Opinion of the Court. "And the said records, and judicial proceedings authenticated as aforesaid, shall have such faith and credit given to them in every court within the United States, as they have by law or usage in the courts of the State from whence the said. records are or shall be taken." This does not prevent an inquiry into the jurisdiction of the court, in which a judgment is rendered, to pronounce the judgment, nor into the right of the State to exercise authority over the parties or the subject matter, nor whether the judg ment is founded in, and impeachable for, a manifest fraud. The Constitution did not mean to confer any new power on the States, but simply to regulate the effect of their acknowledged jurisdiction over persons and things within their territory. It did not make the judgments of the States domestic judgments to all intents and purposes, but only gave a general validity, faith and credit to them as evidence. No execution can be issued upon such judgments without a new suit in the tribunals of other States, and they enjoy, not the right of priority or privilege or lien which they have in the State where they are pronounced, but that only which the lex fori gives to them by its own laws, in their character of foreign judgments. McElmoyle v. Cohen, 13 Pet. 312, 328, 329; D'Arcy v. Ketchum, 11 How. 165; Thompson v. Whitman, 18 Wall. 457; Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U. S. 714; Wisconsin v. Pelican Ins. Co., 127 U. S. 265, 292; Christmas v. Russell, 5 Wall. 290; Story, Constitution, §§ 1303 et seq.; and Story, Conflict of Laws, § 609. And other judicial proceedings can rest on no higher ground. These well-settled principles find pertinent illustration in the decisions of the highest tribunal of the State of New York, to one of which we refer, as the contention is that the decree under review was in some way an unconstitutional invasion of the jurisdiction of that State. In Dobson v. Pearce, 12 N. Y. (2 Kernan) 156, the plaintiff in a judgment, recovered in New York, brought an action upon it in the Superior Court of Connecticut, whereupon the defendant in the judgment filed a bill against the plaintiff on the equity side of the same court, alleging that the judgment Opinion of the Court. was procured by fraud, and praying relief. The plaintiff in the judgment appeared in and litigated the equity suit, and the court adjudged that the allegations of fraud in obtaining the judgment were true, and enjoined him from prosecuting an action upon it. He assigned the judgment, and it was held in a suit in New York, brought thereon by the assignee, that a duly authenticated copy of the record of the decree in the Connecticut Court was conclusive evidence that the judgment was obtained by fraud. The Court of Appeals held that while a judgment rendered by a court of competent jurisdiction could not be impeached collaterally for error or irregularity, yet it could be attacked upon the ground of want of jurisdiction, or of fraud or imposition; that the right of the plaintiff in the judgment was a personal right, and followed his person; that when the courts of Connecticut obtained jurisdiction of his person by the due service of process within the State, these courts had full power to pronounce upon the rights of the parties in respect to the judgment, and to decree concerning it; that the jurisdiction of a court of equity anywhere, to restrain suit upon a judgment at law, upon sufficient grounds, was one of the firmly established parts of the authority of courts of equity; and that it could not be held that a court of equity in one State had no jurisdiction to restrain such a suit upon a judgment of a court of law of another State. If the objection to so doing was founded upon an assumed violation of the comity existing between the several States of the United States, that did not reach to the jurisdiction of the court, a rule of comity being a self-imposed restraint upon an authority actually possessed; and as to the objection that the Constitution of the United. States and the laws made in pursuance of it inhibited the action of the Connecticut courts, this could not prevail, since full faith and credit are given to the judgment of a state court, when in the courts of another State it receives the same faith and credit to which it was entitled in the State where it was pronounced. Pearce v. Olney, 20 Connecticut, 544; Engel v. Scheuerman, 40 Georgia, 206; Cage v. Cassidy, 23 How. 109. The intention of section 2 of Article 4 was to confer on the VOL. CXXXIII-8 Opinion of the Court. citizens of the several States a general citizenship, and to communicate all the privileges and immunities which the citizens of the same State would be entitled to under the like circumstances, and this includes the right to institute actions. The fact of the citizenship of Butler and Hayden did not affect their privilege to sue in New York and have the full use and benefit of the courts of that State in the assertion of their legal rights; but as that fact might affect the right of action as between them and the citizens of their own State, the courts of New York might have held that its existence put an end to the seizure of their debtor's property by Butler, Hayden & Co. in New York. If, however, those courts declined to take that view, it would not follow that the courts of Massachusetts violated any privilege or immunity of Massachusetts's own citizens in exercising their undoubted jurisdiction over them. Discharges under state insolvent laws exemplify the principle. Where the effect of the insolvent law is to relieve the debtor from liability on his contracts, such discharge, if the creditor and debtor have a common domicil, or the creditor, though non-resident, has voluntarily become a party to the proceedings, avails the defendant in all courts and places. It was decided in Sturges v. Crowninshield, 4 Wheat. 122, that state legislatures have authority to pass a bankrupt or insolvent law, provided there be no act of Congress in force establishing a uniform system of bankruptcy, conflicting with such laws; and provided the law itself be so framed that it does not impair the obligation of contracts. Eight years later, in Ogden v. Saunders, 12 Wheat. 213, the court held that the power of Congress to establish uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States did not exclude the right of the States to legislate on the same subject, except when the power had actually been exercised by Congress, and the state laws conflicted with those of Congress; that a bankrupt or insolvent law of any State which discharged both the person of the debtor and his future acquisitions of property was not a law impairing the obligation of contracts, so far as respected debts contracted subsequent to the passage of the law; that a certificate of discharge under such law Opinion of the Court. could not be pleaded in bar of an action brought by a citizen of another State in the courts of the United States, or of any other State than that where the discharge was obtained. The insolvent law could have no extra-territorial operation, and the tribunal administering it would have no jurisdiction over citizens of other States. But this objection would not lie where such citizens had become parties to the proceedings. Hence in Clay v. Smith, 3 Pet. 411, it was held, where a citizen of Kentucky sued a citizen of Louisiana, and the defendant pleaded his discharge by the bankrupt law of Louisiana, that the plaintiff, who had received a dividend on his debt declared by the assignees of the defendant in Louisiana, had voluntarily made himself a party to those proceedings, abandoned his extra-territorial immunity from the bankrupt law of Louisiana, and was bound by that law to the same extent to which the citizens of Louisiana were bound. And it may be considered as settled that state insolvent laws are not only binding upon such persons as were citizens of the State at the time the debt was contracted, but also upon foreign creditors if they make themselves parties to proceedings under these insolvent laws, by accepting dividends, becoming petitioning creditors, or in some other way appearing and assenting to the jurisdiction. Baldwin v. Hale, 1 Wall. 223; Gilman v. Lockwood, 4 Wall. 409. In New York an attachment is obtained on application to a judge of the Supreme Court, or a county judge, affidavit being made as to the validity of the claim and the grounds of the attachment, and a bond furnished with sufficient sureties. The judge in his discretion makes an order that a warrant of attachment be granted. The warrant is directed to the sheriff, and is subscribed by the judge, and requires the sheriff to attach and safely keep so much of the property as will satisfy the plaintiff's demand, with costs and expenses. This is served by the sheriff taking the property into his actual custody, or, in the case of a demand trusteed, by leaving a copy with the trustee or garnishee. The sheriff, under the direction of the court, must collect any debt or chose in action attached by him, and, if necessary, may bring an action in his own name, or in Opinion of the Court. that of the defendant, against the garnishee. Code of Civil Procedure, Title 3, 1 Bliss's New York Annotated Code, 545 et seq. An attachment is in the nature of, but not, strictly speaking, a proceeding in rem, since that only is a proceeding in rem in which the process is to be served on the thing itself. If, in an attachment suit "the defendant appears, the cause becomes mainly a suit in personam, with the added incident, that the property attached remains liable, under the control of the court, to answer any demand which may be established against the defendant by the final judgment of the court. But, if there is no appearance of the defendant, and no service of process on him, the case becomes, in its essential nature, a proceeding in rem, the only effect of which is to subject the property attached to the payment of the demand which the court may find to be due to the plaintiff." Cooper v. Reynolds, 10 Wall. 308, 318. The lien is inchoate, and the property attached held to await the result of the suit. If a judgment for the plaintiff is obtained, the lien becomes perfected and the property is applied to satisfy the judgment. If plaintiff fails in his action, the lien falls with it. And he may so fail by reason of the discharge of the defendant in insolvency, when he is a citizen of the same State, or has made himself a party to the proceedings in insolvency, or by the action of other courts of the State where the suit is pending, or elsewhere, if jurisdiction in personam be obtained. So that, after all, the inquiry is, whether, in a proper case, the equity courts of one State can control persons within their jurisdiction from the prosecution of suits in another. If they can, in accordance with the principles of equity jurisprudence and practice, no reason is perceived for contending that the Constitution of the United States prescribes any different rule. And the determination. of what is a proper case for equity interposition would seem to be reposed in the court whose authority is invoked, though some remarks in that regard may not improperly be made. The jurisdiction of the English Court of Chancery to restrain persons within its territorial limits and under its jurisdiction from doing anything abroad, whether the thing forbidden be |