nation of
what priority, if any, their claim should have.[24] Moreover, there is
no apparent reason why Congress, acting on the implications of
Marshall's words in Hampton _v._ McConnell, should not clothe extrastate
judgments of any particular type with the full status of domestic
judgments of the same type in the several States.[25]

The Jurisdictional Prerequisite

The second great class of cases to arise under the full faith and credit
clause comprises those raising the question whether a judgment for which
extrastate operation was being sought, either as a basis of an action or
as a defense in one, has been rendered with jurisdiction. Records and
proceedings of courts wanting jurisdiction are not entitled to
credit.[26] The jurisdictional question arises both in connection with
judgments _in personam_ against nonresident defendants upon whom it is
alleged personal service was not obtained in the State of origin of the
judgment, and in relation to judgments _in rem_ against property or a
status alleged not to have been within the jurisdiction of the Court
which handed down the original decree.[27]

JUDGMENTS _IN PERSONAM_

The pioneer case is that of D'Arcy _v._ Ketchum,[28] decided in 1850.
The question presented was whether a judgment rendered by a New York
court under a statute which provided that, when joint debtors were sued
and one of them was brought into court on a process, a judgment in favor
of the plaintiff would entitle him to execute against all, and so must
be accorded full faith and credit in Louisiana when offered as the basis
of an action in debt against a resident of that State who had not been
served by process in the New York action. Pressed with the argument that
by "the immutable principles of justice" no man's rights should be
impaired without his being given an opportunity to defend them, the
Court ruled that, interpreted in the light of the principles of
"international law and comity" as they existed in 1790, the act of
Congress of that year did not reach the case.[29] The truth is that the
decision virtually amended the act, for had the Louisiana defendant
ventured to New York, he could, as the Constitution of the United States
then stood, have been subjected to the judgment of the same extent as
the New York defendant who had been personally served. Subsequently,
this disparity between the operation of a personal judgment in the home
State and a sister State has been eliminated, th