"It is obvious that there may be matters of the sharpest exigency for the national well being that an act of Congress could not deal with but that a treaty followed by such an act could, and it is not lightly to be assumed that, in matters requiring national action, `a power which must belong to and somewhere reside in every civilized government'is not to be found.

—and consequently the authority to prohibit them from perpetrating a fraud upon the law of their domicile by temporarily sojourning in another state, and there, without acquiring a bona fide domicile, procuring a decree of divorce, it follows that the South Dakota decree relied upon was rendered by a court'without jurisdiction, and hence the due faith and credit clause of the …

"Under our system of law, judicial power to grant a divorce—jurisdiction, strictly speaking—is founded on domicil.

—b, that, as distinguished from legal domicil, mere residence within a particular State of the plaintiff in a divorce cause brought in a court of such State is not sufficient to confer jurisdiction upon such court to dissolve the marriage relation existing between the plaintiff and a non-resident defendant.

I] t is certain that the Constitution... confers no power whatever upon the government of the United States to regulate marriage in the States or its dissolution

"The Congress shall have power... to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof." s0

Considered in its entirety, the record shows that she submitted herself to the jurisdiction of the Virginia court and is bound by its determination that it had jurisdiction of the subject matter and of the parties.

The marriage relationship, there can be no doubt, has always been exclusively within the power of the states to define and regulate.

It was held that, as the judgment was for a penalty imposed by the laws of Wisconsin, and as penalties had no extraterritorial operation, the court would look at the origin of the rights upon which the judgment was based, and, doing so, declined to enforce the judgment.

[CITATION] Sherrer and Coe v. Coe