circumstances under which property is held, and the
condition, capacity, and state, of all persons therein; and, also, the
remedy and modes of administering justice. And it is equally true,
that no State or nation can affect or bind property out of its
territory, or persons not residing within it. No State, therefore, can
enact laws to operate beyond its own dominions, and, if it attempts to
do so, it may be lawfully refused obedience. Such laws can have no
inherent authority extra-territorially. This is the necessary result
of the independence of distinct and separate sovereignties.

Now, it follows from these principles, that whatever force or effect
the laws of one State or nation may have in the territories of
another, must depend solely upon the laws and municipal regulations of
the latter, upon its own jurisprudence and polity, and upon its own
express or tacit consent.

Judge Story observes, in his Conflict of Laws, (p. 24,) "that a State
may prohibit the operation of all foreign laws, and the rights growing
out of them, within its territories." "And that when its code speaks
positively on the subject, it must be obeyed by all persons who are
within reach of its sovereignty; when its customary unwritten or
common law speaks directly on the subject, it is equally to be
obeyed."

Nations, from convenience and comity, and from mutual interest, and a
sort of moral necessity to do justice, recognise 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; and is never
bound, even upon the ground of comity, to recognise them, if
prejudicial to her own interests. The recognition is purely from
comity, and not from any absolute or paramount obligation.

Judge Story again observes, (398,) "that the true foundation and
extent of the obligation of the laws of one nation within another is
the voluntary consent of the latter, and is inadmissible when they are
contrary to its known interests." And he adds, "in the silence of any
positive rule affirming or denying or restraining the operation of the
foreign laws, courts of justice presume the tacit adoption of them by
their own Government, unless they are repugnant to its policy or
prejudicial to its interests." (See also 2 Kent Com., p. 457; 13
Peters, 519, 589.)

These principles fully establish, that it belongs to the s