This case is here to review judgments of the Supreme Court of North Carolina, affirming convictions for bigamous cohabitation, assailed on the ground that full faith and credit, as required by the Constitution of the United States, was not accorded divorces decreed by one of the courts of Nevada. Williams v. North Carolina, 317 U.S. 287, 63 S.Ct. 207, 87 L.Ed. 279, 143 A.L.R. 1273, decided an earlier aspect of the controversy. It was there held that a divorce granted by Nevada, on a finding that one spouse was domiciled in Nevada, must be respected in North Carolina, where Nevada's finding of domicil was not questioned though the other spouse had neither appeared nor been served with process in Nevada and though recognition of such a divorce offended the policy of North Carolina. The record then before us did not present the question whether North Carolina had the power 'to refuse full faith and credit to Nevada divorce decrees because, contrary to the findings of the Nevada court, North Carolina finds that no bona fide domicil was acquired in Nevada.' Williams v. North Carolina, supra, 317 U.S. at page 302, 63 S.Ct. at page 215, 87 L.Ed. 279, 143 A.L.R. 1273. This is the precise issue which has emerged after retrial of the cause following our reversal. Its obvious importance brought the case here. 322 U.S. 725, 64 S.Ct. 1286, 88 L.Ed. 1562.
The implications of the Full Faith and Credit Clause, Article IV, Section 1 of the Constitution, first received the sharp analysis of this Court in Thompson v. Whitman, 18 Wall. 457, 21 L.Ed. 897. Theretofore, uncritical notions about the scope of that Clause had been expressed in the early case of Mills v. Duryee, 7 Cranch 481, 3 L.Ed. 411. The 'doctrine' of that case, as restated in another early case, was that 'the judgment of a state court should have the same credit, validity, and effect in every other court in the United States, which it had in the state where it was pronounced.' Hampton v. McConnel, 3 Wheat. 234, 235, 4 L.Ed. 378. This utterance, when put to the test, as it was in Thompson v. Whitman, supra, was found to be too loose. Thompson v. Whitman made it clear that the doctrine of Mills v. Duryee comes into operation only when, in the language of Kent, 'the jurisdiction of the court in another state is not impeached, either as to the subject matter or the person.' Only then is 'the record of the judgment * * * entitled to full faith and credit.' 1 Kent, Commentaries (2d Ed., 1832) *261 n.b. The essence of the matter was thus put in what Thompson v. Whitman adopted from Story: "The Constitution did not mean to confer (upo the States) a new power or jurisdiction, but simply to regulate the effect of the acknowledged jurisdiction over persons and things within their territory." 18 Wall. 457, 462, 21 L.Ed. 897. In short, the Full Faith and Credit Clause puts the Constitution behind a judgment instead of the too fluid, ill-defined concept of 'comity.'
But the Clause does not make a sister-State judgment a judgment in another State. The proposal to do so was rejected by the Philadelphia Convention. 2 Farrand, The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, 447, 448. 'To give it the force of a judgment in another state, it must be made a judgment there.' McElmoyle v. Cohen, 13 Pet. 312, 325, 10 L.Ed. 177. It can be made a judgment there only if the court purporting to render the original judgment had power to render such a judgment. A judgment in one States is conclusive upon the merits in every other State, but only if the court of the first State had power to pass on the merits-had jurisdiction, that is, to render the judgment.
'It is too late now to deny the right collaterally to impeach a decree of divorce made in another state, by proof that the court had no jurisdiction, even when the record purports to show jurisdiction * * *.' It was 'too late' more than forty years ago. German Savings & Loan Society v. Dormitzer, 192 U.S. 125, 128, 24 S.Ct. 221, 222, 48 L.Ed. 373.