In the course of proceedings which were had in Louisiana, under the laws and in the courts of that State, to determine the rights of parties interested in the succession of Henry L. Conner, deceased, a citizen of the State of Mississippi, his widow, who is the plaintiff in error in this case, filed in the district court of the tenth judicial district of the State of Louisiana, a petition, claiming to be entitled to her rights of marital community, as they exist under the laws of that State. These rights having been denied by the district court, an appeal was prosecuted to the supreme court; and it was there held that inasmuch as the marriage through which the appellant claimed was not in fact contracted in Louisiana, nor in contemplation of a matrimonial domicile in that State, and the spouses had never resided therein; the wife was not a partner in community with the husband by force of the laws of Louisiana.
On this writ of error, it neither is nor can be denied that the supreme court of Louisiana has correctly declared and applied the law of that State to this case. But it is insisted that this law deprives the plaintiff in error, a citizen of the State of Mississippi, of one of the privileges of a citizen in the State of Louisiana, and therefore is in contravention of the first clause of the second section of the fourth article of the constitution, which provides that 'the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States.'
It appears upon the record that this question was raised by the pleadings, and presented to and decided by the highest court of the State; it is therefore open here, upon this writ of error, for final determination by this court, under the twenty-fifth section of the judiciary act of 1789, 1 Stats. at Large, 85.
It appears that the plaintiff in error, though a native-born citizen of Louisiana, was married in the State of Mississippi, while under age, with the consent of her guardian, to a citizen of the latter State, and that their domicile, during the duration of their marriage, was in Mississippi. But, while it continued, the husband acquired a plantation, and other real property, in Louisiana. If the marriage had been contracted in Louisiana, the code of that State, then in force, Code of 1808, art. 3, § 4, would have superinduced the rights of community. And at the time when the property in question was purchased by the husband, in 1841, the code of 1825, then in force, contained the following articles:--
'Art. 2369. Every marriage contracted in this State superinduces, of right, partnership or community of acquets or gains, if there be no stipulation to the contrary.'
'Art. 2370. A marriage contracted out of this State, between persons who afterwards come here to live, is also subjected to the community of acquets with respect to such property as is acquired after their arrival.'
And it is insisted that, as these articles gave to what is termed in the argument a Louisiana widow the right of marital community, the laws of the State could not constitutionally deny, as it is admitted they did in fact deny, the same rights to all widows, citizens of the United States, though not married in Louisiana, or residing there during the marriage, and while the property in question was acquired.
In other words, that, as the laws of Louisiana provide that a contract of marriage made in that State, or the residence of persons there in the relation created by marriage, shall give rise to certain rights on the part of each in property acquired within that State, by force of the article of the constitution above recited, all citizens of the United States, wherever married and residing, obtain the same rights in property acquired in that State during the marriage. We do not deem it needful to attempt to define the meaning of the word privileges in this clause of the constitution. It is safer, and more in accordance with the duty of a judicial tribunal, to leave its meaning to be determined, in each case, upon a view of the particular rights asserted and denied therein. And especially is this true, when we are dealing with so broad a provision, involving matters not only of great delicacy and importance, but which are of such a character, that any merely abstract definition could scarcely be correct; and a failure to make it so would certainly produce mischief.