1

says: "With the penalties imposed by the law upon the usurers for their violating of it we have nothing to do. That is a matter between the State of Iowa and her citizens. We cannot punish her citizens for violating the laws to which they owe allegiance." We have treated fully of this title in connection with the subject of "Interest," to which the reader is referred. As a general conclusion, it may be stated that usury laws are, in their nature, penal, and as such are governed by the general rule that they have no extra territorial force and depend for their enforcement upon the forum of their creation. The courts of our States do not consider themselves the hired administrative and police agents of other States, and do not feel called upon to enforce their penal laws. They will enforce only the usury laws of their own State.2

122 Ill. 606, 609.

Ante, Chap. VIII. § 16.

CHAPTER XVI.

I.

EXTRA TERRITORIAL FORCE OF LAWS.

THE STATE LAWS HAVE NO EXTRA TERRITORIAL FORCE.

II. WHAT ACTS DONE UNDER THEM ABROAD ARE BINDING AT HOME.

I. THE STATE LAWS HAVE NO EXTRA TERRITORIAL FORCE IN THEMSELVES.

It is a principle universally recognized that laws have no extra territorial force. Their authority is limited to the territorial jurisdiction of the State or country that enacts them, so far as their right or power of enforcement or claim to obedience is concerned. 1

Natural or Universal Law. It is true, that there are certain principles of the law that by natural authority are common alike to all civilized countries, whether simply remaining so by the law of nature, or re-enacted or declared by statute, and in either case are but parcel of that same universal law; but these universal laws are no exception to the rule above stated, as to extra territorial force, for they, too, are confined to their own territorial limits. That is, the territorial limits of civilization, and as such become a part of the local law of all civilized States.

Comity of States. Whenever the municipal laws proper of one State are recognized and enforced in another, it is merely by comity of the latter, and upon the presumption that they are tacitly adopted as to matters of right, when not inimical to its

1 Story's Conf. of Laws, §§ 29, 38, 278; Blanchard v. Russell, 13 Mass. 1; Pennoyer v. Neff, 5 Otto, 714; Foster v. Glazener, 27 Ala. 396; Cleveland, Painsville & Ashtabula R. R. Co. v. Pennsylvania, 15 Wall. 300; S. C., 4 Am. R. W. R. 368; D'Arcy v.

Ketchum, 11 How. 165; Boswell v. Otis, 9 How. 336; Cooper v. Reynolds, 10 Wall. 308; Thompson v. Whitman, 18 Wall. 457; 1 Burges' Colonial Laws, 5; Westlake on Private International law, *132-*137.

own laws or policy, or interests of its people. But this comity is never extended to the laws of remedy, but has been generally regarded as extending to matters ex contractu, or such torts as are in violation of natural right regarded as such among civilized people. Natural right being that which has the same force among all men. 3

In the case of Foster v. Glazener the supreme court of Alabama in denying extra territorial force to the laws of a State, say: "It is a well settled principle of international law, that every attempt on the part of one nation or State by its legisla tion to grant jurisdiction to its courts over persons or property not within its territory, is regarded elsewhere as mere usurpation; and all judicial proceedings in virtue of it are held utterly void for every purpose." This principle is briefly illustrated in the ancient maxim, that "beyond his territorial boundaries it is not safe to obey a party commanding."

Thus it has been repeatedly ruled, that the courts do not take notice of the statutes of other States. To be respected there, they must be produced and proven. If this be not done, then the court will presume the law of the other State to be the same as the law of the former. But it does not follow that when produced and proven they will be certainly enforced; that depends on circumstances.

The Remedy. The law of the remedy of one State will not be enforced in another; nor will such other foreign law be enforced as may be repugnant to the policy or law of the State wherein the attempt is made to enforce them."

Execution on a judgment rendered in Indiana upon a note executed in another State is to be had according to the law of the State of Indiana as existing at date of the Indiana judgment. The law of Indiana at date of the note not being in force where the note was made does not enter into the contract. It is first connected therewith when the contract is merged in judgment.

II. WHAT ACTS DONE UNDER THEM ABROAD ARE BINDING AT HOME.

Although it is true, as a general principle, that the laws of a State can have no force outside of its territorial limits, yet this rule is not a universal one. For, though they have no force there, as a rule of action and local enforcement upon the citizens, property, or interests of such other country, yet they may authorize a State's own citizens there temporarily being, to do acts which, when evidenced and returned as by such law provided in its own territorial limits and local forums, shall be there binding as if done at such local forum or home. Such, for instance, as allowing by law the citizens of a State who are absent in government service in time of war to vote where for the time being they may be, in State and local elections occurring in virtue of law, at the places of their residence.

So, too, authority to do personal acts not pertaining to such foreign State or country, in such country, for and in reference to the State authorizing the same, and for and in behalf of its citizens, as, for instance, the taking and certifying of depositions of witnesses to be used as evidence in its own courts, may be conferred by law not only upon its own citizens abroad but upon citizens and officers of other States or foreign countries, and the same will be of equal obligation and validity, if so provided by law, when returned in the courts of the State authorizing the same, as they would be if taken in such State. So, also, of all manner of agencies and official authority of a State, authorized by it to be exercised abroad, as agencies of a fiscal character, and as official power conferred upon persons in any other State and citizens thereof, or upon a State's own citizens residing there, to take and certify the acknowledgment of deeds and other instruments to be used as evidence of right and of title within the State so authorizing the same, and of the validity thereof when duly taken and certified in conformity to the law providing therefor, there never has been any doubt.3 Not to make a parallel between cases arising in the several States of the American Union, and those occurring in governments clothed with all the

State v. Main, 16 Wis. 398, 422; Story's Conf. of Laws, § 22.

2 State v. Main, 16 Wis. 398, 422. 3 Ibid.

attributes of sovereignties, occurrences of the kind which are here the subject of discussion, are transpiring all the time under authority of different countries within the compass of their foreign diplomacy and consulate authority, the latter of which extends judicially in many cases to the trial of controversies between the fellow citizens or fellow subjects of such consul which arise within his consulate, and such trials take place, of course, within the jurisdictional or territorial limits of a foreign State, but they in no wise infringe the sovereignty of the country, and are binding only upon the parties thereto. A prominent example of this exercise of power in a foreign State, to be of validity and force only at home, is seen in the administering of the oath of office in Cuba to Mr. King, as Vice President of the United States, by a committee of Congress thereto authorized by a law of Congress for that purpose enacted, he being there sick and unable to return. But all such laws authorizing acts to be done in other States, are to be regarded more in the light of powers conferred than as embodying authority of a compulsory nature capable of there being enforced. Yet, in the forum of the place of their enactment they impart complete validity to such authorized foreign acts with all the force of law.