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those States, the Republic would have constituted little more than a league of States; it would not have constituted the Union which now exists."

So, in Ward v. Maryland, 12 Wall. 418, 430, the court, after referring to Corfield v. Coryell, above cited, and, speaking by Mr. Justice Clifford, stated that the right "to maintain actions in the courts of the State" was fundamental and was protected by the constitutional clause in question against state enactments that discriminated against citizens of other States.

Referring to the cases just cited, and to the constitutional clause in question, Mr. Justice Miller, speaking for the court in the Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36, 77, said: "Its sole purpose was to declare to the several States, that whatever those rights, as you grant or establish them to your own citizens, or as you limit or qualify, or impose restrictions on their exercise, the same, neither more nor less, shall be the measure of the rights of citizens of other States within your jurisdiction."

In Cole v. Cunningham, 133 U. S. 107, 114, the present Chief Justice, speaking for the court, said: "The intention of section 2 of Article IV was to confer on the citizens of the several States a general citizenship, and to communicate all the privileges and immunities which the citizens of the same State would be entitled to under the like circumstances, and this includes the right to institute actions."

In the more recent case of Blake v. McClung, 172 U. S. 239, 256, the court said: "We must not be understood as saying that a citizen of one State is entitled to enjoy in another State every privilege that may be given in the latter to its own citizens. There are privileges that may be accorded by a State to its own people in which citizens of other States may not participate except in conformity to such reasonable regulations as may be established by the State. For instance, a State cannot forbid citizens of other States from suing in its courts, that right being enjoyed by its own people; but it may require a nonresident, although a citizen of another State, to give bond for costs, although such bond be not required of a resident. Such

207 U.S. HARLAN, WHITE and MCKENNA, JJ., dissenting.

a regulation of the internal affairs of a State cannot reasonably be characterized as hostile to the fundamental rights of citizens of other States. The Constitution forbids only such legislation affecting citizens of the respective States as will substantially or practically put a citizen of one State in a condition of alienage when he is within or when he removes to another State, or when asserting in another State the rights that commonly appertain to those who are part of the political community known as the People of the United States, by and for whom the Government of the Union was ordained and established."

These cases, I think, require the reversal of the judgment of the Supreme Court upon the ground that it denies to the plaintiff a right secured by the Constitution of the United States. The statute of Ohio, we have seen, closes the doors of the courts of that State against the present plaintiff alone because her deceased husband was not at the time of his death a citizen of Ohio. Thus, every citizen of Ohio, when in another State, for whatever purpose, is accompanied by the assurance on the part of his State that its courts will be open for suit by his widow or representative if his death, while in another State, is caused by the negligence or default of another person or company. But that privilege is denied by the Ohio statute to the representative of citizens of other States meeting death under like circumstances. Indeed, if a citizen of Ohio should go into another State and while there willfully, or by some wrongful act, neglect or default on his part, cause the death of some one, although he might be liable to a suit for damages in the State where death occurred, yet if sued for damages in the courts of his own State, he need only plead in bar of the action in Ohio that the decedent was not, at the time of his death, a citizen of Ohio. Such, it seems to me, is the operation of the statute of Ohio as it is interpreted by the court below.

The Supreme Court of Ohio, it will be observed, does not base its judgment upon any common law of the State apart from its statutes. It says: "From a consideration of the statutes

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herein before referred to, and the former decisions of this court, we think it must now be held to be the recognized policy and established law of this State, that an action for wrongful death occurring in another State, will not be enforced in the courts of this State, except where the person killed was, at the time of his death, a citizen of Ohio." It places its judgment on its statutes and judicial decisions, which it regards as together indicating the policy and law of the State to be such as to preclude an action for damages, except where the deceased was a citizen of Ohio. That exception, upon whatever basis it may be rested, must fall before the Constitution of the United States and be treated as a nullity. The denial to the widow or representative of Chambers of the right to sue in Ohio upon the ground that he was not a citizen of Ohio when killed was the denial, in every essential sense, of a fundamental privilege belonging to him under the Constitution in virtue of his being a citizen of one of the States of the Union-the right to sue and defend in the courts of justice, which right this court concedes to be "one of the highest and most essential privileges of citizenship." While in life Chambers enjoyed the right-and it was a most valuable right—of such protection as came from the rule established in Pennsylvania, that, in case of his death in consequence of the negligence of others, the wrong done to the deceased in his lifetime could be remedied by means of suit brought in the name and for the benefit of his widow or personal representative. But Ohio takes this right of protection from him; for, the Ohio court would have taken cognizance of this action if the decedent Chambers had been, when killed, a citizen of Ohio, while it denies relief to his widow, and puts her out of court solely because her husband was, when killed, a citizen of another State. It thus accords to the Ohio widow of a deceased Ohio citizen a privilege which it withholds from the Pennsylvania widow of a deceased Pennsylvania citizen. If the statutes of Ohio had excluded from the jurisdiction of the courts of that State all actions for damages on account of death a different question would be presented. But that is

207 U.S.

HARLAN, WHITE and MCKENNA, JJ., dissenting.

not what Ohio has assumed to do. As already shown, it allows suits for damages like the present one, where the death occurred in another State, provided the deceased was a citizen of Ohio, but prohibits them where he was a citizen of some other State. The final judgment in this case therefore denies a fundamental right inhering in citizenship, and protected by section 2 of Article IV of the Constitution. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land. But it would not be sunreme if any right given by it could be overridden either by state enactment or by judicial decision. In Higgins v. Central New Eng. &c. Railroad, 155 Massachusetts, 176, 180, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, after referring to transitory causes of action which did not exist at common law, but were created by the statute of another State and passed to the administrator of the deceased, said: "When an action is brought upon it here, the plaintiff is not met by any difficulty upon these points. Whether our courts will entertain it depends upon the general principles which are to be applied in determining the question whether actions founded upon the laws of other States shall be heard here. These principles require that, in case of other than penal actions, the foreign law, if not contrary to our public policy, or to abstract justice or pure morals, or calculated to injure the State or its citizens, shall be recognized and enforced here, if we have jurisdiction of all necessary parties, and if we can see that, consistently with our own forms of procedure and law of trials, we can do substantial justice between the parties." The statute of Pennsyvania which gave the plaintiff as widow of the deceased a right to sue for damages does not offend natural justice or good morals, nor is it calculated to injure the citizens of any State, not even those of Ohio, nor can it be said to offend any policy of that State which has been made applicable equally to its own citizens and citizens of other States. The case is plainly one in which Ohio attempts, in reference to certain kinds of actions that are maintainable in perhaps every State of the Union, including Ohio, to give to its own citizens privileges which it denies, under like circumstances,

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to citizens of other States. To a citizen of Ohio it says: "If you go into Pennsylvania, and are killed while there, in consequence of the negligence or default of some one, your widow may have access to the Ohio courts in a suit for damages, provided the wrongdoer can be reached in Ohio by service of process." But to the citizen of Pennsylvania it says: "If you come to your death in that State by reason of the negligence or default of some one, even if the wrongdoer be a citizen of Ohio, your widow shall not sue the Ohio wrongdoer in an Ohio court for damages because, and only because, you are a citizen of another State." This is an illegal discrimination against living citizens of other States, and the difficulty is not met by the suggestion that no discrimination is made against the widow of the deceased because of her citizenship in another State. The statute of Pennsylvania in question had in view the protection of persons, while alive, against negligence or default causing death. It must have had that object in view. I submit that no State can authorize its courts to deny or disregard the constitutional guaranty that the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States. With entire respect for the views of others, I am constrained to say that, in my opinion, so much of the local law, whether statutory or otherwise, as permits suits of this kind for damages, where the deceased was a citizen of Ohio, but forbids such suits where the deceased was not a citizen of Ohio, is unconstitutional. The judgment under review should be reversed.