Horace Gray

“ Congress, in the execution of the power conferred upon it by the constitution, having prescribed the mode of attestation of records of the courts of one state to entitle them to be proved in the courts of another state, and having enacted that records so authenticated shall have such faith and credit in every court within the United States as they have by law or usage in the state from which they are taken, a record of a judgment so authenticated doubtless proves itself without further evidence ”

“ But such is not the case in Maryland, where the court of appeals has not only affirmed the general rule that foreign laws are facts which, like other facts, must be proved before they can be received in evidence in courts of justice, but has held that the effect which a judgment rendered in another state has by the law of that state is a matter of fact, not to be judicially noticed without allegation and proof ”

“ Judgments recovered in one state of the Union, when proved in the courts of another, differ from judgments recovered in a foreign country in no other respect than that of not being re-examinable upon the merits, nor impeachable for fraud in obtaining them, if rendered by a court having jurisdiction of the cause and of the parties. ”