Opinion of the Court. must enter into that construction; so that the existing defect in the old law may be seen, and its remedy by the act of Congress comprehended. Now it was most reasonable, on general principles of comity and justice, that, among States and their citizens united as ours are, judgments rendered in one should bind citizens of other States, where defendants had been served with process, or voluntarily made defence. As these judgments, however, were only prima facie evidence, and subject to be inquired into by plea, when sued on in another State, Congress saw proper to remedy the evil, and to provide that such inquiry and double defence should not be allowed. To this extent, it is declared in the case of Mills v. Duryee, Congress has gone in altering the old rule." 11 How. 165, 175, 176. In Christmas v. Russell, (1866) in which this court decided that, because of the Constitution and laws of the United States, a judgment of a court of one State of the Union, when sued upon in a court of another, could not be shown to have been procured by fraud, Mr. Justice Clifford, in delivering the opinion, after stating that, under the rules of the common law, a domestic judgment, rendered in a court of competent jurisdiction, could not be collaterally impeached or called in question, said: "Common law rules placed foreign judgments upon a different footing, and those rules remain, as a general remark, unchanged to the present time. Under these rules, a foreign judgment was prima facie evidence of the debt, and it was open to examination, not only to show that the court in which it was rendered had no jurisdiction of the subject-matter, but also to show that the judgment was fraudulently obtained." 5 Wall. 290, 304. In Bischoff v. Wethered, (1869) in an action on an English judgment rendered without notice to the defendant, other than by service on him in this country, this court, speaking by Mr. Justice Bradley, held that the proceeding in England "was wholly without jurisdiction of the person, and whatever validity it may have in England, by virtue of statute law, against property of the defendant there situate, it can have no validity here, even of a prima facie character." 9 Wall. 812, 814. Opinion of the Court. In Hanley v. Donoghue, (1885) 116 U. S. 1, 4, and in Wisconsin v. Pelican Ins. Co., (1888) 127 U. S. 265, 292, it was said that judgments recovered in one State of the Union, when proved in the courts of another, differed from judgments recovered in a foreign country in no other respect than in not being reëxaminable on their merits, nor impeachable for fraud in obtaining them, if rendered by a court having jurisdiction of the cause and of the parties. But neither in those cases, nor in any other, has this court hitherto been called upon to determine how far foreign judg ments may be reëxamined upon their merits, or be impeached for fraud in obtaining them. In the courts of the several States, it was long recognized and assumed, as undoubted and indisputable, that by our law, as by the law of England, foreign judgments for debts were not conclusive, but only prima facie evidence of the matter adjudged. Some of the cases are collected in the margin.' In the leading case of Bissell v. Briggs, above cited, Chief Justice Parsons said: "A foreign judgment may be produced here by a party to it, either to justify himself by the execution of that judgment in the country in which it was rendered, or to obtain the execution of it from our courts." "If the foreign court rendering the judgment had jurisdiction of the cause, yet the courts here will not execute the judgment, without first 1 Bartlet v. Knight, (1805) 1 Mass. 401, 405; Buttrick v. Allen, (1811) 8 Mass. 273; Bissell v. Briggs, (1813) 9 Mass. 462, 464; Hall v. Williams, (1828) 6 Pick. 232, 238; Gleason v. Dodd, (1842) 4 Met. 333, 336; Wood v. Gamble, (1853) 11 Cush. 8; McKim v. Odom, (1835) 3 Fairf. 94, 96; Middlesex Bank v. Butman, (1848) 29 Maine, 19, 21; Bryant v. Ela, (1815) Smith (N. H.) 396, 404; Thurber v. Blackbourne, (1818) 1 N. H. 242; Robinson v. Prescott, (1828) 4 N. H. 450; Taylor v. Barron, (1855) 10 Foster, 78, 95; King v. Van Gilder, (1791) 1 D. Chip. 59; Rathbone v. Terry, (1837) 1 Rhode Island, 73, 76; Aldrich v. Kinney, (1822) 4 Connecticut, 380, 382; Hitchcock v. Aicken, (1803) 1 Caines, 460; Smith v. Lewis, (1808) 3 Johns. 157, 159; Taylor v. Bryden, (1811) 8 Johns. 173; Andrews v. Montgomery, (1821) 19 Johns. 162, 165; Starbuck v. Murray, (1830) 5 Wend. 148, 155; Benton v. Burgot, (1823) 10 S. & R. 240, 241, 242; Barney v. Patterson, (1824) 6 Har. & Johns. 182, 202, 203; Taylor v. Phelps, (1827) 1 Har. & Gill, 492, 503; Rogers v. Coleman, (1808) Hardin, 413, 414; Williams v. Preston, (1830) 3 J. J. Marsh. 600, 601. Opinion of the Court. allowing an inquiry into its merits. The judgment of a foreign court, therefore, is by our laws considered only as presumptive evidence of a debt, or as prima facie evidence of a sufficient consideration of a promise, where such court had jurisdiction of the cause; and if an action of debt be sued on any such judgment, nil debet is the general issue; or, if it be made the consideration of a promise, the general issue is non assumpsit. On these issues, the defendant may impeach the justice of the judgment, by evidence relative to that point. On these issues, the defendant may also, by proper evidence, prove that the judgment was rendered by a foreign court, which had no jurisdiction; and if his evidence be sufficient for this purpose, he has no occasion to impeach the justice of the judgment." 9 Mass. 463, 464. In a less known case, decided in 1815, but not published until 1879, the reasons for this view were forcibly stated by Chief Justice Jeremiah Smith, speaking for the Supreme. Court of New Hampshire, as follows: "The respect which is due to judgments, sentences and decrees of courts in a foreign State, by the law of nations, seems to be the same which is due to those of our own courts. Hence the decree of an admiralty court abroad is equally conclusive with decrees of our admiralty courts. Indeed, both courts proceed by the same rule, are governed by the same law — the maritime law of nations: Coll. Jurid. 100; which is the universal law of nations, except where treaties alter it. "The same comity is not extended to judgments or decrees which may be founded on the municipal laws of the State in which they are pronounced, Independent States do not choose to adopt such decisions without examination. These laws and regulations may be unjust, partial to citizens, and against foreigners; they may operate injustice to our citizens, whom we are bound to protect; they may be, and the decisions of courts founded on them, just cause of complaint against the supreme power of the State where rendered. To adopt them is not merely saying that the courts have decided correctly on the law, but it is approbating the law itself. Wherever, then, the court may have proceeded on municipal Opinion of the Court. law, the rule is, that the judgments are not conclusive evidence of debt, but prima facie evidence only. The proceedings have not the conclusive quality which is annexed to the records or proceedings of our own courts, where we approve both of the rule and of the judges who interpret and apply it. A foreign judgment may be impeached; defendant may show that it is unjust, or that it was irregularly or unduly obtained. Doug. 5, note." Bryant v. Ela, Smith (N. H.) 396, 404. From this review of the authorities, it clearly appears that, at the time of the separation of this country from England, the general rule was fully established that foreign judgments in personam were prima facie evidence only, and not conclusive of the merits of the controversy between the parties. But the extent and limits of the application of that rule do not appear to have been much discussed, or defined with any approach to exactness, in England or America, until the matter was taken up by Chancellor Kent and by Mr. Justice Story. In Taylor v. Bryden, (1811) an action of assumpsit, brought in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, on a judgment obtained in the State of Maryland against the defendant as indorser of a bill of exchange, and which was treated as a foreign judgment, so far as concerned its effect in New York, (the decision of this court to the contrary in Mills v. Duryee, 7 Cranch, 481, not having yet been made,) Chief Justice Kent said: "The judgment in Maryland is presumptive evidence of a just demand; and it was incumbent upon the defendant, if he would obstruct the execution of the judgment here, to show, by positive proof, that it was irregularly or unduly obtained." "To try over again, as of course, every matter of fact which had been duly decided by a competent tribunal, would be disregarding the comity which we justly owe to the courts of other States, and would be carrying the doctrine of reëxamination to an oppressive extent. It would be the same as granting a new trial in every case, and upon every question of fact. Suppose a recovery in another State, or in any foreign court, in an action for a Opinion of the Court. tort, as for an assault and battery, false imprisonment, slander, etc., and the defendant was duly summoned and appeared, and made his defence, and the trial was conducted orderly and properly, according to the rules of a civilized jurisprudence, is every such case to be tried again here on the merits? I much doubt whether the rule can ever go to this length. The general language of the books is that the defendant must impeach the judgment by showing affirmatively that it was unjust by being irregularly or unfairly procured." But the case was decided upon the ground that the defendant had done no more than raise a doubt of the correctness of the judgment sued on. 8 Johns. 173, 177, 178. Chancellor Kent, afterwards, treating of the same subject in the first edition of his Commentaries, (1827) put the right to impeach a foreign judgment somewhat more broadly, saying: "No sovereign is obliged to execute, within his dominion, a sentence rendered out of it; and if execution be sought by a suit upon the judgment, or otherwise, he is at liberty, in his courts of justice, to examine into the merits of such judgment [for the effect to be given to foreign judgments is altogether a matter of comity, in cases where it is not regulated by treaty]. In the former case, [of a suit to enforce a foreign judgment,] the rule is, that the foreign judgment is to be received, in the first instance, as prima facie evidence of the debt; and it lies on the defendant to impeach the justice of it, or to show that it was irregularly and unduly obtained. This was the principle declared and settled by the House of Lords, in 1771, in the case of Sinclair v. Fraser, upon an appeal from the Court of Session in Scotland." In the second edition, (1832) he inserted the passages above printed in brackets; and in a note to the fourth edition, (1840) after citing recent conflicting opinions in Great Britain, and referring to Mr. Justice Story's reasoning in his Commentaries on the Conflict of Laws, § 607, in favor of the conclusiveness of foreign judgments, he added, "and that is certainly the more convenient and the safest rule, and the most consistent with sound principle, except in cases in which the court which pronounced the judgment has not due jurisdiction of the case, or of the |