decree which was granted ex parte to a wife who had left her husband in New York, where he was served by publication. The decree carried with it an award of the exclusive custody of the child, whom the day before the husband had secretly seized and brought back to New York. The Court ruled that the decree was adequately honored by a New York court when, in habeas corpus proceedings, it gave the father rights of visitation and custody of the child during stated periods, and exacted a surety bond of the wife conditioned on her delivery of the child to the father at the proper times,[75] it having not been "shown that the New York court in modifying the Florida decree exceeded the limits permitted under Florida law. There is therefore a failure of proof that the Florida decree received less credit in New York than it had in Florida."

COLLATERAL ATTACK BY CHILD

A Florida divorce decree was also at the bottom of another recent case in which the daughter of a divorced man by his first wife, and his legatee under his will, sought to attack his divorce in the New York courts, and thereby indirectly his third marriage. The Court held that inasmuch as the attack would not have been permitted in Florida under the doctrine of res judicata, it was not permissible under the full faith and credit clause in New York.[76] On the whole, it appears that the principle of res judicata is slowly winning out against the principle of domicile.

Decrees of Other Types

PROBATE DECREES

Many judgments, enforcement of which has given rise to litigation, embrace decrees of courts of probate respecting the distribution of estates. In order that a court have jurisdiction of such a proceeding, the decedent must have been domiciled in the State, and the question whether he was so domiciled at the time of his death may be raised in the court of a sister State.[77] Thus, when a court of State A, in probating a will and issuing letters, in a proceeding to which all distributees were parties, expressly found that the testator's domicile at the time of death was in State A, such adjudication of domicile was held not to bind one subsequently appointed as domiciliary administrator c.t.a. in State B, in which he was liable to be called upon to deal with claims of local creditors and that of the State itself for taxes, he having not been a party to the proceeding in State A. In this situation, it was held, a court of State C, when disposing of local assets claimed by both personal representatives, was free to determine domicile in accordance with the law of State C.[78] Similarly, there is no such relation of privity between an executor appointed in one State and an administrator c.t.a. appointed in another State as will make a decree against the latter binding upon the former.[79] On the other hand, judicial proceedings in one State, under which inheritance taxes have been paid and the administration upon the estate has been closed, are denied full faith and credit by the action of a probate court in another State in assuming jurisdiction and assessing inheritance taxes against the beneficiaries of the estate, when under the law of the former State the order of the probate court barring all creditors who had failed to bring in their demand from any further claim against the executors was binding upon all.[80]

What is more important, however, is that the res in such a proceeding, that is, the estate, in order to entitle the judgment to recognition under article IV, section 1, must have been located in the State or legally attached to the person of the decedent. Such a judgment is accordingly valid, generally speaking, to distribute the intangible property of the decedent, though the evidences thereof were actually located elsewhere.[81] This is not so, on the other hand, as to tangibles and realty. In order that the judgment of a probate court distributing these be entitled to recognition under the Constitution, they must have been located in the State; as to tangibles and realty outside the State, the decree of the probate court is entirely at the mercy of the lex rei sitae.[82] So, the probate of a will in one State, while conclusive therein, does not displace legal provisions necessary to its validity as a will of real property in other States.[83]

ADOPTION DECREES

That a statute legitimizing children born out of wedlock does not entitle them by the aid of the full faith and credit clause to share in the property located in another State is not surprising, in view of the general principle—to which, however, there are exceptions (see pp. 675-682)—that statutes do not have extraterritorial operation.[84] For the same reason adoption proceedings in one State are not denied full faith and credit by the law of the sister State which excludes children adopted by proceedings in other States from the right to inherit land therein.[85]

GARNISHMENT DECREES

A proceeding which combines some of the elements of both an in rem and an in personam action is the proceeding in garnishment cases. Suppose that A owes B and B owes C, and that the two former live in a different State than C. A, while on a brief visit to C's State, is presented with a writ attaching his debt to B and also a summons to appear in court on a named day. The result of the proceedings thus instituted is that a judgment is entered in C's favor against A to the amount of his indebtedness to B. Subsequently A is sued by B in their home State, and offers the judgment, which he has in the meantime paid, in defense. It was argued in behalf of B that A's debt to him had a situs in their home State, and furthermore that C could not have sued B in this same State without formally acquiring a domicile there. Both propositions were, however, rejected by the Court, which held that the judgment in the garnishment proceedings was entitled to full faith and credit as against C's action.[86]

FRAUD AS A DEFENSE TO SUITS ON FOREIGN JUDGMENTS

As to whether recognition of a State judgment can be refused by the forum State on other than jurisdictional grounds, there are dicta to the effect that judgments, for which extraterritorial operation is demanded under article IV, section I and acts of Congress, are "impeachable for manifest fraud." But unless the fraud affected the jurisdiction of the court, the vast weight of authority is against the proposition. Also it is universally agreed that a judgment may not be impeached for alleged error or irregularity,[87] or as contrary to the public policy of the State where recognition is sought for it under the full faith and credit clause.[88] Previously listed cases indicate, however, that the Court has in fact permitted local policy to determine the merits of a judgment under the pretext of regulating jurisdiction.[89] Thus in one case, Cole v. Cunningham,[90] the Court sustained a Massachusetts court in enjoining, in connection with insolvency proceedings instituted in that State, a Massachusetts creditor from continuing in New York courts an action which had been commenced there before the insolvency suit was brought. This was done on the theory that a party within the jurisdiction of a court may be restrained from doing something in another jurisdiction opposed to principles of equity, it having been shown that the creditor was aware of the debtor's embarrassed condition when the New York action was instituted. The injunction unquestionably denied full faith and credit and commanded the assent of only five Justices.

PENAL JUDGMENTS: TYPES ENTITLED TO RECOGNITION

Finally, the clause has been interpreted in the light of the "incontrovertible maxim" that "the courts of no country execute the penal laws of another."[91] In the leading case of Huntington v. Attrill,[92] however, the Court so narrowly defined "penal" in this connection as to make it substantially synonymous with "criminal," and on this basis held a judgment which had been recovered under a State statute making the officers of a corporation who signed and recorded a false certificate of the amount of its capital stock liable for all of its debts, to be entitled under article IV, section 1, to recognition and enforcement in the courts of sister States. Nor, in general, is a judgment for taxes to be denied full faith and credit in State and federal courts merely because it is for taxes.[93]

Recognition of Rights Based Upon Constitutions, Statutes, Common Law

THE EARLY RULE

As to the extrastate protection of rights which have not matured into final judgments, the full faith and credit clause has never abolished the general principle of the dominance of local policy over the rules of comity.[94] This was stated by Justice Nelson in the Dred Scott case, as follows: "No State, * * *, can enact laws to operate beyond its own dominions, * * * Nations, from convenience and comity, * * *, recognizes [sic] and administer the laws of other countries. But, of the nature, extent, and utility, of them, respecting property, or the state and condition of persons within her territories, each nation judges for itself; * * *" He added that it was the same with the States of the Union in relation to another. It followed that even though Dred had become a free man in consequence of his having resided in the "free" State of Illinois, he had nevertheless upon his return to Missouri, which had the same power as Illinois to determine its local policy respecting rights acquired extraterritorially, reverted to servitude under the laws and judicial decisions of that State.[95]

DEVELOPMENT OF THE MODERN RULE

In a case decided in 1887, however, the Court remarked: "Without doubt the constitutional requirement, Art. IV, Sec. I, that 'full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other State,' implies that the public acts of every State shall be given the same effect by the courts of another State that they have by law and usage at home."[96] And this proposition was later held to extend to State constitutional provisions.[97] More recently this doctrine has been stated in a very mitigated form, the Court saying that where statute or policy of the forum State is set up as a defense to a suit brought under the statute of another State or territory, or where a foreign statute is set up as a defense to a suit or proceedings under a local statute, the conflict is to be resolved, not by giving automatic effect to the full faith and credit clause and thus compelling courts of each State to subordinate its own statutes to those of others, but by appraising the governmental interest of each jurisdiction and deciding accordingly.[98] Obviously this doctrine endows the Court with something akin to an arbitral function in the decision of cases to which it is applied.

TRANSITORY ACTIONS: DEATH STATUTES

The initial effort in this direction was made in connection with transitory actions based on statute. Earlier, such actions had rested upon the common law, which was fairly uniform throughout the States, so that there was usually little discrepancy between the law under which the plaintiff from another jurisdiction brought his action (lex loci) and the law under which the defendant responded (lex fori). In the late seventies, however, the States, abandoning the common law rule on the subject, began passing laws which authorized the representatives of a decedent whose death had resulted from injury to bring an action for damages.[99] The question at once presented itself whether, if such an action was brought in a State other than that in which the injury occurred, it was governed by the statute under which it arose or by the law of the forum State, which might be less favorable to the defendant. Nor was it long before the same question presented itself with respect to transitory action ex contractu, where the contract involved had been made under laws peculiar to the State where made, and with those laws in view.

ACTIONS UPON CONTRACT: WHEN GOVERNED BY LAW OF PLACE OF MAKING

In Chicago and Alton R.R. v. Wiggins,[100] referred to above, the Court, confronted with the latter form of the question, indicated its clear opinion that in such situations it was the law under which the contract was made, not the law of the forum State, which should govern. Its utterance on the point was, however, not merely obiter; it was based on an error, namely, the false supposition that the Constitution gives "acts" the same extraterritorial operation as the act of 1790 does "judicial records and proceedings." Notwithstanding which, this dictum is today the basis of "the settled rule" that the defendant in a transitory action is entitled to all the benefits resulting from whatever material restrictions the statute under which plaintiff's right of action originated sets thereto, except that courts of sister States cannot be thus prevented from taking jurisdiction in such cases.[101] However, a State court does not violate the full faith and credit clause by mere error in construing the law upon which a transitory action from another state depends;[102] nor is a court of the forum State guilty of a disregard thereof when it entertains a suit based on a statute of another State, albeit the statute in terms limits actions thereunder to courts of the enacting State.[103] Moreover, in actions on contracts made in other States, a State constitutionally may decline to enforce in its courts, as contrary to its own policy, the laws of such States relating to the right to add interest to the recovery as an incidental item of damages.[104]

STOCKHOLDER—CORPORATION RELATIONSHIP

Nor is it alone to defendants in transitory actions that the full faith and credit clause is today a shield and a buckler. Some legal relationships are so complex, the Court holds, that the law under which they were formed ought always to govern them as long as they persist.[105] One such relationship is that of a stockholder and his corporation. Hence, if a question arises as to the liability of the stockholders of a corporation, the courts of the forum State are required by the full faith and credit clause to determine the question in accordance with the Constitution, laws and judicial decisions of the corporation's home State.[106] Illustrative applications of the latter rule are to be found in the following cases. A New Jersey statute forbidding an action at law to enforce a stockholder's liability arising under the laws of another State, and providing that such liability may be enforced only in equity, and that in such a case the corporation, its legal representatives, all its creditors, and stockholders, should be necessary parties, was held not to preclude an action at law in New Jersey by the New York State superintendent of banks against 557 New Jersey stockholders in an insolvent New York bank to recover assessments made under the laws of New York.[107] Also, in a suit to enforce double liability, brought in Rhode Island against a stockholder in a Kansas trust company, the courts of Rhode Island were held to be obligated to extend recognition to the statutes and court decisions of Kansas whereunder it is established that a Kansas judgment recovered by a creditor against the trust company is not only conclusive as to the liability of the corporation but also an adjudication binding each stockholder therein. The only defenses available to the stockholder are those which he could make in a suit in Kansas.[108]

FRATERNAL BENEFIT SOCIETY—MEMBER RELATIONSHIP

And the same principle applies to the relationship which is formed when one takes out a policy in a "fraternal benefit society." Thus in Royal Arcanum v. Green,[109] in which a fraternal insurance association chartered under the laws of Massachusetts was being sued in the courts of New York by a citizen of the latter State on a contract of insurance made in that State, the Court held that the defendant company was entitled under the full faith and credit clause to have the case determined in accordance with the laws of Massachusetts and its own constitution and by-laws as these had been construed by the Massachusetts courts.

Nor has the Court manifested lately any disposition to depart from this rule. In Sovereign Camp v. Bolin[110] it declared that a State in which a certificate of life membership of a foreign fraternal benefit association is issued, which construes and enforces said certificate according to its own law rather than according to the law of the State in which the association is domiciled denies full faith and credit to the association's charter embodied in the statutes of the domiciliary State as interpreted by the latter's court. "The beneficiary certificate was not a mere contract to be construed and enforced according to the laws of the State where it was delivered. Entry into membership of an incorporated beneficiary society is more than a contract; it is entering into a complex and abiding relation and the rights of membership are governed by the law of the State of incorporation. [Hence] another State, wherein the certificate of membership was issued, cannot attach to membership rights against the society which are refused by the law of domicile." Consistently therewith, the Court also held, in Order of Travelers v. Wolfe,[111] that South Dakota, in a suit brought therein by an Ohio citizen against an Ohio benefit society, must give effect to a provision of the constitution of the society prohibiting the bringing of an action on a claim more than six months after disallowance by the society, notwithstanding that South Dakota's period of limitation was six years and that its own statutes voided contract stipulations limiting the time within which rights may be enforced. Objecting to these results, Justice Black dissented on the ground that fraternal insurance companies are not entitled, either by the language of the Constitution, or by the nature of their enterprise, to such unique constitutional protection.

INSURANCE COMPANY, BUILDING AND LOAN ASSOCIATION—CONTRACTUAL RELATIONSHIPS

Whether or not distinguishable by nature of their enterprise, stock and mutual insurance companies and mutual building and loan associations, unlike fraternal benefit societies, have not been accorded the same unique constitutional protection; and, with few exceptions,[112] have had controversies arising out of their business relationships settled by application of the law of the forum State. In National Mutual B. & L. Asso. v. Brahan,[113] the principle applicable to these three forms of business organization was stated as follows: Where a corporation has become localized in a State and has accepted the laws of the State as a condition of doing business there, it cannot abrogate those laws by attempting to make contract stipulations, and there is no violation of the full faith and credit clause in instructing a jury to find according to local law notwithstanding a clause in a contract that it should be construed according to the laws of another State.

Thus, when a Mississippi borrower, having repaid a mortgage loan to a New York building and loan association, sued in a Mississippi court to recover, as usurious, certain charges collected by the association, the usury law of Mississippi rather than that of New York was held to control. In this case, the loan contract, which was negotiated in Mississippi subject to approval by the New York office, did not expressly state that it was governed by New York law.[114] Similarly, when the New York Life Insurance Company, which had expressly stated in its application and policy forms that they would be controlled by New York law, was sued in Missouri on a policy sold to a resident thereof, the court of that State was sustained in its application of Missouri rather than New York law.[115] Also, in an action in a federal court in Texas to collect the amount of a life insurance policy which had been made in New York and later changed by instruments assigning beneficial interest, it was held that questions: (1) whether the contract remained one governed by the law of New York with respect to rights of assignees, rather than by the law of Texas, (2) whether the public policy of Texas permits recovery by one named beneficiary who has no beneficial interest in the life of the insured, and (3) whether lack of insurable interest becomes material when the insurer acknowledges liability and pays the money into court, were questions of Texas law, to be decided according to Texas decisions.[116]

Consistent with the latter holdings are the following two involving mutual insurance companies. In Pink v. A.A.A. Highway Express,[117] the New York insurance commissioner, as a statutory liquidator of an insolvent auto mutual company organized in New York sued resident Georgia policyholders in a Georgia court to recover assessments alleged to be due by virtue of their membership in it. The Supreme Court held that, although by the law of the State of incorporation, policyholders of a mutual insurance company become members thereof and as such liable to pay assessments adjudged to be required in liquidation proceedings in that State, the courts of another State are not required to enforce such liability against local resident policyholders who did not appear and were not personally served in the foreign liquidation proceedings; but are free to decide according to local law the question whether, by entering into the policies, residents became members of the company. Again, in State Farm Ins. v. Duel,[118] the Court ruled that an insurance company chartered in State A, which does not treat membership fees as part of premiums, cannot plead denial of full faith and credit when State B, as a condition of entry, requires the company to maintain a reserve computed by including membership fees as well as premiums received in all States. Were the company's contention accepted, "no State," the Court observed, "could impose stricter financial standards for foreign corporations doing business within its borders than were imposed by the State of incorporation." It is not apparent, the Court added, that State A has an interest superior to that of State B in the financial soundness and stability of insurance companies doing business in State B,—which is obviously more the language of arbitration than of adjudication, as conventionally regarded.

WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION STATUTES

Finally, the relationship of employer and employee, so far as the obligations of the one and the rights of the other under workmen's compensation acts are concerned, has been the subject of similar treatment. In an earlier case,[119] the cause of action was an injury in New Hampshire, resulting in death to a workman who had entered the defendant company's employment in Vermont, the home State of both parties. The Court held that the case was governed under the full faith and credit clause by the Vermont workmen's compensation act, not that of New Hampshire. The relationship, it said, "was created by the law of Vermont, and so long as that relationship persisted its incidents were properly subject to regulation there."[120]

However, in an unacknowledged departure from this ruling the Court has subsequently held that the full faith and credit clause did not preclude California from disregarding a Massachusetts workmen's compensation statute and applying its own conflicting act in the case of an injury suffered by a Massachusetts employee of a Massachusetts employer while in California in the course of his employment.[121] The earlier case was distinguished as not having decided more than that a State statute, applicable to employer and employee within the State, which provides compensation if the employee is injured while temporarily in another State, will be given full faith and credit in the latter when not obnoxious to its policy. Inasmuch as the Court in the older decision is reputed to have observed that reliance on the Vermont statute, as a defense to the New Hampshire suit, was not obnoxious to the policy of New Hampshire, it may be possible to reconcile these two cases by stating that a foreign workmen's compensation statute will be recognized when it is invoked as a defense but need not be applied when the plaintiff endeavors to found his suit thereon.

Later decisions involving the recognition of a foreign workmen's compensation act include the following. In Magnolia Petroleum Co. v. Hunt[122] the Court ruled that a Louisiana employee of a Louisiana employer, who is injured on the job in Texas and who receives an award under the Texas Act, which does not grant further recovery to an employee who receives compensation under the laws of another State, cannot obtain additional compensation under the Louisiana Act. However, a compensation award by State A to a resident employee of a resident employer injured on the job in State B will not preclude State B from awarding added compensation under its own laws, when the compensation statute of State A does not expressly exclude recovery under a law of the State in which the injury occurred and when the State A award incorporated a private settlement contract wherein the employee reserved his rights in State B.[123] Also, the District of Columbia workmen's compensation act, which expressly covers an employee of the District employer, "irrespective of the place where the injury occurs," constitutionally may be applied, in the case of injury resulting in death, to a District resident, employed by a District employer, who was assigned to a job at Quantico, Virginia, and who, for three years prior to his death in Virginia, has commuted to the job site from his house in the District.[124]

Development of Section to Date and Possibilities

EVALUATION OF RESULTS

Thus the Court, from according an extrastate operation to statutes and judicial decisions in favor of defendants in transitory actions, proceeded next to confer the same protection upon certain classes of defendants in local actions in which the plaintiff's claim was the outgrowth of a relationship formed extraterritorially. But can the Court stop at this point? If it is true, as Chief Justice Marshall once remarked, that "the Constitution was not made for the benefit of plaintiffs alone," so also it is true that it was not made for the benefit of defendants alone. The day may come when the Court will approach the question of the relation of the full faith and credit clause to the extrastate operation of laws from the same angle as it today views the broader question of the scope of State legislative power. When and if this day arrives, State statutes and judicial decisions will be given such extraterritorial operation as seems reasonable to the Court to give them. In short, the rule of the dominance of local policy of the forum State will be superseded by that of judicial review.[125]

The question arises whether the application to date, not by the Court alone but by Congress and the Court, of article IV, section 1, can be said to have met the expectations of its framers. In the light of some things said at the time of the framing of the clause this may be doubted. The protest was raised against the clause that in vesting Congress with power to declare the effect State laws should have outside the enacting State, it enabled the new government to usurp the powers of the States; but the objection went unheeded. The main concern of the Convention, undoubtedly, was to render the judgments of the State courts in civil cases effective throughout the Union. Yet even this object has been by no means completely realized, owing to the doctrine of the Court that before a judgment of a State court can be enforced in a sister State, a new suit must be brought on it in the courts of the latter; and the further doctrine that with respect to such a suit, the judgment sued on is only evidence; the logical deduction from which proposition is that the sister State is under no constitutional compulsion to give it a forum. These doctrines were first clearly stated in the McElmoyle Case and flowed directly from the new States' rights premises of the Court; but they are no longer in harmony with the prevailing spirit of constitutional construction nor with the needs of the times. Also, the clause seems always to have been interpreted on the basis of the assumption that the term "judicial proceedings" refers only to final judgments and does not include intermediate processes and writs; but the assumption would seem to be groundless, and if it is, then Congress has the power under the clause to provide for the service and execution throughout the United States of the judicial processes of the several States.

SCOPE OF POWERS OF CONGRESS UNDER SECTION

Under the present system, suit has ordinarily to be brought where the defendant, the alleged wrongdoer, resides, which means generally where no part of the transaction giving rise to the action took place. What could be more irrational? "Granted that no state can of its own volition make its process run beyond its borders * * * is it unreasonable that the United States should by federal action be made a unit in the manner suggested?"[126]

Indeed, there are few clauses of the Constitution, the merely literal possibilities of which have been so little developed as the full faith and credit clause. Congress has the power under the clause to decree the effect that the statutes of one State shall have in other States. This being so, it does not seem extravagant to argue that Congress may under the clause describe a certain type of divorce and say that it shall be granted recognition throughout the Union, and that no other kind shall. Or to speak in more general terms, Congress has under the clause power to enact standards whereby uniformity of State legislation may be secured as to almost any matter in connection with which interstate recognition of private rights would be useful and valuable.

FULL FAITH AND CREDIT IN THE FEDERAL COURTS

As we saw earlier, the legislation of Congress comprised in section 905 of the Revised Statutes lays down a rule not merely for the recognition of the records and judicial proceedings of State courts in the courts of sister States, but for their recognition in "every court of the United States," and it further lays down a like rule for the records and proceedings of the courts "of any territory or any country subject to the jurisdiction of the United States." Thus the courts of the United States are bound to give to the judgments of the State courts the same faith and credit that the courts of one State are bound to give to the judgments of the courts of her sister States.[127] So, where suits to enforce the laws of one State are entertained in courts of another on principles of comity, federal district courts sitting in that State may entertain them, and should, if they do not infringe federal law or policy.[128] However, the refusal of a territorial court in Hawaii, having jurisdiction of the action, which was on a policy issued by a New York insurance company, to admit evidence that an administrator had been appointed and a suit brought by him on a bond in the federal court in New York wherein no judgment had been entered, did not violate this clause.[129]

The power to prescribe what effect shall be given to the judicial proceedings of the courts of the United States is conferred by other provisions of the Constitution, such as those which declare the extent of the judicial power of the United States, which authorize all legislation necessary and proper for executing the powers vested by the Constitution in the Government of the United States, and which declare the supremacy of the authority of the National Government within the limits of the Constitution. As part of its general authority, the power to give effect to the judgment of its courts is coextensive with its territorial jurisdiction.[130]

JUDGMENTS OF FOREIGN STATES

Doubtless Congress might also by virtue of its powers in the field of foreign relations lay down a mandatory rule regarding recognition of foreign judgments in every court of the United States. At present the duty to recognize judgments even in national courts rests only on comity and is qualified, in the judgment of the Supreme Court, by a strict rule of parity.[131]

Section 2. The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.

The Comity Clause

SOURCES

The community of rights among the citizens of the several States guaranteed by this article is traceable to colonial days. It had its origin in the fact that the colonists were all subjects of the same monarch.[132] After the Declaration of Independence was signed, the question arose as to how to reconcile the advantages of a common citizenship with a dispersed sovereignty. One element of the solution is to be seen in the Fourth of the Articles of Confederation, which read as follows: "The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse among the people of the different States in this Union, the free inhabitants of each of these States, paupers, vagabonds and fugitives from justice excepted, shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States; and the people of each State shall have free ingress and regress to and from any other State, and shall enjoy therein all the privileges of trade and commerce, subject to the same duties, impositions and restrictions as the inhabitants thereof respectively * * *" Madison, writing in The Federalist,[133] adverted to the confusion engendered by use of the different terms "free inhabitants, free citizens," and "people" and by "superadding to 'all privileges and immunities of free citizens—all the privileges of trade and commerce,' * * *" The more concise phraseology of article IV, however, did little to dispel the uncertainty. In the Slaughter-House Cases,[134] Justice Miller suggested that it was to be regarded as the compendious equivalent of the earlier version: "There can be but little question that the purpose of both these provisions is the same, and that the privileges and immunities intended are the same in each. In the Articles of the Confederation we have some of these specifically mentioned, and enough perhaps to give some general ideal of the class of civil rights meant by the phrase."[135]

THEORIES AS TO ITS PURPOSE

First and last, at least four theories have been proffered regarding the purpose of this clause. The first is that the clause is a guaranty to the citizens of the different States of equal treatment by Congress—is, in other words, a species of equal protection clause binding on the National Government. The second is that the clause is a guaranty to the citizens of each State of all the privileges and immunities of citizenship that are enjoyed in any State by the citizens thereof,—a view which, if it had been accepted at the outset, might well have endowed the Supreme Court with a reviewing power over restrictive State legislation as broad as that which it later came to exercise under the Fourteenth Amendment. The third theory of the clause is that it guarantees to the citizen of any State the rights which he enjoys as such even when sojourning in another State, that is to say, enables him to carry with him his rights of State citizenship throughout the Union, without embarrassment by State lines. Finally, the clause is interpreted as merely forbidding any State to discriminate against citizens of other States in favor of its own. Though the first theory received some recognition in the Dred Scott Case,[136] particularly in the opinion of Justice Catron,[137] it is today obsolete. The second was specifically rejected in McKane v. Durston;[138] the third, in Detroit v. Osborne.[139] The fourth has become a settled doctrine of Constitutional Law.[140] In the words of Justice Miller in the Slaughter-House Cases,[141] the sole purpose of the comity clause was "to declare to the several States, that whatever these rights, as you grant or establish them to your own citizens, or as you limit or qualify, or impose restrictions on their exercise, the same, neither more nor less, shall be the measure of the rights of citizens of other States within your jurisdiction."[142] It follows that this section has no application in controversies between a State and its own citizens.[143] It is deemed to be infringed by a hostile discrimination against all nonresidents[144] but not by such differences of treatment between residents and nonresidents as the nature of the subject matter makes reasonable.[145]

HOW IMPLEMENTED

This clause is self-executory, that is to say, its enforcement is dependent upon the judicial process. It does not authorize penal legislation by Congress. Federal statutes prohibiting conspiracies to deprive any person of rights or privileges secured by State laws,[146] or punishing infractions by individuals of the right of citizens to reside peacefully in the several States, and to have free ingress into and egress from such States,[147] have been held void.

CITIZENS OF EACH STATE

A question much mooted before the Civil War was whether the term could be held to include free Negroes. In the Dred Scott Case,[148] the Court answered it in the negative. "Citizens of each State," Chief Justice Taney argued, meant citizens of the United States as understood at the time the Constitution was adopted, and Negroes were not then regarded as capable of citizenship. The only category of national citizenship added under the Constitution comprised aliens, naturalized in accordance with acts of Congress.[149] In dissent, Justice Curtis not only denied the Chief Justice's assertion that there were no Negro citizens of States in 1789, but further argued that while Congress alone could determine what classes of aliens should be naturalized, the several States retained the right to extend citizenship to classes of persons born within their borders who had not previously enjoyed citizenship, and that one upon whom State citizenship was thus conferred became a citizen of the State in the full sense of the Constitution.[150] So far as persons born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are concerned, the question was put at rest by the Fourteenth Amendment.

CORPORATIONS

At a comparatively early date the claim was made that a corporation chartered by a State and consisting of its citizens was entitled to the benefits of the comity clause in the transaction of business in other States. It was argued that the Court was bound to look beyond the act of incorporation and see who were the incorporators. If it found these to consist solely of citizens of the incorporating State, it was bound to permit them through the agency of the corporation, to exercise in other States such privileges and immunities as the citizens thereof enjoyed. In Bank of Augusta v. Earle[151] this view was rejected. The Supreme Court held that the comity clause was never intended "to give to the citizens of each State the privileges of citizens in the several States, and at the same time to exempt them from the liabilities which the exercise of such privileges would bring upon individuals who were citizens of the State. This would be to give the citizens of other States far higher and greater privileges than are enjoyed by the citizens of the State itself."[152] A similar result was reached in Paul v. Virginia,[153] but by a different course of reasoning. The Court there held that a corporation—in this instance, an insurance company—was "the mere creation of local law" and could "have no legal existence beyond the limits of the sovereignty"[154] which created it; even recognition of its existence by other States rested exclusively in their discretion. More recent cases have held that this discretion is qualified by other provisions of the Constitution, notably the commerce clause and the Fourteenth Amendment.[155] By reason of its similarity to the corporate form of organization, a Massachusetts trust has been denied the protection of this clause.[156]

ALL PRIVILEGES AND IMMUNITIES OF CITIZENS IN THE SEVERAL STATES

The classical judicial exposition of the meaning of this phrase is that of Justice Washington in Corfield v. Coryell,[157] which was decided by him on circuit in 1823. The question at issue was the validity of a New Jersey statute which prohibited "any person who is not, at the time, an actual inhabitant and resident in this State" from raking or gathering "clams, oysters or shells" in any of the waters of the State, on board any vessel "not wholly owned by some person, inhabitant of and actually residing in this State. * * * The inquiry is," wrote Justice Washington, "what are the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States? We feel no hesitation in confining these expressions to those privileges and immunities which are, in their nature, fundamental; which belong, of right, to the citizens of all free governments; and which have, at all times, been enjoyed by the citizens of the several States which compose this Union, * * *"[158] He specified the following rights as answering this description: "Protection by the Government; the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the right to acquire and possess property of every kind, and to pursue and obtain happiness and safety; subject nevertheless to such restraints as the Government may justly prescribe for the general good of the whole. The right of a citizen of one State to pass through, or to reside in any other State, for purposes of trade, agriculture, professional pursuits, or otherwise; to claim the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus; to institute and maintain actions of any kind in the courts of the State; to take, hold and dispose of property, either real or personal; and an exemption from higher taxes or impositions than are paid by the other citizens of the State; * * *"[159]

After thus defining broadly the private and personal rights which were protected, Justice Washington went on to distinguish them from the right to a share in the public patrimony of the State. "* * * we cannot accede" the opinion proceeds, "to the proposition * * * that, under this provision of the Constitution, the citizens of the several States are permitted to participate in all the rights which belong exclusively to the citizens of any particular State, merely upon the ground that they are enjoyed by those citizens; much less, that in regulating the use of the common property of the citizens of such State, the legislature is bound to extend to the citizens of all other States the same advantages as are secured to their own citizens."[160] The right of a State to the fisheries within its borders he then held to be in the nature of a property right, held by the State "for the use of the citizens thereof;" the State was under no obligation to grant "co-tenancy in the common property of the State, to the citizens of all the other States."[161] The precise holding of this case was confirmed in McCready v. Virginia;[162] the logic of Geer v. Connecticut[163] extended the same rule to wild game, and Hudson County Water Co. v. McCarter[164] applied it to the running water of a State. In Toomer v. Witsell,[165] however, the Court refused to apply this rule to free-swimming fish caught in the three-mile belt off the coast of South Carolina. It held instead that "commercial shrimping in the marginal sea, like other common callings, is within the purview of the privileges and immunities clause" and that a heavily discriminatory license fee exacted from nonresidents was unconstitutional.[166] Universal practice has also established another exception to which the Court gave approval by a dictum in Blake v. McClung:[167] "A State may, by rule uniform in its operation as to citizens of the several States, require residence within its limits for a given time before a citizen of another State who becomes a resident thereof shall exercise the right of suffrage or become eligible to office."[168]

DISCRIMINATION IN PRIVATE RIGHTS

Not only has judicial construction of the comity clause excluded some privileges of a public nature from its protection; the courts have also established the proposition that the purely private and personal rights to which the clause admittedly extends are not in all cases beyond the reach of State legislation which differentiates citizens and noncitizens. Broadly speaking, these rights are held subject to the reasonable exercise by a State of its police power, and the Court has recognized that there are cases in which discrimination against nonresidents may be reasonably resorted to by a State in aid of its own public health, safety and welfare. To that end a State may restrict the right to sell insurance to persons who have resided within the State for a prescribed period of time.[169] It may require a nonresident who does business within the State[170] or who uses the highways of the State[171] to consent, expressly or by implication, to service of process on an agent within the State. Without violating this section, a State may limit the dower rights of a nonresident to lands of which the husband died seized while giving a resident dower in all lands held during the marriage,[172] or may leave the rights of nonresident married persons in respect of property within the State to be governed by the laws of their domicile, rather than by the laws it promulgates for its own residents.[173] But a State may not give a preference to resident creditors in the administration of the property of an insolvent foreign corporation.[174] An act of the Confederate Government, enforced by a State, to sequester a debt owed by one of its residents to a citizen of another State was held to be a flagrant violation of this clause.[175]

ACCESS TO COURTS

The right to sue and defend in the courts is one of the highest and most essential privileges of citizenship, and must be allowed by each State to the citizens of all other States to the same extent that it is allowed to its own citizens.[176] The constitutional requirement is satisfied if the nonresident is given access to the courts of the State upon terms which, in themselves, are reasonable and adequate for the enforcing of any rights he may have, even though they may not be technically the same as those accorded to resident citizens.[177] The Supreme Court upheld a State statute of limitations which prevented a nonresident from suing in the State's courts after expiration of the time for suit in the place where the cause of action arose,[178] and another such statute which suspended its operation as to resident plaintiff, but not as to nonresidents, during the period of the defendant's absence from the State.[179] A State law making it discretionary with the courts to entertain an action by a nonresident of the State against a foreign corporation doing business in the State, was sustained since it was applicable alike to citizens and noncitizens residing out of the State.[180] A statute permitting a suit in the courts of the State for wrongful death occurring outside the State, only if the decedent was a resident of the State, was sustained, because it operated equally upon representatives of the deceased whether citizens or noncitizens.[181]

TAXATION

A State may not, in the exercise of its taxing power, substantially discriminate between residents and nonresidents. A leading case is Ward v. Maryland,[182] in which the Court set aside a State law which imposed special taxes upon nonresidents for the privilege of selling within the State goods which were produced outside it. Likewise, a Tennessee statute which made the amount of the annual license tax exacted for the privilege of doing railway construction work dependent upon whether the person taxed had his chief office within or without the State, was found to be incompatible with the comity clause.[183] In Travis v. Yale and Towne Mfg. Co.,[184] the Court, while sustaining the right of a State to tax income accruing within its borders to nonresidents,[185] held the particular tax void because it denied to nonresidents exemptions which were allowed to residents. The "terms 'resident' and 'citizen' are not synonymous," wrote Justice Pitney, "* * * but a general taxing scheme * * * if it discriminates against all nonresidents, has the necessary effect of including in the discrimination those who are citizens of other States; * * *"[186] Where there was no discrimination between citizens and noncitizens, a State statute taxing the business of hiring persons within the State for labor outside the State, was sustained.[187] This section of the Constitution does not prevent a territorial government, exercising powers delegated by Congress, from imposing a discriminatory license tax on nonresident fishermen operating within its waters.[188]

However, what at first glance may appear to be a discrimination may turn out not to be when the entire system of taxation prevailing in the enacting State is considered. On the basis of over-all fairness, the Court sustained a Connecticut statute which required nonresident stockholders to pay a State tax measured by the full market value of their stock, while resident stockholders were subject to local taxation on the market value of that stock reduced by the value of the real estate owned by the corporation.[189] Occasional or accidental inequality to a nonresident taxpayer are not sufficient to defeat a scheme of taxation whose operation is generally equitable.[190] In an early case the Court brushed aside as frivolous the contention that a State violated this clause by subjecting one of its own citizens to a property tax on a debt due from a nonresident secured by real estate situated where the debtor resided.[191]

Clause 2. A person charged in any State With Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be found in another State, shall on Demand of the executive Authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime.

Fugitives From Justice

DUTY TO SURRENDER

Although this provision is not in its nature self-executing, and there is no express grant to Congress of power to carry it into effect, that body passed a law shortly after the Constitution was adopted, imposing upon the Governor of each State the duty to deliver up fugitives from justice found in such State.[192] The Supreme Court has accepted this contemporaneous construction as establishing the validity of this legislation.[193] The duty to surrender is not absolute and unqualified; if the laws of the State to which the fugitive has fled have been put in force against him, and he is imprisoned there, the demands of those laws may be satisfied before the duty of obedience to the requisition arises.[194] In Kentucky v. Dennison[195] the Court held, moreover, that this statute was merely declaratory of a moral duty; that the Federal Government "has no power to impose on a State officer, as such, any duty whatever, and compel him to perform it; * * *"[196] and consequently that a federal court could not issue a mandamus to compel the governor of one State to surrender a fugitive to another. In 1934 Congress plugged the loophole exposed by this decision by making it unlawful for any person to flee from one State to another for the purpose of avoiding prosecution in certain cases.[197]

FUGITIVE FROM JUSTICE

To be a fugitive from justice within the meaning of this clause, it is not necessary that the party charged should have left the State after an indictment found, or for the purpose of avoiding a prosecution anticipated or begun. It is sufficient that the accused, having committed a crime within one State and having left the jurisdiction before being subjected to criminal process, is found within another State.[198] The motive which induced the departure is immaterial.[199] Even if he were brought involuntarily into the State where found by requisition from another State, he may be surrendered to a third State upon an extradition warrant.[200] A person indicted a second time for the same offense is nonetheless a fugitive from justice by reason of the fact that after dismissal of the first indictment, on which he was originally indicted, he left the State with the knowledge of, or without objection by, State authorities.[201] But a defendant cannot be extradited if he was only constructively present in the demanding State at the time of the commission of the crime charged.[202] For the purpose of determining who is a fugitive from justice, the words "treason, felony or other crime" embrace every act forbidden and made punishable by a law of a State,[203] including misdemeanors.[204]

PROCEDURE FOR REMOVAL

Only after a person has been charged with crime in the regular course of judicial proceedings is the governor of a State entitled to make demand for his return from another State.[205] The person demanded has no constitutional right to be heard before the governor of the State in which he is found on the question whether he has been substantially charged with crime and is a fugitive from justice.[206] The constitutionally required surrender is not to be interfered with by habeas corpus upon speculations as to what ought to be the result of a trial.[207] Nor is it proper thereby to inquire into the motives controlling the actions of the governors of the demanding and surrendering States.[208] Matters of defense, such as the running of the statute of limitations, cannot be heard on habeas corpus, but must be determined at the trial.[209] A defendant will, however, be discharged on habeas corpus if he shows by clear and satisfactory evidence that he was outside the demanding State at the time of the crime.[210] If, however, the evidence is conflicting, habeas corpus is not a proper proceeding to try the question of alibi.[211]

TRIAL OF FUGITIVE AFTER REMOVAL

There is nothing in the Constitution or laws of the United States which exempts an offender, brought before the courts of a State for an offense against its laws, from trial and punishment, even though he was brought from another State by unlawful violence,[212] or by abuse of legal process,[213] and a fugitive lawfully extradited from another State may be tried for an offense other than that for which he was surrendered.[214] The rule is different, however, with respect to fugitives surrendered by a foreign government pursuant to treaty. In that case the offender may be tried only "for the offence with which he is charged in the proceedings for his extradition, until a reasonable time and opportunity have been given him, after his release or trial upon such charge, to return to the country from whose asylum he had been forcibly taken under those proceedings."[215]

Clause 3. No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.

This clause contemplated the existence of a positive unqualified right on the part of the owner of a slave which no State law could in any way regulate, control or restrain. Consequently the owner of a slave had the same right to seize and repossess him in another State, as the local laws of his own State conferred upon him, and a State law which penalized such seizure was held unconstitutional.[216] Congress had the power and the duty, which it exercised by the act of February 12, 1793,[217] to carry into effect the rights given by this Section,[218] and the States had no concurrent power to legislate on the subject.[219] However, a State statute providing a penalty for harboring a fugitive slave was held not to conflict with this clause since it did not affect the right or remedy either of the master or the slave; by it the State simply prescribed a rule of conduct for its own citizens in the exercise of its police power.[220]

Section 3. New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.

Doctrine of the Equality of the States

"Equality of constitutional right and power is the condition of all the States of the Union, old and new."[221] This doctrine, now a truism of Constitutional Law, did not find favor in the Constitutional Convention. That body struck out from this section, as reported by the Committee on Detail, two sections to the effect that "... new States shall be admitted on the same terms with the original States. But the Legislature may make conditions with the new States concerning the public debt which shall be subsisting."[222] Opposing this action, Madison insisted that "the Western States neither would nor ought to submit to a union which degraded them from an equal rank with the other States."[223] Nonetheless, after further expressions of opinion pro and con, the Convention voted nine States to two to delete the requirement of equality.[224] Prior to this time, however, Georgia and Virginia had ceded to the United States large territories held by them, upon condition that new States should be formed therefrom, and admitted to the Union on an equal footing with the original States.[225] With the admission of Louisiana in 1812, the principle of equality was extended to States created out of territory purchased from a foreign power.[226] By the Joint Resolution of December 29, 1845, Texas "was admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatever."[227] Again and again, in adjudicating the rights and duties of States admitted after 1789, the Supreme Court has referred to the condition of equality as if it were an inherent attribute of the Federal Union.[228] Finally, in 1911, it invalidated a restriction on the change of location of the State capital, which Congress had imposed as a condition for the admission of Oklahoma, on the ground that Congress may not embrace in an enabling act conditions relating wholly to matters under State control.[229] In an opinion, from which Justices Holmes and McKenna dissented, Justice Lurton argued: "The power is to admit 'new States into this Union.' 'This Union' was and is a union of States, equal in power, dignity and authority, each competent to exert that residuum of sovereignty not delegated to the United States by the Constitution itself. To maintain otherwise would be to say that the Union, through the power of Congress to admit new States, might come to be a union of States unequal in power, as including States whose powers were restricted only by the Constitution, with others whose powers had been further restricted by an act of Congress accepted as a condition of admission."[230]

EARLIER SCOPE OF THE DOCTRINE

Until recently, however, the requirement of equality has applied primarily to political standing and sovereignty rather than to economic or property rights.[231] Broadly speaking, every new State is entitled to exercise all the powers of government which belong to the original States of the Union.[232] It acquires general jurisdiction, civil and criminal, for the preservation of public order, and the protection of persons and property throughout its limits except where it has ceded exclusive jurisdiction to the United States.[233] The legislative authority of a newly admitted State extends over federally owned land within the State, to the same extent as over similar property held by private owners, save that the State can enact no law which would conflict with the constitutional powers of the United States. Consequently it has jurisdiction to tax private activities carried on within the public domain, if the tax does not constitute an unconstitutional burden on the Federal Government.[234] Statutes applicable to territories, e.g., the Northwest Territory Ordinance of 1787, cease to have any operative force when the territory, or any part thereof, is admitted to the Union, except as adopted by State law.[235] When the enabling act contains no exclusion of jurisdiction as to crimes committed on Indian reservations by persons other than Indians, State courts are vested with jurisdiction.[236] But the constitutional authority of Congress to regulate commerce with Indian tribes is not inconsistent with the equality of new States,[237] and conditions inserted in the New Mexico Enabling Act forbidding the introduction of liquor into Indian territory were therefore valid.[238]

CITIZENSHIP OF INHABITANTS

Admission of a State on an equal footing with the original States involves the adoption as citizens of the United States of those whom Congress makes members of the political community, and who are recognized as such in the formation of the new State.[239]

JUDICIAL PROCEEDINGS

Whenever a territory is admitted into the Union, the cases pending in the territorial court which are of exclusive federal cognizance are transferred to the federal court having jurisdiction over the area; cases not cognizable in the federal courts are transferred to the tribunals of the new State, and those over which federal and State courts have concurrent jurisdiction may be transferred either to the State or federal courts by the party possessing that option under existing law.[240] Where Congress neglected to make provision for disposition of certain pending cases in an Enabling Act for the admission of a State to the Union, a subsequent act supplying the omission was held valid.[241] After a case, begun in a United States court of a territory, is transferred to a State court under the operation of the enabling act and the State constitution, the appellate procedure is governed by the State statutes and procedure.[242] The new State cannot, without the express or implied assent of Congress, enact that the records of the former territorial court of appeals should become records of its own courts, or provide by law for proceedings based thereon.[243]

PROPERTY RIGHTS: UNITED STATES v. TEXAS

Holding that a "mere agreement in reference to property" involved "no question of equality of status," the Supreme Court upheld, in Stearns v. Minnesota,[244] a promise exacted from Minnesota upon its admission to the Union which was interpreted to limit its right to tax lands held by the United States at the time of admission and subsequently granted to a railroad. The "equal footing" doctrine has had an important effect, however, on the property rights of new States to soil under navigable waters. In Pollard v. Hagan,[245] the Court held that the original States had reserved to themselves the ownership of the shores of navigable waters and the soils under them, and that under the principle of equality the title to the soils of navigable waters passes to a new State upon admission. After refusing to extend the inland-water rule of this case to the three mile marginal belt under the ocean along the coast,[246] the Court applied the principle of the Pollard Case in reverse in United States v. Texas.[247] Since the original States had been found not to own the soil under the three mile belt, Texas, which concededly did own this soil before its annexation to the United States, was held to have surrendered its dominion and sovereignty over it, upon entering the Union on terms of equality with the existing States. To this extent, the earlier rule that unless otherwise declared by Congress the title to every species of property owned by a territory passes to the State upon admission[248] has been qualified.

RIGHTS CONVEYED TO PRIVATE PERSONS BEFORE ADMISSION OF A STATE

While the territorial status continues, the United States has power to convey property rights, such as rights in soil below high-water mark along navigable waters,[249] or the right to fish in designated waters,[250] which will be binding on the State. But a treaty with an Indian tribe which gave hunting rights on unoccupied lands of the United States, which rights should cease when the United States parted with its title to any of the land, was held to be repealed by the admission to the Union of the territory in which the hunting lands were situated.[251]

Clause 2. The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State.

Property of the United States

METHODS OF DISPOSING THEREOF

The Constitution is silent as to the methods of disposing of property of the United States. In United States v. Gratiot,[252] in which the validity of a lease of lead mines on government lands was put in issue, the contention was advanced that "disposal is not letting or leasing," and that Congress has no power "to give or authorize leases." The Court sustained the leases, saying "the disposal must be left to the discretion of Congress."[253] Nearly a century later this power to dispose of public property was relied upon to uphold the generation and sale of electricity by the Tennessee Valley Authority. The reasoning of the Court ran thus: the potential electrical energy made available by the construction of a dam in the exercise of its constitutional powers is property which the United States is entitled to reduce to possession; to that end it may install the equipment necessary to generate such energy. In order to widen the market and make a more advantageous disposition of the product, it may construct transmission lines, and may enter into a contract with a private company for the interchange of electric energy.[254]

PUBLIC LANDS

No appropriation of public lands may be made for any purpose except by authority of Congress.[255] However, the long-continued practice of withdrawing land from the public domain by Executive Orders for the purpose of creating Indian reservations has raised an implied delegation of authority from Congress to take such action.[256] The comprehensive authority of Congress over public lands includes the power to prescribe the times, conditions and mode of transfer thereof, and to designate the persons to whom the transfer shall be made;[257] to declare the dignity and effect of titles emanating from the United States;[258] to determine the validity of grants which antedate the government's acquisition of the property;[259] to exempt lands acquired under the homestead laws from previously contracted debts;[260] to withdraw land from settlement and to prohibit grazing thereon;[261] to prevent unlawful occupation of public property and to declare what are nuisances, as affecting such property, and provide for their abatement;[262] and to prohibit the introduction of liquor on lands purchased and used for an Indian colony.[263] Congress may limit the disposition of the public domain to a manner consistent with its views of public policy. A restriction inserted in a grant of public lands to a municipality which prohibited the grantee from selling or leasing to a private corporation the right to sell or sublet water or electric energy supplied by the facilities constructed on such land was held valid.[264]

THE POWER OF THE STATE

No State can tax public lands of the United States within its borders;[265] nor can State legislation interfere with the power of Congress under this clause or embarrass its exercise.[266] The question whether title to land which has once been the property of the United States has passed from it must be resolved by the laws of the United States; after title has passed, "that property, like all other property in the State, is subject to State legislation; so far as that legislation is consistent with the admission that the title passed and vested according to the laws of the United States."[267] In construing a conveyance by the United States of land within a State, the settled and reasonable rule of construction of the State affords a guide in determining what impliedly passes to the grantee as an incident to land expressly granted.[268] But a State statute enacted subsequently to a federal grant cannot be given effect to vest in the State rights which either remained in the United States or passed to its grantee.[269]

POWER OF CONGRESS OVER THE TERRITORIES

In the territories, Congress has the entire dominion and sovereignty, national and local, and has full legislative power over all subjects upon which a State legislature might act.[270] It may legislate directly with respect to the local affairs of a territory or it may transfer that function to a legislature elected by the citizens thereof,[271] which will then be invested with all legislative power except as limited by the Constitution of the United States and acts of Congress.[272] In 1886, Congress prohibited the enactment by territorial legislatures of local or special laws on enumerated subjects.[273] The constitutional guarantees of private rights are applicable in territories which have been made a part of the United States by Congressional action,[274] but not to unincorporated territories.[275] Alaska is of the former description,[276] while the status of Hawaii appears to be doubtful.[277] Congress may establish, or may authorize the territorial legislature to create, legislative courts whose jurisdiction is derived from statutes enacted pursuant to this section rather than from article IV.[278] Such courts may exercise admiralty jurisdiction despite the fact that such jurisdiction may be exercised in the States only by constitutional courts.[279]

Section 4. The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.

A Republican Form of Government

It was established in the pioneer case of Luther v. Borden,[280] that questions arising under this section are political, not judicial, in character, and that "it rests with Congress to decide what government is the established one in a State * * * as well as its republican character."[281] Upon Congress also rested the duty to restore republican governments to the States which seceded from the Union at the time of the Civil War. In Texas v. White[282] the Supreme Court declared that the action of the President in setting up provisional governments at the end of the war was justified, if at all, only as an exercise of his powers as Commander in Chief and that such governments were to be regarded merely as provisional regimes to perform the functions of government pending action by Congress. On the ground that the questions were not justiciable in character, the Supreme Court has refused to consider whether the adoption of the initiative and referendum,[283] or the delegation of legislative power to other departments of government[284] is compatible with a republican form of government. This guarantee does not give the Supreme Court jurisdiction to review a decision of a State court sustaining a determination of an election contest for the office of governor made by a State legislature under the authority of a State constitution.[285] Inasmuch as women were denied the right to vote in most, if not all, of the original thirteen States, it was held, prior to the adoption of Amendment XIX, that a State government could be challenged under this clause by reason of the fact that it did not permit women to vote.[286]

Protection Against Domestic Violence

The Supreme Court also held in Luther v. Borden[287] that it rested with Congress to determine upon the means proper to fulfill the constitutional guarantee of protection to the States against domestic violence. Chief Justice Taney declared that Congress might have placed it in the power of a court to decide when the contingency had happened which required the Federal Government to interfere. Instead, Congress had, by the act of February 28, 1795,[288] authorized the President to call out the militia in case of insurrection against the government of any State. It followed, said Taney, that the President "must, of necessity, decide which is the government, and which party is unlawfully arrayed against it, before he can perform the duty imposed upon him by the act of Congress"[289] and that his determination was not subject to review by the courts.

DECLINE IN IMPORTANCE OF THIS GUARANTY

With the recognition in the Debs Case[290] of the power and duty of the Federal Government to use "the entire strength of the Nation * * * to enforce in any part of the land the full and free exercise of all national powers and the security of all rights entrusted by the Constitution to its care,"[291] this clause has declined in importance. When that Government finds it necessary or desirable to use force to quell domestic violence, its power to protect the property of the United States, to remove obstructions to the United States mails, or to protect interstate commerce from interruption by labor disputes or otherwise, usually will furnish legal warrant for its action, without reference to this provision.[292]

Notes

[1] Clark v. Graham, 6 Wheat. 577 (1821), is an early case in which the Supreme Court enforced this rule.

[2] Stat. 122 (1790); 2 Stat. 299 (1804), R.S. Sec. 905 28 U.S.C. Sec. 687.

[3] Mankin v. Chandler & Co., 2 Brock. 125, 127 (1823).

[4] 7 Cr. 481 (1813). See also Everett v. Everett, 215 U.S. 203 (1909); Mutual L. Ins. Co. v. Harris, 97 U.S. 331 (1878).

[5] On the same basis, a judgment cannot be impeached either in or out of the State by showing that it was based on a mistake of law. American Exp. Co. v. Mullins, 212 U.S. 311, 312 (1909); Fauntleroy v. Lum, 210 U.S. 230 (1908); Hartford L. Ins. Co. v. Barber, 245 U.S. 146 (1917); Hartford L. Ins. Co. v. Ibs, 237 U.S. 662 (1915).

[6] 3 Wheat. 234 (1818).

[7] 13 Pet. 312 (1839). See also Bacon v. Howard, 20 How. 22, 25 (1858); Bank of Ala. v. Dalton, 9 How. 522, 528 (1850); Great Western Telegraph Co. v. Purdy, 162 U.S. 329 (1896); Christmas v. Russell, 5 Wall. 290, 301 (1866); Wisconsin v. Pelican Insurance Co., 127 U.S. 265, 292 (1888).

[8] Cole v. Cunningham, 133 U.S. 107, 112 (1890). See also Stacy v. Thrasher, use of Sellers, 6 How. 44, 61 (1848); Milwaukee County v. White (M.E.) Co., 296 U.S. 268 (1935).

[9] Chicago & A.R. Co. v. Wiggins Ferry Co., 119 U.S. 615, 622 (1887); Hanley v. Donoghue, 116 U.S. 1, 3 (1885). See also Bigelow v. Old Dominion Copper Min. & S. Co., 225 U.S. 111 (1912); Green v. Van Buskirk, 7 Wall. 139, 140 (1869); Roche v. McDonald, 275 U.S. 449 (1928); Ohio v. Chattanooga Boiler & Tank Co., 289 U.S. 439 (1933).

[10] Sistare v. Sistare, 218 U.S. 1 (1910).

[11] Michigan Trust Co. v. Ferry, 228 U.S. 346 (1913). See also Fall v. Eastin, 215 U.S. 1 (1909).

[12] Milwaukee County v. White (M.E.) Co., 296 U.S. 268, 275-276 (1935).

[13] Board of Public Works v. Columbia College, 17 Wall. 521 (1873); Robertson v. Pickrell, 109 U.S. 608, 610 (1883).

[14] Kersh Lake Drainage Dist. v. Johnson, 309 U.S. 485 (1940). See also Texas & P.R. Co. v. Southern P. Co., 137 U.S. 48 (1890).

[15] National Exchange Bank v. Wiley, 195 U.S. 257, 265 (1904). See also Grover & B. Sewing-Mach. Co. v. Radcliffe, 137 U.S. 287 (1890).

[16] Harding v. Harding, 198 U.S. 317 (1905). The following cases further illustrate the application of the clause when its protection is sought by a defendant. Such claim must be specific, Wabash R. Co. v. Flannigan, 192 U.S. 29, 37 (1904). See also American Exp. Co. v. Mullins, 212 U.S. 311 (1909). The burden is upon the party making it to establish the failure of a court to give to decrees of a federal court and the court of another State the due effect to which they are entitled. Commercial Pub. Co. v. Beckwith, 188 U.S. 567, 573 (1903). However, by defending on the merits, after pleading and relying upon a foreign judgment, a party does not waive the benefits of an alleged estoppel arising from the foreign judgment. Harding v. Harding, 198 U.S. 317, 330 (1905). Nor is a decree of dismissal, not on the merits, a bar to suit in another jurisdiction. Swift v. McPherson, 232 U.S. 51 (1914). Nor is an entry of discontinuance. In allowing the plaintiff to show that such entry of discontinuance was not intended by the parties as a release and satisfaction of the cause of action, but was the result of a promissory agreement by the defendant which was never complied with, the Court in the forum State was not refusing full faith and credit to the judgment. Such evidence was properly allowed, not to contradict the legal import of said judgment, but to show the true meaning of the parties to the suit in agreeing upon its discontinuance. Jacobs v. Marks, 182 U.S. 583, 593 (1901).

[17] Anglo-American Provision Co. v. Davis Provision Co., 191 U.S. 373 (1903).

[18] Fauntleroy v. Lum, 210 U.S. 230 (1908). Justice Holmes, who spoke for the Court in both cases, asserted in his opinion in the latter that the New York statute was "directed to jurisdiction," the Mississippi statute to "merits," but four Justices could not grasp the distinction.

[19] Kenney v. Supreme Lodge, 252 U.S. 411 (1920), and cases there cited. Holmes again spoke for the Court. See also Cook, The Powers of Congress Under the Full Faith and Credit Clause, 28 Yale L.J. 421, 434 (1919).

[20] Broderick v. Rosner, 294 U.S. 629 (1935), affirmed in Hughes v. Fetter, 341 U.S. 609 (1951).

[21] Union National Bank v. Lamb, 337 U.S. 38 (1949); see also Roche v. McDonald, 275 U.S. 449 (1928).

[22] Embry v. Palmer, 107 U.S. 3, 13 (1883).

[23] Titus v. Wallick, 306 U.S. 282, 291-292 (1939).

[24] Morris v. Jones, 329 U.S. 545 (1947).

[25] Thus why should not a judgment for alimony be made directly enforceable in sister States instead of merely furnishing the basis of an action in debt? See Thompson v. Thompson, 226 U.S. 551 (1913).

[26] Board of Public Works v. Columbia College, 17 Wall. 521, 528 (1873). See also Spokane & I.E.R. Co. v. Whitley, 237 U.S. 487 (1915); Bigelow v. Old Dominion Copper Min. & S. Co., 225 U.S. 111 (1912); Brown v. Fletcher, 210 U.S. 82 (1908); Wisconsin v. Pelican Ins. Co., 127 U.S. 265, 291 (1888); Huntington v. Attrill, 146 U.S. 657, 685 (1892). However a denial of credit, founded upon a mere suggestion of want of jurisdiction and unsupported by evidence, violates the clause. See also Rogers v. Alabama, 192 U.S. 226, 231 (1904); Wells Fargo & Co. v. Ford, 238 U.S. 503 (1915).

[27] See Cooper v. Reynolds, 10 Wall. 308 (1870).

[28] 11 How. 165 (1850).

[29] Justice Johnson, dissenting in Mills v. Duryee, 7 Cr. 481 (1813), had said: "There are certain eternal principles of justice which never ought to be dispensed with, and which Courts of justice never can dispense with but when compelled by positive statute. One of those is, that jurisdiction cannot be justly exercised by a State over property not within the reach of its process, or over persons not owing them allegiance or not subjected to their jurisdiction, by being found within their limits." Ibid. 486.

[30] 95 U.S. 714 (1878).

[31] McDonald v. Mabee, 243 U.S. 90, 92 (1917). See also Wetmore v. Karrick, 205 U.S. 141 (1907).

[32] Grover & B. Sewing-Mach. Co. v. Radcliffe, 137 U.S. 287 (1890). See also Brown v. Fletcher, 210 U.S. 82 (1908); Galpin v. Page, 18 Wall. 350 (1874); Old Wayne Mutual Life Asso. Co. v. McDonough, 204 U.S. 8 (1907).

[33] Reynolds v. Stockton, 140 U.S. 254 (1891).

[34] Renaud v. Abbott, 116 U.S. 277 (1886); Jaster v. Currie, 198 U.S. 144 (1905).

[35] Milliken v. Meyer, 311 U.S. 457, 463 (1940).

[36] Adam v. Saenger, 303 U.S. 59, 62 (1938).

[37] Hancock National Bank v. Farnum, 176 U.S. 640 (1900).

[38] Stacy v. Thrasher, use of Sellers, 6 How. 44, 58 (1848).

[39] Bigelow v. Old Dominion Copper Min. & S. Co., 225 U.S. 111 (1912).

[40] 18 How. 404 (1856).

[41] To the same effect is Connecticut Mut. Ins. Co. v. Spratley, 172 U.S. 602 (1899).

[42] Simon v. Southern Ky., 236 U.S. 115 (1915).

[43] Goldey v. Morning News, 156 U.S. 518 (1895); Riverside Mills v. Menefee, 237 U.S. 189 (1915).

[44] International Harvester Co. v. Kentucky, 234 U.S. 579 (1914); Riverside Mills v. Menefee, 237 U.S. 189 (1915).

[45] International Harvester Co. v. Kentucky, 234 U.S. 579 (1914).

[46] Kane v. New Jersey, 242 U.S. 160 (1916); Hess v. Pawloski, 274 U.S. 352 (1927). Limited in Wuchter v. Pizzutti, 276 U.S. 13 (1928).

[47] 18 Wall. 457 (1874).

[48] See 1 Black, Judgments Sec. 246 (1891).

[49] See also Simmons v. Saul, 138 U.S. 439, 448 (1891). In other words, the challenge to jurisdiction is treated as equivalent to the plea nul tiel record, a plea which was recognized even in Mills v. Duryee as always available against an attempted invocation of the full faith and credit clause. What is not pointed out by the Court, is that it was also assumed in the earlier case that such a plea could always be rebutted by producing a transcript, properly authenticated in accordance with the act of Congress, of the judgment in the original case. See also Brown v. Fletcher, 210 U.S. 82 (1908); German Savings Society v. Dormitzer, 192 U.S. 125, 128 (1904); Grover & Sewing-Mach. Co. v. Radcliffe, 137 U.S. 287, 294 (1890).

[50] Cheever v. Wilson, 9 Wall. 108 (1870).

[51] Andrews v. Andrews, 188 U.S. 14 (1903). See also German Savings Society v. Dormitzer, 192 U.S. 125 (1904).

[52] 201 U.S. 562 (1906). See also Thompson v. Thompson, 226 U.S. 551 (1913).

[53] 181 U.S. 155, 162 (1901).

[54] 317 U.S. 287 (1942); 325 U.S. 226 (1945).

[55] 305 U.S. 32 (1938).

[56] 317 U.S. 287, 298-299 (1942).

[57] Ibid. at p. 302.

[58] 317 U.S. 287, 312, 315, 321 (1942).

[59] 325 U.S. 226, 229 (1945).

[60] Bell v. Bell, 181 U.S. 175 (1901); Andrews v. Andrews, 188 U.S. 14 (1903).

[61] Strong dissents were filed which have influenced subsequent holdings. Among these was that of Justice Rutledge which attacked both the consequences of the decision as well as the concept of jurisdictional domicile on which it was founded.

"Unless 'matrimonial domicil,' banished in Williams I [by the overruling of Haddock v. Haddock], has returned renamed ['domicil of origin'] in Williams II, every decree becomes vulnerable in every State. Every divorce, wherever granted, * * *, may now be reexamined by every other State, upon the same or different evidence, to redetermine the 'jurisdictional fact,' always the ultimate conclusion of 'domicil.' * * *

"The Constitution does not mention domicil. Nowhere does it posit the powers of the states or the nation upon that amorphous, highly variable common-law conception. * * * No legal conception, save possibly 'jurisdiction,' * * *, affords such possibilities for uncertain application. * * * Apart from the necessity for travel, [to effect a change of domicile, the latter], criterion comes down to a purely subjective mental state, related to remaining for a length of time never yet defined with clarity. * * * When what must be proved is a variable, the proof and the conclusion which follows upon it inevitably take on that character. * * * [The majority have not held] that denial of credit will be allowed, only if the evidence [as to the place of domicile] is different or depending in any way upon the character or the weight of the difference. The test is not different evidence. It is evidence, whether the same or different and, if different, without regard to the quality of the difference, from which an opposing set of inferences can be drawn by the trier of fact 'not unreasonably.' * * * But * * * [the Court] does not define 'not unreasonably.' It vaguely suggests a supervisory function, to be exercised when the denial [of credit] strikes its sensibilities as wrong, by some not stated standard. * * * There will be no 'weighing' [of evidence], * * * only examination for sufficiency."—(325 U.S. 226, 248, 251, 255, 258-259 (1945)).

No less disposed to prophesy undesirable results from this decision was Justice Black in whose dissenting opinion Justice Douglas concurred.

"The full faith and credit clause, as now interpreted, has become a disrupting influence. The Court in effect states that the clause does not apply to divorce actions, and that States alone have the right to determine what effect shall be given to the decrees of other States. If the Court is abandoning the principle that a marriage [valid where made is valid everywhere], a consequence is to subject people to bigamy or adultery prosecutions because they exercise their constitutional right to pass from a State in which they were validly married on to another which refuses to recognize their marriage. Such a consequence violates basic guarantees."

North Carolina's interest was to preserve a bare marital status as to two persons who sought a divorce and two others who had not objected to it. "It is an extraordinary thing for a State to procure a retroactive invalidation of a divorce decree, and then punish one of its citizens for conduct authorized by that decree, when it had never been challenged by either of the people most immediately interested in it." The State here did not sue to protect any North Carolina property rights nor to obtain support for deserted families. "I would not permit such an attenuated state interest to override the Full Faith and Credit Clause * * *" (325 U.S. 226, 262-267 (1945)).

The unsettling effect of this decision was expressed statistically by Justice Black as follows: "Statistics indicate that approximately five million divorced persons are scattered throughout the forty-eight States. More than 85% of these divorces were granted in uncontested proceedings. Not one of this latter group can now retain any feeling of security in his divorce decree. Ever present will be the danger of criminal prosecution and harassment." Ibid. 262-263.

As to the conclusion that the Supreme Court as well as the State courts should reach in like situations, Justice Black asserted that "until Congress has commanded a different 'effect' for divorces granted on a short sojourn within a State, we should stay our hands. * * * If we follow that course, North Carolina cannot be permitted to disregard the Nevada decrees without passing upon the 'faith and credit' which Nevada itself would give to them under its own 'law or usage.' * * * For in Nevada, even its Attorney General could not have obtained a cancellation of the decree * * *." Ibid. 267, 268.

The reader should take note of the effect in some of the above opinions to weigh competing interests against one another and the implication that the court's relation to the full faith and credit clause is that of an arbitral tribunal rather than of a court in the conventional sense of a body whose duty is to maintain an established rule of law.