performed by conferring jurisdiction upon a single court and sometimes by dividing the jurisdiction among two or three courts. The courts may be termed ecclesiastical, probate, orphans', surrogate or equity courts. The jurisdiction may be exercised exclusively in one, or divided among two or more, as the sovereign shall determine. But somewhere the power must exist to decide finally as against the world all questions which arise in the settlement of the succession. Mistakes may occur and sometimes do occur, but it is better that they should be endured than that, in a vain search for infallibility, questions shall remain open indefinitely. As was said by Mr. Justice Bradley, speaking on this subject in Broderick's Will, 21 Wall. 503, p. 519: "The world must move on, and those who claim an interest in persons and things must be charged with knowledge of their status and condition, and of the vicissitudes to which they are subject. This is the foundation of all judicial proceedings in rem." It is therefore within the power of the sovereign to give to its courts the authority, while settling the succession of estates in their possession through their officers, the executors or administrators, to determine finally as against the world all questions which arise therein. Grignon v. Astor, 2 How. 319, per Baldwin, J., p. 338; Beauregard v. New Orleans, 18 How. 497; Foulke v. Zimmerman, 14 Wall. 113; Board of Public Works v. Columbia College, 17 Wall. 521; Broderick's Will, 21 Wall. 503; Simmons v. Saul, 138 U. S. 439; Byers v. McAuley, 149 U. S. 608; Goodrich v. Ferris, 145 Fed. Rep. 844; Loring v. Steineman, 1 Met. (Mass.) 204; Kellogg v. Johnson, 38 Connecticut, 269; State v. Blake, 69 Connecticut, €4; Exton v. Zule, 14 N. J. Eq. 501; Search v. Search, 27 N. J. Eq. 137; Harlow v. Harlow, 65 Maine, 448; Ladd v. Weiskoff, 62 Minnesota, 29.

In respect to the settlement of the successions to property on death the States of the Union are sovereign and may give to their judicial proceedings such conclusive effect, subject to the requirements of due process of law and to any other constitutional limitation which may be applicable.

But though a State may attach to the judicial proceedings of the courts, through which the devolution of the estates of deceased persons is accomplished, the conclusive effect which has been described, it may not choose to do so, or may choose to do so only in respect of part of the adjudications made in the course of the settlement of the succession. It may, for instance, choose to regard the probate of a will or the grant of letters of administration as conclusive on all, and on the other hand to regard an order of distribution as open to attack in a collateral proceeding by those who were not parties to it. The extent to which such proceedings shall be held conclusive is a matter to be determined by each State according to its own views of public policy. The variations in practice in the different States are considerable and no good purpose would be served by considering them. It is enough to instance that in the States of Connecticut and Massachusetts, according to the cases just cited, a decree of distribution is binding upon all, while in the State of New York it appears not to be binding on one who was not a party to it. In ré Killan, 172 N. Y. 547.

When, therefore, we come to consider what faith and credit must be given to these judicial proceedings of New Jersey, we must first ascertain what effect that State attaches to them. The statute enacted to carry into effect the constitutional provision provided that they should have in any court within. the United States such faith and credit "as they have by law and usage in the courts of the States from which they are taken." Act of May 26, 1790, now sec. 905, Rev. Stat. They can have no greater or less or other effect in other courts than in those of their own State. Cheever v. Wilson, 9 Wall. 108; Board of Public Works v. Columbia College, 17 Wall. 521; Robertson v. Pickrell, 109 U. S. 608; Hancock National Bank v. Farnum, 176 U. S. 640. In ascertaining, on a writ of error to a state court, what credit is given to these judicial proceedings by the laws and usages of the State of New Jersey, we are limited to the evidence on that subject before the court whose judgment we are reviewing. Hanley v. Donoghue, 116 U. S. 1;

Chicago & Alton Railroad v. Wiggins Ferry Co., 119 U. S. 615, 622. The only evidence upon this point was in an affidavit of an attorney and counsellor at law of that State. The evidence is meagre and not entirely satisfactory and conclusive. It was, however, uncontradicted. It tended to show that the surrogate had jurisdiction to probate the will and issue letters testamentary and that the probate and issue of letters could not be impeached in a collateral proceeding; that the surrogate had "under the laws of New Jersey full and competent jurisdiction" to make the order limiting the time for creditors of the estate to bring in their demands, and the subsequent order that all who had neglected to do so "should be forever barred from their action therefor against the executors of said deceased;" that the acts of the surrogate cannot be impeached collaterally, and that the Orphans' Court had jurisdicon under the laws of New Jersey "to direct final distribution of the estate of said testator," and it cited four cases from the New Jersey reports, Coursen's Will, 3 Green's Ch. 408, Quidort's Adm'r v. Pergeaux, 18 N. J. Eq. 472, Ryno's Ex'r v. Ryno's Adm'r, 27 N. J. Eq. 522, and Straub's case, 49 N. J. Eq. 264. In relying upon evidence of this kind we are quite aware that we may not ascertain with the precision which might be desired the credit which the State of New Jersey attaches to these judicial proceedings. But it is all that we can have. We think that we may safely infer from it that the order of the surrogate barring all creditors who had failed to bring in the demand from any further claim against the executors was binding upon all. It was an order which he had "full and competent authority to make," and it was one of the acts which could not be impeached collaterally. We think also that the jurisdiction to direct a final distribution means a distribution which shall be final, so far at least as any person having a demand against the estate is concerned. If we have discerned correctly' the effect which New Jersey gives to these judicial proceedings, it is obvious that the assessment of this tax denies them full faith and credit in two respects: First, in seeking a part of an estate

which has been finally distributed to those who were entitled to it under the will; and, second, in fixing a personal responsibility for the tax upon the executors who had been conclusively exonerated from such a liability.

Up to this point it has been assumed that the New Jersey court had jurisdiction to probate the will and administer the estate, and what has been said upon the effect of the judicial proceedings has been based upon that assumption. When, however, full faith and credit is demanded for a judgment in the courts of other States, an inquiry into the jurisdiction is always permitted, and if it be shown that the proceedings relied upon were without the jurisdiction of the court, they need not be respected. Thompson v. Whitman, 18 Wall. 457; Thormann v. Frame, 176 U. S. 350, and cases cited.

The defendant in error, acting upon this well-settled rule, might have attacked the jurisdiction of the New Jersey courts, and thus brought forward for consideration many important questions which, in the view we take of the case, need not even be stated. But there was no attempt, except in argument here, to deny the right of the New Jersey court to act upon the paper writing purporting to dispose of the estate of Tilt, and by admitting it to probate to convert it into an operative will. It is true that, as a basis of assessing transfer taxes, it was proved that Tilt was a resident of New York at the time of his death, a fact which would be relevant to the question of jurisdiction. But that fact was not proved or used for the purpose of invalidating the proceedings taken in probating the will and administering the estate. On the contrary, the taxes were based upon the provisions of the instrument, which derived all its authenticity as a will and all its capacity to transmit property from the judicial proceedings in New Jersey. It appears conclusively from the action taken in the New York Surrogates' Court that there was no attempt to declare the New Jersey proceedings void because they were taken without jurisdiction. In the appraiser's report it is said that the deceased had left a will "which was duly admitted to probate in

the Surrogate's Court of the county of Morris, State of New Jersey, and that letters testamentary were issued by said Surrogate Court." The specific legacies and the disposition of the residue of the estate were then stated. The Surrogate, in assessing the taxes, assessed them specifically on the beneficiaries, giving their respective names and the values of the property they respectively took under the will. Two life estates and several remainders, created by the will, were valued appropriately and the taxes assessed accordingly. All this is utterly inconsistent with an attack upon the jurisdiction, and we need not consider whether it could have been made with

success.

It is quite obvious that what was done here was the assessment by one State of taxes upon transfers of personal property, taking effect under the laws of another State, entirely regardless of the situs of the property transferred. This suggests grave constitutional questions, which we cannot consider because they were not properly and seasonably raised in the court below.

For the foregoing reasons we think that the judgment below denied to the New Jersey proceedings the full faith and credit to which they were entitled by the Constitution and laws of the United States, and accordingly it is

Reversed.

MR. JUSTICE HARLAN dissents.