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Opinion of the Court
usage in the courts of such State, Territory or Possession from which they are taken." 28 U. S. C. § 1738.4
The animating purpose of the full faith and credit command, as this Court explained in Milwaukee County v. M. E. White Co., 296 U. S. 268 (1935),
"was to alter the status of the several states as independent foreign sovereignties, each free to ignore obligations created under the laws or by the judicial proceedings of the others, and to make them integral parts of a single nation throughout which a remedy upon a just obligation might be demanded as of right, irrespective of the state of its origin." Id., at 277.
See also Estin v. Estin, 334 U. S. 541, 546 (1948) (the Full Faith and Credit Clause "substituted a command for the earlier principles of comity and thus basically altered the status of the States as independent sovereigns").
Our precedent differentiates the credit owed to laws (legislative measures and common law) and to judgments. "In numerous cases this Court has held that credit must be given to the judgment of another state although the forum would not be required to entertain the suit on which the judgment was founded." Milwaukee County, 296 U. S., at 277. The Full Faith and Credit Clause does not compel "a state to substitute the statutes of other states for its own statutes dealing with a subject matter concerning which it is competent to legislate." Pacific Employers Ins. Co. v. Industrial Accident Comm'n, 306 U. S. 493, 501 (1939); see Phillips
4 The first Congress enacted the original full faith and credit statute in May 1790. See Act of May 26, 1790, ch. 11, 1 Stat. 122 (codified as amended at 28 U. S. C. § 1738) ("And the said records and judicial proceedings authenticated as aforesaid, shall have such faith and credit given to them in every court within the United States, as they have by law or usage in the courts of the state from whence the said records are or shall be taken."). Although the text of the statute has been revised since then, the command for full faith and credit to judgments has remained constant.
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