Bushrod Washington

“ It belongs to the sovereign power of every State, to prescribe the rules by which real property within its territory shall be transferred. No Courts but those of Virginia, or Ohio, could have jurisdiction of this will, because the probate must depend upon the legality of the execution, and that again must depend upon the lex loci. The probate of a Court of competent jurisdiction is, by the local law, conclusive evidence of the due execution of a will of real as well as personal estate. ”

“ The question which the plea of Thompson's heirs, and the answer of Winship's heirs, presents, is, whether the general decree of dismission of the bill in equity, filed by the present plaintiffs in the Federal District Court of Ohio, against the ancestor of these defendants, under whom they respectively claim title, is a bar of the remedy which is sought to be enforced by the present suit? ”

“ If the will be proved, and recorded, in another State, according to the laws of that State, an authenticated copy of the will may be offered for probate in the Court of the county where the land lies, without proof by the witnesses; but it is liable to be contested by the heir at law, as the original might have been.
It is an acknowledged principle of law, that the title and disposition of real property is exclusively subject to the laws of the country where it is situated, which can alone prescribe the mode by which a title to it can pass from one person to another. ”