The cases of DeLima vs. Bidwell and Downes vs. Bidwell, taken in connection fix the status of the territories and colonies of the United States as follows:

1st. They are not foreign territory; 2nd, they are not a part of the United States; 3rd, they can only be described as territory belonging to the United States.

In the case of Fourteen Diamond Rings, Emil J. Pepke, Claimant, vs. United States,30 which was a case involving the constitutionality of the duties laid on goods imported into the United States from the Philippine Islands, under the general tariff law, the court later in the same year affirmed the decision in DeLima vs. Bidwell, and held that there was no distinction after the ratification of the treaty of peace between the United States and Spain on April 11, 1899, between the cases of Porto Rico and the Philippine Islands; and that the relations of the Philippine Islands toward the United States, was in no way affected by the resolution by (a majority not a two-thirds vote of) the United States senate on Feb. 14, 1899 stating, "That by the ratification of the treaty of peace with Spain it is not intended to incorporate the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands into citizenship with the United States, nor is it intended to permanently annex said Islands as an integral part of the Territory of the United States." 2, Or, because of the armed resistance of the native inhabitants, or of uncivilized tribes, in the Philippines, to the dominion of the United States."

In spite of the great difference of opinion as to the law on the question involved in these cases and in spite of the dissenting opinions in these cases, the majority * 183 U. S., 176.

decisions in both of the cases of DeLima vs. Bidwell and Downes vs. Bidwell, are supported by the unbroken line of decisions of the Supreme Court since the adoption of the Constitution and by the position of the executive department on all occasions for the past century. All that stands opposed to these decisions (outside of the dissenting opinions in these cases themselves) is certain dicta in Blake vs. Loughborough and Fleming vs. Page, and the action of the executive department in the case of Louisiana.

SECTION 107. THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

The power of the United States government over the district of Columbia is granted by the seventeenth clause of the section of the Constitution and has been treated of in Chapter V.

CHAPTER X.

INTERSTATE RELATIONS.

SECTION 108. PURPOSE AND SCOPE OF THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION.

The main purpose of the United States Constitution was the establishment of the Federal Government, and the regulation of the relations between this new central government and the governments of the States. A small portion, however, of the Constitution, is concerned with the mutual relations of the States. The provisions of this character are mainly taken from the Articles of Confederation and are contained in the fourth article of the Constitution. Except for the provisions contained in the United States Constitution, the States in their relations to one another are in the position of foreign countries. The laws of one State are foreign laws in another State, and the same principles of Private International Law apply, in the main between two States of this Union as between two foreign countries.'

SECTION 109. STATE ACTS, RECORDS AND JUDICIAL PROCEEDINGS.

"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

1 Minor's Conflict of Laws, Section 8.

and proceedings, shall be proved, and the effect thereof." 2

The effect of this provision is to give such acts, records and proceedings, the same force in any State that they have in their own State. Chief Justice Marshall said, on this point, in Hampton vs. McConnell, "The doctrine meant that the judgment of a State Court should have the same effect, credit, and validity in every other Court in the United States, which it had in the State where it was pronounced, and that whatever pleas would be good to a suit therein in such State, and none others, could be pleaded in any other Court in the United States." In Harding vs. Harding, a very recent case, the Supreme Court said: "That when a decree rendered in one State is entitled to protection under this clause, it is entitled to have full force given to it in every other State, and not merely some force." The effect of a judgment rendered in one State depends upon the laws of that State, and these must, therefore, be alleged and proved in the Courts of another State, as the Courts of one State do not take judicial notice of the laws of another State, but such laws must be proved as facts. The registered public debt of one State, exempt from taxation by the debtor State, is taxable by another State when owned by a resident of the latter State. No State can legislate except with reference to its own jurisdiction."

A judgment rendered in one State does not carry with it into another State the efficacy of a judgment upon property or persons to be enforced by execution.