56. Interstate Obligations.

The first group of state duties are those which they owe to one another as sisters and equals. The constitution specifies that "full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state." This means, not that state authorities are bound to accept the acts of a neighbor as binding across the border, but simply that, if a decision has been made in Indiana, the courts of Illinois are bound to accept the fact of the decision from an authenticated copy of the record; but the jurisdiction of the Indiana court may still be questioned. The purpose is that, when a matter has been examined and the facts decided by a competent tribunal, it shall not be necessary to retry it in every other state.

Nevertheless, two practical difficulties constantly arise: in the first place, the same man or estate or corporation may have property in several states, in each of which separate suits must be brought, perhaps on different grounds, in order to establish the title; in the second place, no court is bound to execute the law of another state in the Union. The United States courts often have jurisdiction in cases of complicated property, especially those involving railroad and other corporations doing business in several states.

Another obligation is the return of fugitives. While slavery lasted, the principle included fugitive slaves; and by two successive acts, of 1793 and 1850, the United States government prescribed a method of capture independent of the state governments. The captures were unpopular in many Northern states, and led to forcible resistance to the authority of the United States government, and to the so-called "Personal Liberty Bills" (1840-1861), which impeded the operation of the national statute. On adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment, the fugitive-slave clause of the constitution became obsolete.

Another obligation is the extradition of fugitive criminals;

but here the states must act. The usual method, in case a criminal takes refuge in another state, is to have him arrested and held for a few days, until the governor of the state from which he came may send a direct "requisition" to the governor of the state in which he is found, to authorize his return; when such a document is granted, the police authorities allow the man to be carried beyond the state boundary. Requisitions are often refused, on the ground that the crime charged is unknown to the statutes of the refuge state, and sometimes because of personal hostility between governors. The system is one necessary for the protection of the community; but the Supreme Court has decided that there is no way to compel a governor to do his duty, if he is indisposed.

Another clause of the constitution provides that "the citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states." The purpose is to prevent states from interfering with citizens of other states who want to move about or to settle within their limits, whether by laying special taxes on them, or by excluding them from carrying on a lawful calling, or by withdrawing the right to use the courts of the state. Any citizen of the United States has this right to move about the whole Union, and to dwell in every state on the same terms as its own citizens.

Another obligation (not expressed in the constitution) is comity, that is, the duty of the states to act toward their sister states with courtesy, consideration, and good humor. For instance, inveigling a person charged with crime over the border of a state and then arresting him, is not exactly a crime, but it is contrary to pleasant relations between neighbors.

How far is one state obliged to take notice of the laws of another state? This is a branch of jurisprudence known in. legal literature as "conflict of laws," or as "private international law." Our courts often take note of laws or decisions in other states or in foreign countries. For instance, suppose a Frenchman dies in New York leaving Parisian real estate to his

son in Georgia; the Georgia courts cannot avoid taking note of the French laws of descent, and may also apply the New York law.

57. Duties in the Union, and State Sovereignty. For the prosperity of the Union, the states must carefully observe their obligations to the Union.

First of all, they are

bound to keep up the forms of the United States government,

to carry out the federal laws by erecting districts for members of Congress and by electing senators; and all state officers, executive, judicial, and members of state legislatures, are constitutionally bound to take oath to support the constitution of the United States and to maintain a republican government.

The states are under obligation not to contravene the federal constitution by clauses in their state constitutions; yet from 1865, when the federal constitution first prohibited slavery, till the constitutional revision of 1890, the Kentucky constitution retained a clause to the effect that "the right of the owner of a slave to such slave, and its increase, is the same, and as inviolable as the right of the owner of any property whatever "; but it was simply a dead letter. The states are also bound not to pass laws which in any way interfere with the prerogatives of the federal government: they must not tax federal property, directly or indirectly; they may not even directly tax federal banks or the incomes of federal officials. When this principle is disregarded, it often leads to conflicts of authority between state and federal officers, and even between state and federal courts, as in Ohio in 1824. Usually a legal line between the two sets of authorities is drawn by a test case decided by the federal Supreme Court.

The states are formally bound not to enter into compacts with one another, or with a foreign power, without the consent of Congress, or into any treaty, alliance, or confederation. This article is intended to prevent the formation of separate internal leagues and agreements, and applies to such organizations as the Confederate States of America, formed in 1861.

The most important duty of the state is to remain in the Union. Long before the Civil War, the so-called "doctrine of state rights" was worked out to its logical consequence, that the sovereign rights of the state have never been surrendered, and may legally be protected by forcible withdrawal from the Union. The basis of state rights and secession is the same, -namely, the assumption that the states are and always have been sovereign, independent, and free to dissolve a voluntary union.

To settle a question of that nature on theoretical ground is difficult; but in practice no state in the Union has ever been sovereign, except Texas. No one of the thirteen original states ever made a treaty for itself, or a foreign war on its own account; throughout the Revolution all the states acknowledged a responsibility for the common national funded debt and paper money; they all united in making a national army and navy, and in appointing national officers to command; during the weak Confederation the states admitted the sole authority of Congress to negotiate treaties, to coin money, and to do many other important acts. Even during the secession era of 18611865, no one of the seceding states ever really acted independently at the earliest moment they went into a confederation, which directed their joint affairs during the war. In the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States in passing on the Reconstruction acts, no one of the states was ever outside the territory or jurisdiction of the federal government after admission within the Union. Chief Justice Chase called it "an indestructible union, composed of indestructible states."

Practically, the result of the Civil War was to make it plain that a large proportion of the American people disbelieved the doctrine of state sovereignty, and that any body of states which in the future may attempt to assert that doctrine by actual secession will have to fight the rest of the states. Henceforth nobody can for a moment suppose that there can be such a thing as peaceful secession. Yet the states do retain a large

number of absolute and undoubted rights. Consolidation of the Union would be almost as great a misfortune as disunion.

58. Functions of State Government.

Although by tradition and by the Tenth Amendment to the constitution the states possess the powers not delegated to the federal government, the total body of such powers is in action much restricted. The states are by the federal constitution directly prohibited from the exercise of some specified powers: thus no state can lay tonnage duties, or keep troops or ships of war; no state can establish slavery, or deprive a citizen of the United States of citizenship, or deny the suffrage on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Other powers are indirectly prohibited: for instance, no state can coin money, because that would be inconsistent with the coinage of money by the United States; no state can exercise jurisdiction over the District of Columbia, because the United States has exclusive jurisdiction there. There is a small field in which neither the nation nor the state can legislate: neither power may lay export duties, or give preference to the ports of one state over another, grant titles of nobility, or pass a bill of attainder or an ex post facto law, or deprive a person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or abridge the constitutionallyprotected privileges or immunities of citizens.

The area of excluded powers is very much enlarged by the particular provisions of state constitutions, especially by the bills of rights and the restrictions on legislation; for example, many constitutions withhold the right to grant special charters to corporations, or to give public aid to railroads. The local governments are still more tied up by withdrawals of powers nominally within their field. The result is that in America the possible functions of government are smaller than those exercisable by European nations, and smaller than they were a century ago. Nevertheless, there is still an immense field for legislation : thousands of new statutes are adopted every year, and thou