CHAPTER XLIII.

PUBLIC RECORDS; HOW PROVED.

ART. 4, SEC. 1.

"Full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general laws prescribe the manner in which such acts, records and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof."

§ 528. The cases that have been decided in the Supreme Court of the United States under this section of the Constitution have been brought there through attempts to enforce judgments rendered in one State by processes designed to enforce such judgments in other States.

The

§ 529. An early case is that of Mills against Duryee (7 Cr. 481). This case arose in an action of debt brought in the Courts of the District of Columbia on a judgment rendered in a Court of Record of the State of New York. defendant had due notice of the suit in the State of New York, and judgment was rendered against him. He defended against the suit in the District of Columbia upon the plea that he was not indebted to the plaintiff. The Supreme Court of the District of Columbia held that the plea was bad, and that view was sustained by the majority of the Supreme Court of the United States.

§ 530. In order that full faith and credit be given to the proceedings of the Courts of New York, it was held to be necessary that the Courts of every other State, and of the District of Columbia as well, should recognize the validity of the proceedings in New York. That view, however, rested upon two conditions:

§ 531. 1. That the Court of New York in which the

judgment was rendered had jurisdiction of the parties and of the case.

§ 532. 2. In the case of M'Elmoyle against Cohen (13 Pet. 312), the Court said that a judgment in one State had the force of a judgment in another under the Constitution of the United States, only so far as to preclude all inquiry into the merits of the subject matter of the judgment.

§ 533. When, however, a judgment is rendered in a State Court upon a published notice merely, and without personal service, such judgment is not entitled to any faith or credit out of the State in which it was rendered. (D'Arcy v. Ketchum, 11 How. 165.)

§ 534. The State of Mississippi enacted a statute in form following, namely: "No action shall be maintained or any judgment or decree rendered by any Court without this State, against any person who, at the time of the commencement of the action, in which such judgment or decree was or shall be rendered, was or shall be a resident of this State in any case where the cause of such action would have been barred by any act of limitation of this State if such suit had been brought therein." The Supreme Court, in the case of Christmas against Russell (5 Wall. 290), held that this statute was in conflict with the Constitution of the United States, as destroying the right of a party to enforce a judgment regularly obtained in another State. In the opinion, the Court said of the Mississippi statute: "Instead of being a statute of limitation in any sense known to the law, the provision in legal effect is but an attempt to give operation to a statute of limitations of that State, in all the other States of the Union, by denying the efficacy of any judgment recovered in another State against a citizen of Mississippi for any cause of action which was barred under in her tribunal under that law."

§ 535. Where judgment has been rendered in a State against several parties jointly and when, in fact, there was a service of process on a part of the defendants only, and by

publication as to the others, the Court held that the judgment could be enforced only against those on whom personal service had been had. (Board of Public Works v. Columbia College et al., 17 Wall. 521.)

§ 536. The record of a judgment rendered in one State may be contradicted in another as to the facts necessary to have given the Court jurisdiction, and if it be shown that such facts did not exist, the record of the State in which the judgment was obtained will be treated as a nullity, and this, notwithstanding the transcript of the record, may recite that the necessary facts did exist. (Thompson v. Whitman, 18 Wall. 457.)

CHAPTER XLIV.

PRIVILEGES AND IMMUNITIES OF CITIZENS.

ART. 4, SEC. 2, CL. 1.

"The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States."

§ 537. Many of the cases which otherwise would be considered under this clause can be more appropriately treated under the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution. It is the doctrine of many cases, as set forth in the opinions of the Court, that a person who is a citizen of the United States, whether native born or naturalized, is by virtue of such citizenship, a citizen also of the State in which he may reside. (Gassies v. Ballon, 6 Pet. 761.)

§ 538. By the criminal code of the State of Illinois, it was made an offence for any person to harbor or secrete a person of color, the same being a slave or servant, owing service or labor to any other person, whether such person resided in the State of Illinois or in some other State or Territory or district within the Union. By the same statute it was made unlawful for any one to hinder or prevent the lawful owner or owners of slaves or servants from retaking them. Upon indictment found against one Eels, and conviction thereunder for harboring and secreting a certain negro slave, the question raised came by due process to the Supreme Court, namely, whether that statute was so in conflict with the fugitive slave act of the United States of 1793 as to render it inoperative and void. The Court divided, but the majority held that although the act against which the two statutes were aimed was the same act, yet the offence chargeable under the respective statutes was a different offence. The

CHAPTER XL.

N

TRIAL BY JURY.

ART. 3, SEC. 2, PAR. 3.

"The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury; and such trial shall be held in the State where the said crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the trial shall be at such place or places as Congress may by law have directed.”

§ 487. The important case of Ex parte Milligan (4 Wall. 2) was reviewed under the clause of the Constitution in regard to the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, but questions were considered and decided by the Court which fall properly under the clause relating to the right of trial by jury.

§ 488. Milligan, who was a citizen of the United States and a resident and citizen of the State of Indiana, was arrested in October, 1864, by the order of the general commanding the District of Indiana, upon the charge of conspiracy set forth in the allegation of specific offences of disloyalty, such as inciting insurrection and giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

The

§ 489. He was tried by a military commission, found guilty, and sentenced to suffer death by hanging. sentence was approved by the President.

§ 490. A petition was filed by Milligan for the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus. Through due course of proceedings the writ was granted, and upon the ground that Indiana being then within the jurisdiction of the United States, the war powers of the government were not applicable; that the Courts were open; that persons charged with crime were entitled to the right of trial by jury under this article of the Constitution, reinforced as it is by the fifth and sixth amend