Melville Fuller

“ 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 ”

“ It certainly will not be contended that judgment creditors of other states shall be put upon a better footing in regard to a state's right to legislate in this particular than the judgment creditors of the state in which the judgment was obtained. And if this right so exists, may it not be exercised by a state's restraining the remedy upon the judgment of another state, leaving those of its own courts unaffected by a statute of limitations, but subject to the common-law presumption of payment after the lapse of 20 years? ”

“ Prescription is a thing of policy, growing out of the experience of its necessity; and the time after which suits or actions shall be barred has been, from a remote antiquity, fixed by every nation in virtue of that sovereignty by which it exercises its legislation for all persons and property within its jurisdiction. ”