tions, from convenience and comity, * * *, recognizes
[sic] and administer the laws of other countries. But, of the nature,
extent, and utility, of them, respecting property, or the state and
condition of persons within her territories, each nation judges for
itself; * * *" He added that it was the same with the States of the
Union in relation to another. It followed that even though Dred had
become a free man in consequence of his having resided in the "free"
State of Illinois, he had nevertheless upon his return to Missouri,
which had the same power as Illinois to determine its local policy
respecting rights acquired extraterritorially, reverted to servitude
under the laws and judicial decisions of that State.[95]

DEVELOPMENT OF THE MODERN RULE

In a case decided in 1887, however, the Court remarked: "Without doubt
the constitutional requirement, Art. IV, Sec. I, that 'full faith and
credit shall be given in each State to the public acts, records, and
judicial proceedings of every other State,' implies that the public acts
of every State shall be given the same effect by the courts of another
State that they have by law and usage at home."[96] And this
proposition was later held to extend to State constitutional
provisions.[97] More recently this doctrine has been stated in a very
mitigated form, the Court saying that where statute or policy of the
forum State is set up as a defense to a suit brought under the statute
of another State or territory, or where a foreign statute is set up as a
defense to a suit or proceedings under a local statute, the conflict is
to be resolved, not by giving automatic effect to the full faith and
credit clause and thus compelling courts of each State to subordinate
its own statutes to those of others, but by appraising the governmental
interest of each jurisdiction and deciding accordingly.[98] Obviously
this doctrine endows the Court with something akin to an arbitral
function in the decision of cases to which it is applied.

TRANSITORY ACTIONS: DEATH STATUTES

The initial effort in this direction was made in connection with
transitory actions based on statute. Earlier, such actions had rested
upon the common law, which was fairly uniform throughout the States, so
that there was usually little discrepancy between the law under which
the plaintiff from another jurisdiction brought his action (_lex loci_)
and the law under which the defendant responded (_lex fori_). In the
late