Opinion of the Court. Under Lord Ellenborough, the distinction between a suit on a foreign judgment in favor of the plaintiff against the defendant, and a suit to recover money which the plaintiff had been compelled to pay under a judgment abroad, was clearly maintained. In Buchanan v. Rucker, (1807) in assumpsit upon a judgment rendered in the island of Tobago, the defendant pleaded non assumpsit, and prevailed, because it appeared that he was not a resident of the island, and was neither personally served with process nor came in to defend, and the only notice was, according to the practice of the court, by nailing up a copy of the declaration at the court-house door. It was argued that "the presumption was in favor of a foreign judgment, as well as of a judgment obtained in one of the courts of this country." To which Lord Ellenborough answered: "That may be so, if the judgment appears, on the face of it, consistent with reason and justice; but it is contrary to the first principles of reason and justice, that, either in civil or criminal proceedings, a man should be condemned before he is heard." "There might be such glaring injustice on the face of a foreign judg ment, or it might have a vice rendering it so ludicrous, that, it could not raise an assumpsit, and, if submitted to the jurisdiction of the courts of this country, could not be enforced." 1 Camp. 63, 66, 67. A motion for a new trial was denied. 9 East, 192. And see Sadler v. Robins, (1808) 1 Camp. 253, 256. In Hall v. Odber, (1809) in assumpsit upon a judgment obtained in Canada, with other counts on the original debt, Lord Ellenborough and Justices Grose, Le Blanc and Bayley agreed that a foreign judgment was not to be considered as having the same force as a domestic judgment, but only that of a simple contract between the parties, and did not merge the original cause of action, but was only evidence of the debt, and therefore assumpsit would lie, either upon the judgment, or upon the original cause of action. 11 East, 118. In Tarleton v. Tarleton, (1815) on the other hand, the action was brought upon a covenant of indemnity in an agreement for dissolution of a partnership, to recover a sum which the Opinion of the Court. plaintiff had been compelled to pay under a decision in a suit between the parties in the island of Grenada. Such was the case, of which Lord Ellenborough, affirming his own ruling at the trial, said: "I thought that I did not sit at nisi prius to try a writ of error in this case upon the proceedings in the court abroad. The defendant had notice of the proceedings, and should have appeared and made his defence. The plaintiff, by this neglect, has been obliged to pay the money in order to avoid a sequestration." The distinction was clearly brought out by Mr. Justice Bayley, who said: "As between the parties to the suit, the justice of it might be again litigated; but as against a stranger it cannot." 4 M. & S. 20, 22, 23. In Harris v. Saunders, (1825) Chief Justice Abbott (afterwards Lord Tenterden) and his associates, upon the authority of Otway v. Ramsay, above cited, held that, even since the Act of Union of 39 & 40 Geo. III, c. 67, assumpsit would lie in England upon a judgment recovered in Ireland, because such a judgment could not be considered a specialty debt in England. 4 B. & C. 411; S. C. 6 D. & R. 471. The English cases, above referred to, have been stated with the more particularity and detail, because they directly bear upon the question what was the English law, being then our own law, before the Declaration of Independence. They demonstrate that by that law, as generally understood, and as declared by Hardwicke, Mansfield, Buller, Camden, Eyre and Ellenborough, and doubted by Kenyon only, a judgment recovered in a foreign country for a sum of money, when sued upon in England, was only prima facie evidence of the demand, and subject to be examined and impeached. The law of England, since it has become to us a foreign country, will be considered afterwards. The law upon this subject, as understood in the United States, at the time of their separation from the mother country, was clearly set forth by Chief Justice Parsons, speaking for the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, in 1813, and by Mr. Justice Story, in his Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, published in 1833. Both those Opinion of the Court. eminent jurists declared that by the law of England the general rule was that foreign judgments were only prima facie evidence of the matter which they purported to decide; and that by the common law, before the American Revolution, all the courts of the several Colonies and States were deemed foreign to each other, and consequently judgments rendered by any one of them were considered as foreign judgments, and their merits reëxaminable in another Colony, not only as to the jurisdiction of the court which pronounced them, but also as to the merits of the controversy, to the extent to which they were understood to be reëxaminable in England. And they noted that, in order to remove that inconvenience, statutes had been passed in Massachusetts, and in some of the other Colonies, by which judgments rendered by a court of competent jurisdiction in a neighboring Colony could not be impeached. Bissell v. Briggs, 9 Mass. 462, 464, 465; Mass. Stat. 1773-4, c. 16, 5 Prov. Laws, 323, 369; Story on the Constitution, (1st ed.) §§ 1301, 1302; (4th ed.) §§ 1306, 1307. It was because of that condition of the law, as between the American Colonies and States, that the United States, at the very beginning of their existence as a nation, ordained that full faith and credit should be given to the judgments of one of the States of the Union in the courts of another of those States. By the Articles of Confederation of 1777, art. 4, § 3, " Full faith and credit shall be given, in each of these States, to the records, acts and judicial proceedings of the courts and magistrates of every other State." 1 Stat. 4. By the Constitution of the United States, art. 4, § 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." And the first Congress of the United States under the Constitution, after prescribing the manner in which the records and judicial proceedings of the courts of any State should be authenticated and proved, enacted that "the said records and judicial proceedings, authenticated as aforesaid, shall have Opinion of the Court. 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.” Act of May 26, 1790, c. 11, 1 Stat. 122; Rev. Stat. § 905. The effect of these provisions of the Constitution and laws of the United States was at first a subject of diverse opinions, not only in the courts of the several States, but also in the Circuit Courts of the United States; Mr. Justice Cushing, Mr. Justice Wilson and Mr. Justice Washington holding that judgments of the courts of a State had the same effect throughout the Union as within that State; but Chief Justice Marshall (if accurately reported) being of opinion that they were not entitled to conclusive effect, and that their consideration might be impeached. Armstrong v. Carson, (1794) 2 Dall. 302; Green v. Sarmiento, (1811) 3 Wash. C. C. 17, 21; S. C. Pet. C. C. 74, 78; Peck v. Williamson, (reported as in November, 1813, apparently a mistake for 1812,) 1 Carolina Law Repository, 53. The decisions of this court have clearly recognized that judgments of a foreign state are prima facie evidence only, and that, but for these constitutional and legislative provisions, judgments of a State of the Union, when sued upon in another State, would have no greater effect. In Croudson v. Leonard, (1808) in which this court held that the sentence of a foreign court of admiralty in rem, condemning a vessel for breach of blockade, was conclusive evidence of that fact in an action on a policy of insurance, Mr. Justice Washington, after speaking of the conclusiveness of domestic judgments generally, said: "The judgment of a foreign court is equally conclusive, except in the single instance where the party claiming the benefit of it applies to the courts in England to enforce it, in which case only the judgment is prima facie evidence. But it is to be remarked, that in such a case, the judgment is no more conclusive as to the right it establishes, than as to the fact it decides." 4 Cranch, 434, 442. In Mills v. Duryee, (1813) in which it was established that, by virtue of the Constitution and laws of the United States, the judgment of a court of one of the States was conclusive Opinion of the Court. evidence, in every court within the United States, of the matter adjudged; and therefore nul tiel record, and not nil debet, was a proper plea to an action brought in a court of the United States in the District of Columbia upon a judgment recovered in a court of the State of New York; this court, speaking by Mr. Justice Story, said: "The pleadings in an action are governed by the dignity of the instrument on which it is founded. If it be a record, conclusive between the parties, it cannot be denied but by the plea of nul tiel record; and when Congress gave the effect of a record to the judgment, it gave all the collateral consequences." "Were the construction contended for by the plaintiff in error to prevail, that judgments of the state courts ought to be considered prima facie evidence only, this clause in the Constitution would be utterly unimportant and illusory. The common law would give such judgments precisely the same effect." 7 Cranch, 481, 484, 485. In Hampton v. McConnel, (1818) the point decided in Mills v. Duryee was again adjudged, without further discussion, in an opinion delivered by Chief Justice Marshall. 3 Wheat. 234. The obiter dictum of Mr. Justice Livingston in Hopkins v. Lee, (1821) 6 Wheat. 109. 114, repeated by Mr. Justice Daniel in Pennington v. Gibson, (1853) 16 How. 65, 78, as to the general effect of foreign judgments, has no important bearing upon the case before us. In McElmoyle v. Cohen, (1839) Mr. Justice Wayne, discussing the effect of the act of Congress of 1790, said, that "the adjudications of the English courts have now established the rule to be, that foreign judgments are prima facie evidence of the right and matter they purport to decide." 13 Pet. 312, 325. In D'Arcy v. Ketchum, (1850) in which this court held that the provisions of the Constitution and laws of the United States gave no effect in one State to judgments rendered in another State by a court having no jurisdiction of the cause or of the parties, Mr. Justice Catron said: "In construing the act of 1790, the law as it stood when the act was passed |