Opinion of the Court,

also of any Territory or of any country subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, authenticated as therein prescribed, "shall have such faith and credit given to them, in every court within the United States, as they have by law or usage in the courts of the State from which they are taken;" that is to say, such faith and credit as they are entitled to in the courts of the State, Territory, or other country subject to the jurisdiction of the United States from which they are taken.

In Dupasseur v. Rochereau, 21 Wall. 130, 135, Mr. Justice Bradley, speaking for the court, said: "The only effect that can be justly claimed for a judgment in the Circuit Court of the United States, is such as would belong to judgments of the state courts rendered under similar circumstances ;" and "it is apparent, therefore, that no higher sanctity or effect can be claimed for the judgment of the Circuit Court of the United States rendered in such a case under such circumstances than is due to the judgments of the state courts in a like case and under similar circumstances." The same views were expressed by the court through Mr. Justice Matthews in Embry v. Palmer, 107 U. S. 3, 7, 9, 10; Crescent Live Stock Co. v. Butchers' Union, 120 U. S. 141, 146, 147. It cannot be doubted that, in respect of their effect under section 905, the judgments and decrees of the Circuit Courts of the United States are entitled to the same sanctity and effect in the courts of each State, when those courts are held within the State, as their own judgments, nothing more, but nothing less.

So far as that section relates to the effect to be given to the judicial proceedings of the States, it is founded on article IV, section 1, of the Constitution; but the power to prescribe what effect shall be given to the judicial proceedings of the courts of the United States is conferred by other provisions of the Constitution, such as those which declare the extent of the judicial power of the United States; which authorize all legislation necessary and proper for executing the powers vested by the Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof; and which declare the supremacy of the power of the national government within the limits of the Constitution.

Opinion of the Court.

The judicial power of the United States is vested in one Supreme Court and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. Congress has accordingly established Circuit Courts; the judicial power vested in them extends to controversies between citizens of different States; and the citizens of each State are entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States.

It is argued that this legislation, if given the construction contended for, would involve the assertion of power over the Federal courts, and by discrimination impair their jurisdiction and authority; and also in effect deprive the citizens of other States of privileges secured to them by the supreme law of the land; that as long as a limitation prescribed by state law is equally applicable to all judgments rendered within or without a State, there is no discrimination against judgments rendered in the Federal courts; but when there is a discrimination between judgments rendered in the courts of a State and those rendered in the Federal courts held in the same State, it is an attack upon the judicial authority of the United States, and in limitation of the right of citizens to invoke that jurisdiction. Hence, that this statute of 1858, if it have the scope insisted on, cannot apply as a rule of decision in this case under section 721, because the Constitution of the United States otherwise requires; that that section does not concede to the States the right to make laws that in any way discriminate against the judgments of the courts of the United States in a particular State, but simply prescribes the rule that whatever the state laws are in respect of the conduct and course of the judgments of its own courts should be the guide within constitutional limits for the action of courts of the United States in proceedings in respect of the judgments of those courts in that State; and that in that view the first paragraph of section 15, providing that actions could be brought within twenty years upon a judgment or decree of any court of record of Wisconsin, applied, while the first paragraph of section 16 did not apply except in reference to judgments of any court of the United States other than in the State of Wisconsin.

Massingill v. Downs, 7 How. 760, 766, is cited by plaintiff,

Opinion of the Court.

which, however, did not involve the limitation of actions. There a lien upon real estate acquired by virtue of a judgment recovered in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of Mississippi in 1839, when, by a law of the State, it was a valid lien, was held not to be lost by non-compliance with a subsequent statute of the State, passed in 1841, making it a condition of the validity of liens under judgments theretofore rendered that the judgments should be recorded within four months of the passage of the statute, in the office of the Circuit Court of the county in which the land was. And this court said: "In those States where the judgment or the execution of a state court creates a lien only within the county in which the judgment is entered, it has not been doubted that a similar proceeding in the Circuit Court of the United States would create a lien to the extent of its jurisdiction. This has been the practical construction of the power of the courts of the United States, whether the lien was held to be created by the issuing of process or by express statute. Any other construction would materially affect, and in some degree subvert, the judicial power of the Union. It would place suitors in the state courts in a much better condition than in the Federal courts." Cooke v. Avery, 147 U. S. 375, 387.

But we do not understand defendant's counsel to contend that a State has power to regulate or vary the proceedings or judgments of the United States courts as such, or that Congress can either delegate its own powers or enlarge those of a State, but that as a mere question of power a State may prescribe limitations upon judgments without regard to the court pronouncing them; that a judgment is simply record evidence of the debt or liability as between the parties; that there is no constitutional prohibition upon the power to limit actions thereon, and that while actions on judgments in the courts of the United States cannot be controlled by the exercise of this power, that result is reached under section 721, which makes the law of the State in that regard a rule of decision.

As a general rule this court follows the decisions of the highest court of a State in the construction of the statutes of

Opinion of the Court.

the State, unless they conflict with or impair the efficacy of some provision of the Constitution of the United States or of an act of Congress; but we think we are at liberty, and perhaps required, under the circumstances existing here, to interpret this statute for ourselves.

In June, 1870, the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Wisconsin, in the case of Cole v. Weil, Judge Drummond and District Judge Miller holding the court, sustained a demurrer to the plea of the ten years' limitation in bar of an action upon a judgment recovered in the District Court of the United States for the District of Wisconsin. In January, 1885, the Circuit Court held otherwise in the case before us and found for the defendant on the defence now under consideration, and, judgment having been rendered, the cause was brought on error to this court, the record being filed October 9, 1885. On December 10, 1888, that judgment was reversed upon a question of jurisdiction and the cause remanded. 128 U. S. 586. While that writ of error was pending in this court, and in August, 1886, an action was brought in one of the state Circuit Courts against the town of Waterloo, upon, among other causes of action, a judgment obtained in the United States Circuit Court for the District of Wisconsin. To this the ten-year bar was pleaded and sustained, and the case carried to the state Supreme Court, which, September 20, 1887, decided that the judgment came within the words of subdivision one of section sixteen, c. 138, Rev. Stats. 1858, and that the action thereon was barred by the lapse of ten years. Waterman v. Waterloo, 69 Wisconsin, 260.

In Ballin v. Loeb, 78 Wisconsin, 404, decided December 16, 1890, plaintiffs obtained judgment against a corporation in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, and execution was issued thereon and returned no property found, whereupon they filed a bill in the state court under a state statute in that behalf for the sequestration of the property of the corporation and to have a receiver appointed in order to a fair and equal division of the assets of the corporation among all its creditors. The question was. raised whether they, having obtained their judgment in the

Opinion of the Court.

Circuit Court of the United States, could avail themselves of the statutory remedy.

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The Supreme Court held that they could, and said: "It is contended by the learned counsel of the appellant that the return of an execution on a judgment in a Federal court will not sustain this action, and that such a judgment is that of a foreign court or the same as one of a sister State. There may have been late decisions to such effect, but the current of authorities, as well as the laws of the United States and of this State, establish the rule that the judgments of the United States courts of the Wisconsin districts are to be treated as domestic judgments of a superior court of this State." The court referred to various acts of Congress under which proceedings and judgments in Federal courts are assimilated to those of state courts, and to the fact that in state courts they are treated in all respects as to remedies like domestic judgments in the States in which they were rendered;" and after citing to the point that United States courts are not foreign within the State where they are held, Turrell v. Warren, 25 Minnesota, 9; Wandling v. Straw, 25 W. Va. 692, 705; Thomson v. Lee County, 22 Iowa, 206; St. Albans v. Bush, 4 Vermont, 58; Barney v. Patterson's Lessee, 6 Har. & Johns. 182; McCauley v. Hargroves, 48 Georgia, 50; Williams v. Wilkes, 14 Penn. St. 228; Embry v. Palmer, 107 U. S. 3, thus concluded: "We are disposed to adopt this rule, so well established, as against any adverse decisions, as it appears more in the spirit of comity and reasonable. In this proceeding the judgment of the plaintiff will have the same effect as if rendered by any superior court of this State, because it was rendered in a Wisconsin district of a United States court."

It seems to us that if the Supreme Court had arrived at this conclusion at the time Waterman v. Waterloo was under consideration, a different result might have been reached. It is true that in that case the Supreme Court said: "That the Circuit Courts of the United States are properly called domestic courts of the States wherein they are held could not possibly change the meaning of this language, 'or of any