Opinion of the Court. Mr. F. Charles Hume for Cooper and others. No appearance for Newell. MR. CHIEF JUSTICE FULLER, after stating the case, delivered the opinion of the court: The question is whether the judgment entered by the district court of Brazoria County, Texas, in favor of McGrael and against Newell, was open to the attack made upon it in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Texas. The record of the suit in which that judgment was entered showed a petition in the ordinary form of trespass to try title, filed May 20, 1850, alleging McGrael and Newell to be resident citizens of the county of Brazoria, Texas, and describing several different tracts of land, one of which was situated in Brazoria County, and, among the others, the tract in controversy, which was alleged to be situated then as now in Harris County, Texas; a demurrer and pleas signed by a person as "att'y for defendant," filed the same day; a verdict and judgment against Newell rendered and entered May 21, 1850. The record does not show that any process was issued on the petition and served on Newell, or any notice given to Newell by publication or otherwise; or affirmatively that the person signing the demurrer and pleas was authorized to do so. The evidence on the trial of the present case in the Circuit Court must be taken as establishing that Newell was not a citizen or a resident of Texas at the time the suit was commenced in the Brazoria County district court; that he was never served with any process in that suit and had no knowledge of its institution until many years thereafter; that the person who signed the pleadings for defendant was not Newell's attorney and had never been employed by him to represent him, and that any appearance made for Newell in the suit was without his knowledge or consent; that in that suit the property in controversy was not taken into the possession of the court by attachment, sequestration or other process; that Newell had never resided in Brazoria County, Texas, though he had resided in Galveston County prior to Novem Opinion of the Court. ber, 1848, when he went to the city of Philadelphia, and resided there until 1853 or 1854, when he removed to the city of New York, where he resided up to the date of his death in 1891; and that during the period from November,. 1848, to 1891 he was first à citizen and resident of Pennsylvania and then a citizen and resident of New York. This evidence was objected to on the ground that the judgment was rendered by a domestic court of general jurisdiction, and that want of jurisdiction cannot be established aliunde the record in a collateral proceeding. In Thompson v. Whitman, 18 Wall. 457, a leading case in this court, it was ruled that "neither the constitutional provision that full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the public acts, records and judicial proceedings of every other State, nor the act of Congress passed in pursuance thereof, prevents an inquiry into the jurisdiction of the court by which a judgment offered in evidence was rendered;" that "the record of a judgment rendered in another State may be contradicted as to the facts necessary to give the court jurisdiction; and if it be shown that such facts did not exist, the record will be a nullity, notwithstanding it may recite that they did exist;" and that "want of jurisdiction may be shown either as to the subject-matter or the person, or, in proceedings in rem, as to the thing." But while these propositions are conceded, it is insisted that the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Texas was bound to treat this judgment rendered by one of the courts of the State of Texas as if it were strictly a domestic judgment drawn in question in one of those courts, and to hold that it therefore could not be assailed collaterally. We are of opinion that this contention cannot be sustained, and that the courts of the United States sitting in Texas are no more shut out from examining into jurisdiction than if sitting elsewhere, or than the courts of another State. A domestic judgment is the judgment of a domestic court, and a domestic court is a court of a particular country or sovereignty. Undoubtedly the judgments of courts of the United States are domestic judgments of the Nation, while in the par Opinion of the Court. ticular State in which rendered they are entitled to be regarded as on the same plane in many senses as judgments of the State; and so the judgments of the courts of the several States are not to be treated by each other or by the courts of the United States as in every sense foreign judgments. But the courts of the United States are tribunals of a different sovereignty, and exercise a distinct and independent jurisdiction from that exercised by the state courts, and this is true in respect of the courts of the several States as between each other. And the courts of the United States are bound to give to the judgments of the state courts the same faith and credit that the courts of one State are bound to give to the judgments of the courts of her sister States. The same rule applies to each, and the question of jurisdiction is open to inquiry even when the judgment of the court of a State comes under consideration in a court of the United States, sitting in the same State. Christmas v. Russell, 5 Wall. 290; Galpin v. Page, 18 Wall. 350; Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U. S. 714; Hart v. Sansom, 110 U. S. 151; Goldey v. Morning News, 156 U. S. 518. In Pennoyer v. Neff, Mr. Justice Field, after discussing the question how far a judgment rendered against a non-resident, without any service upon him, or his personal appearance, was entitled to any force in the State in which it was rendered, said: "Be that as it may, the courts of the United States are not required to give effect to judgments of this character when any right is claimed under them. Whilst they are not foreign tribunals in their relations to the state courts, they are tribunals of a different sovereignty, exercising a distinct and independent jurisdiction, and are bound to give to the judgments of the state courts only the same faith and credit which the courts of another State are bound to give to them." 95 U. S. 732. And in Goldey v. Morning News, 156 U. S. 518, 521, where the authorities are extensively cited, Mr. Justice Gray said: "It is an elementary principle of jurisprudence, that a court of justice cannot acquire jurisdiction over the person of one who has no residence within its territorial jurisdiction, except Opinion of the Court. by actual service of notice within the jurisdiction upon him or upon some one authorized to accept service in his behalf, or by his waiver, by general appearance or otherwise, of the want of due service. Whatever effect a constructive service may be allowed in the courts of the same government, it cannot be recognized as valid by the courts of any other government. For example, under the provisions of the Constitution of the United States and the acts of Congress, by which judgments of the courts of one State are to be given full faith and credit in the courts of another State, or of the United States, such a judgment is not entitled to any force or effect, unless the defendant was duly served with notice of the action in which the judgment was rendered, or waived the want of such notice. If a judgment is rendered in one State against two partners jointly, after serving notice upon one of them only, under a statute of the State providing that such service shall be sufficient to authorize a judgment against both, yet the judgment is of no force or effect in a court of another State, or in a court of the United States, against the partner who was not served with process. So a judgment rendered in a court of one State, against a corporation neither incorporated nor doing business within the State, must be regarded as of no validity in the courts of another State, or of the United States, unless service of process was made in the first State upon an agent appointed to act there for the corporation, and not merely upon an officer or agent residing in another State, and only casually within the State, and not charged with any business of the corporation there. The principle which governs the effect of judgments of one State in the courts of another State is equally applicable in the Circuit Courts of the United States, although sitting in the State in which the judgment was rendered. In either case, the court the service of whose process is in question, and the court in which the effect of that service is to be determined, derive their jurisdiction and authority from different governments." It must be remembered that this action was commenced by Newell as a citizen of New Yo against citizens of Texas, in Opinion of the Court. the exercise of a right secured to him by the Constitution of the United States, and it would go far to defeat that right if it should be held that he was cut off in the Circuit Court from proving that he was not a citizen and resident of Texas when the controverted action was commenced, and that he had not authorized any attorney to appear for him in that action. As any provisions by statute for the rendition of judgment against a person not a citizen or resident of a State, and not served with process or voluntarily appearing to an action against him therein, would not be according to the course of the common law, it must follow that he would be entitled to show that he was not such citizen or resident, and had not been served or appeared by himself or attorney. Accordingly, it was held in Needham v. Thayer, 147 Mass. 536, that a defendant in an action brought in Massachusetts on a judgment in personam in that State, might set up in defence that he was at the time the original action was brought. a non-resident, and neither was served personally with process nor appeared therein. And so in New York, when a judgment of a court of that State was drawn in question, which had been entered against a non-resident, who was not during the pendency of the proceedings within the jurisdiction of the State. Vilas v. Plattsburgh and Montreal Railroad Company, 123 N. Y. 440. There the rule that domestic judgments against a party not served, but for whom an attorney appeared without authority, cannot be attacked collaterally, was adhered to; yet the Court of Appeals declined to apply it to a case where the defendant was a non-resident and not within the jurisdiction during the pendency of the proceedings, such judgments being held to be not strictly domestic but to fall within the principle applicable to judgments of the courts of other States, in respect of which Andrews, J., delivering the opinion of the court, said: "It is well settled that in an action brought in our courts on a judgment of a court of a sister State the jurisdiction of the court to render the judgment may be assailed by proof that the defendant was not served and did not appear in the action, or where an appearance was entered by an attorney, |