Citations for Plaintiffs in Error. "In the case at bar it is true that the defendants had made their attachment through Fayerweather in New York before there had been an assignment in insolvency in this State actually executed, but this was done with full knowledge on their part that the debtor, Bird, was embarrassed and had suspended payment, and necessarily with intent to avoid the effect of the assignment, so far as the property attached was concerned. As residents of this State, they cannot be allowed to this extent to defeat the operation of the assignment, and thus to obtain a preference over other creditors resident here. They are within the limits of the jurisdiction of this court, and amenable to its process, and should be enjoined from prosecuting a suit the effect of which, if successful, will be to work a wrong and injury to other residents of the State." The court thereupon entered a decree for the injunction prayed for, and Butler, Hayden & Co. sued out a writ of error from this court. Mr. Henry D. Hyde and Mr. M. F. Dickinson, Jr., (with whom was Mr. Hollis R. Bailey on the briefs,) for plaintiffs in error, cited: Christmas v. Russell, 5 Wall. 290, 300; Green v. Van Buskirk, 7 Wall. 139, 145; Warner v. Jaffrey, 96 N. Y. 248, 259; Sartwell v. Field, 68 N. Y. 341; Dunlop v. Patterson Fire Ins. Co., 74 N. Y. 145; Anthony v. Wood, 29 Hun, 239; McGinn v. Ross, 11 Abb. Pr. (N. S.) 20; Hibernian Nat. Bank v. Lacombe, 84 N. Y. 367, 385; Jenks v. Ludden, 34 Minnesota, 486; Kidder v. Tufts, 48 N. H. 121, 126; Paine v. Lester, 44 Connecticut, 196, 204; Rhawn v. Pearce, 110 Illinois, 350; Kelly v. Crapo, 45 N. Y. 86; Fuller v. Cadwell, 6 Allen, 503; Crapo v. Kelly, 16 Wall. 610; Hervey v. R. I. Locomotive Works, 93 U. S. 664; Taylor v. Carryl, 20 How. 583; Cooper v. Reynolds, 10 Wall. 308; Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U. S. 714; Whipple v. Robbins, 97 Mass. 107; S. C. 93 Am. Dec. 64; American Bank v. Rollins, 99 Mass. 313; Garity v. Gigie, 130 Mass. 184; Wallace v. McConnell, 13 Pet. 136, 151; Nicoll v. Spowers, 105 N. Y. 1; Keller v. Paine, 107 N. Y. 83, 90; Bicknell v. Field, 8 Paige, 440 ; Harris v. Pullman, 84 Illinois, 20; Dehon v. Foster, 4 Allen, Opinion of the Court. 545; Dehon v. Foster, 7 Allen, 57; Lawrence v. Batcheller, 131 Mass. 504. Mr. Eugene M. Johnson, for defendants in error, cited: Dehon v. Foster, 4 Allen, 545; Keyser v. Rice, 47 Maryland, 203; Quidnick Co. v. Chaffee, 13 R. I. 367; Snook v. Snetzer, 25 Ohio St. 516; Vermont & Canada Railroad v. Vermont Central Railroad, 46 Vermont, 792, 797; Great Falls Manfg. Co. v. Worster, 23 N. H. 462; Bushby v. Munday, 5 Madd. 297, 307; Beckford v. Kemble, 1 Sim. & Stu. 7; Attwood v. Banks, 2 Beavan, 192; Hill v. Turner, 1 Atk. 515; Glascott v. Lang, 3 Myl. & Cr. 451; Hope v. Carnegie, L. R. 1 Ch. 320; Ex parte Tait, L. R. 13 Eq. 311; In re Chapman, L. R. 15 Eq. 75; Sartwell v. Field, 66 N. Y. 341; Massie v. Watts, 6 Cranch, 148; Phelps v. McDonald, 99 U. S. 298; Corbett v. Nutt, 10 Wall. 464; Penn v. Lord Baltimore, 1 Ves. Sen. 444; Watkins v. Holman, 16 Pet. 25. MR. CHIEF JUSTICE FULLER delivered the opinion of the court. The question to be determined is, whether a decree of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, restraining citizens of that commonwealth from the prosecution of attachment suits in New York, brought by them for the purpose of evading the laws of their domicil, should be reversed upon the ground that such judicial action in Massachusetts was in violation of Article 4, sections 1 and 2 of the Constitution of the United States, which read as follows: "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. "SEC. 2. The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States." The act of May 26, 1790, 1 Stat. 122, now embodied in § 905 of the Revised Statutes, after providing the mode of authenticating the acts, records and judicial proceedings of the States, declares: 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 |