From the foregoing it clearly appears that in all cases in which suit is brought in one State upon a judgment rendered in another State, the court in which the suit is brought may examine whether the tribunal in which the judgment sued upon was rendered had jurisdiction to render a personal judgment. In Fauntleroy v. Lum16 the interesting question was raised whether a court in which suit is brought upon a judgment obtained in another State may examine into the original facts upon which that judgment was based, and refuse to give full faith and credit to the judgment if it be found that these facts were such as would not have created a legal claim under the law of the State in which enforcement of the judgment thereupon is being sought-. In this case the plaintiff, a citizen of Mississippi, obtained in Missouri a judgment against another citizen of Mississippi upon whom personal service had been obtained while he was temporarily in Missouri, in a suit brought upon a contract in cotton futures entered into in Mississippi in which State such futures were prohibited by law. The case finally reaching the federal Supreme Court, that tribunal held that, the Missouri court having had jurisdiction to render a personal judgment against the defendant, the full faith and credit clause obligated the courts of Mississippi to give to the judgment full force and credit. The court admitted that in the opinion in Wisconsin v. Pelican Insurance Co.17 language was used which might imply a right in a court to examine as to the original basis of the foreign judgment sued upon, but these words were declared obiter, and the doctrine of that case limited to the precise point decided.

14 30 Sup. Ct. Rep. 3.

15 16 Pet. 25; 10 L. ed 873.

16 210 U. S. 230; 28 Sup. Ct. Rep. 641; 52 L. ed. 1039.

In a dissenting opinion in Fauntleroy v. Lum, concurred in by four justices, it was argued that in Wisconsin v. Pelican Insurance Co. the court had held that the full faith and credit clause did not preclude an examination into the basis of the foreign judgment, and rightfully so, inasmuch as at the time of the adoption of the Constitution the rules of comity universally prevailing did not require a sovereignty to give effect to a judgment of another sovereignty when to do so would be to enforce a contract illegal and prohibited by the local law, when both the contract and all the acts done in pursuance thereof had taken place in the State where enforcement of the judgment was sought.

In this dissent reliance is also placed on Anglo-American Provision Co. v. Davis Provision Co.18 in which it was held that a judgment rendered in Illinois against one corporation in favor of another, both corporations being foreign to!New York, was not enforceable in the courts of new York, because the statutes of that State did not give the court jurisdiction over such an action as that in which the enforcement was sought The Supreme Court say: "The Constitution does not require the State of New York to give jurisdiction to the [state] Supreme Court against its will. If the plaintiff can find a court into which it has a right to come, then the effect of the judgment is fixed by the Constitution and the act in pursuance of it which Congress has passed. But the Constitution does not require the 'state to provide such a court. If the State does provide a court to which its citizens may resort in a certain class of cases, it may be that citizens of other States of the Union also would have a right to resort to it in cases of the same class. But that right even when the suit was upon a judgment of another State would not rest on the first section of article IV, . . . but would depend on the second section entitling the citizens of each State to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States."

17 127 U. S. 265; 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1370; 32 L. ed. 239. 18 191 U. S. 373; 24 Sup. Ct. Rep. 92; 48 L. ed. 225.

It has been held that the full .faith and credit clause does not operate to give effect in another -State to a state statute exempting from taxation the evidence of the state debt so as to defeat the collection of a tax levied by that other State upon portions of the debt held by persons there residing. This was decided by Bonaparte v. Tax Court,19 the court saying: "It is insisted . . . that the immunity asked for arises from Article IV, Section 1, of the Constitution. . . . We are unable to give-such an effect to this provision. No State can legislate except with reference to its own jurisdiction. One State cannot exempt property from taxation in another. Each State is independent of all the others in this particular. . . . The debt was registered, but that did not prevent it from following the person of its owner. The debt still remained a chose in action, with all the incidents which pertain to that species of property. It was 'movable' like other debts, and had none of the attributes of 'immovability.' The owner may be compelled to go to the debtor State to get what is owing to him, but that does not affect his citizenship or his domicile. The debtor State is in no respect his sovereign, neither has it any of the attributes of sovereignty as to the debt it owes, except such as belong to it as a debtor. All the obligations which rest on the holder of the debt as a resident of the State in which he dwells, still remain, and as a member of society he must contribute his just share toward supporting the government whose protection he claims and to whose control he has submitted himself."

19 104 U. S. 592; 26 L. ed. 845.