Full Faith and Credit in the Early Congress

SACHS_BOOK 8/19/2009 7:15 PM FULL FAITH AND CREDIT IN THE EARLY CONGRESS Stephen E. Sachs∗ INTRODUCTION................................................................................. 1203 I. FULL FAITH AND CREDIT IN CONTEXT.................................... 1209 A. Authentication and Evidence.............................................. 1209 B. Pleading and Substantive Effect......................................... 1213 II. THE CLAUSE AND ITS HISTORY................................................ 1216 A. “Full Faith and Credit” in Early Usage............................. 1217 B. The Articles of Confederation ............................................ 1221 1. Statutory Precedents...................................................... 1221 2. Text and Amendment.................................................... 1223 3. Judicial Interpretation................................................... 1224 C. The Constitutional Convention .......................................... 1227 1. Textual Changes ............................................................ 1227 2. Implications.................................................................... 1229 III. THE LEGISLATIVE HISTORY OF FULL FAITH AND CREDIT........................................................................................ 1231 A. The 1790 Act ........................................................................ 1231 1. Text and Origins............................................................ 1231 2. Interpretation ................................................................. 1233 B. The 1804 Act ........................................................................ 1240 1. Intervening Developments............................................ 1240 2. Congressional Action.................................................... 1246 C. The 1806–1808 Bills............................................................. 1251 1. Intervening Developments............................................ 1251 2. Congressional Action.................................................... 1253 a. Analysis.................................................................... 1254 b. History...................................................................... 1255 D. The 1812 Attempt................................................................. 1257 E. The 1813–1814 Bill .............................................................. 1259 1. Intervening Developments............................................ 1259 ∗ Yale Law School, J.D. 2007; Oxford University, BA (Hons) 2004; Harvard University, A.B. 2002. I am grateful to Will Baude, Jessica Bulman-Pozen, Josh Chafetz, Michael Collins, Morris L. Cohen, David Engdahl, Matthew Madden, David Pozen, Alan A. Sachs, Amanda Schwoerke, Ralph U. Whitten, Judge Stephen F. Williams, and Steven C. Wu for advice and comments on earlier drafts. 1201 SACHS_BOOK 8/19/2009 7:15 PM 1202 Virginia Law Review [Vol. 95:1201 2. Congressional Action.................................................... 1262 F. The 1817–1818 Bill .............................................................. 1266 1. Intervening Developments............................................ 1266 2. Congressional Action.................................................... 1267 a. The Nelson Bill........................................................ 1267 b. The Debates ............................................................. 1270 G. The 1820 Attempt................................................................. 1274 H. The 1822 Attempt................................................................. 1276 I. Summary .............................................................................. 1276 CONCLUSION..................................................................................... 1278 FTER more than 200 years, the Full Faith and Credit Clause A remains poorly understood. The Clause first issues a self- executing command (that “Full Faith and Credit shall be given”), and then empowers Congress to prescribe the manner of proof and the “Effect” of state records in other states. But if states must accord each other full faith and credit—and if nothing could be more than full—then what “Effect” could Congress give state records that they wouldn’t have already? And conversely, how could Con- gress in any way reduce or alter the faith and credit that is due? This Article seeks to answer these questions in light of Congress’ early efforts, from the Founding to the 1820s, to “declare the Ef- fect” of state records—efforts which have largely escaped the no- tice of current scholarship on the Clause. Together with pre- Founding documents and the decisions of influential state courts, these efforts suggest that the Clause was not generally understood to mandate the effect of state records in other states, but rather to leave such determinations to the legislative branch. Indeed, early interpreters of the Clause attributed far less importance to its first self-executing sentence, which was often understood as a rule of evidence, and far more importance to the congressional power to determine substantive effect. Recovering this original meaning not only saves the Clause from obscurity, but also offers opportunities for deliberation and legislative choice over the structure of our federal system. SACHS_BOOK 8/19/2009 7:15 PM 2009] Full Faith and Credit 1203 INTRODUCTION Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Ef- fect thereof.1 Justice Jackson once described the Full Faith and Credit Clause as “a neglected one in legal literature.”2 Today, the Clause is a cen- ter of controversy, with debates over the Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”)3 generating at least as much heat as light. The basic features of the Clause, however, are still poorly understood. Its first, self-executing sentence—“Full Faith and Credit shall be given . .”—is thought to require the direct enforcement of other states’ laws and judgments.4 The Supreme Court considers this requirement “exacting,” holding that a final judgment of a competent state court thereby “gains nationwide force.”5 As Doug- las Laycock put it, “[f]ull faith and credit is the maximum possible credit; it is conceptually impossible to give faith and credit that is more than full.”6 Thus, the Clause “requir[es] each state . to treat the law of sister states as equal in authority to its own.”7 But as the controversy over DOMA has shown, this broad interpretation runs quickly into contradictions. The Clause not only issues a self-executing command, but also empowers Congress to determine the manner of proof and “the Effect” of sister-state records. Using this power, for example, Congress has given na- 1 U.S. Const. art. IV, § 1. 2 Robert H. Jackson, Full Faith and Credit—The Lawyer’s Clause of the Constitu- tion, 45 Colum. L. Rev. 1, 3 (1945). 3 28 U.S.C. § 1738C (2006). 4 See Ralph U. Whitten, The Original Understanding of the Full Faith and Credit Clause and the Defense of Marriage Act, 32 Creighton L. Rev. 255, 261 (1998) (offer- ing examples). 5 Baker v. Gen. Motors Corp., 522 U.S. 222, 233 (1998). 6 Douglas Laycock, Equal Citizens of Equal and Territorial States: The Constitu- tional Foundations of Choice of Law, 92 Colum. L. Rev. 249, 296 (1992). 7 Id. SACHS_BOOK 8/19/2009 7:15 PM 1204 Virginia Law Review [Vol. 95:1201 tionwide effect to state child support and custody orders.8 Yet if states must accord each other’s laws and judgments “full” faith and credit—and if nothing could possibly be more than “full”—then what obligations could Congress create that states wouldn’t already bear? Conversely, if the Constitution itself requires “full” faith and credit, then how could Congress reduce or alter the faith and credit that is due? Under the prevailing interpretation, in other words, the first, self-executing sentence has swallowed the rest of the Clause—leading some scholars to portray this power as nearly a dead letter,9 and others to invest Congress with an impressive (though unenumerated) capacity to relax any provision of Article IV.10 This theoretical puzzle has produced equal confusion in practice. Though the Clause itself treats acts, records, and judicial proceedings equally, the Supreme Court “has always differentiated ‘the credit owed to laws (legislative measures and common law) and to judgments.’”11 Likewise, though the text draws no distinctions among different acts, courts have never enforced so-called penal statutes across state lines.12 Stirring declarations of broad constitutional purpose (making the states “integral parts of a single na- 8 See 28 U.S.C. §§ 1738A–1738B (2006); see also 18 U.S.C. § 2265 (2006) (protection orders). 9 See, e.g., Larry Kramer, Same-Sex Marriage, Conflict of Laws, and the Unconsti- tutional Public Policy Exception, 106 Yale L.J. 1965, 2003 (1997) (describing the Clause as granting a power to “[r]efine and implement, not undermine or abolish,” and arguing that DOMA exceeded that power by allowing states to disregard mar- riages sanctioned elsewhere); Letter from Laurence H. Tribe, Ralph S. Tyler, Jr., Pro- fessor of Constitutional Law, Harvard Law Sch., to Senator Edward M. Kennedy (May 24, 1996), reprinted in 142 Cong. Rec. S5931–33 (daily ed. June 6, 1996) (arguing that the Clause only empowers Congress “to enforce [its] self-executing requirements insofar

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