23 Tex. 66 | Tex. | 1859
The slave here in controversy was the property of Mrs. Marble, prior to her marriage in Mississippi, in 1851. Mrs, Marble removed with her husband to Louisiana, in 1854, where she died. If the slave continued her separate property after her marriage, in Mississippi, her right of property was unaffected by her change of domicil, and the plaintiffs were entitled to the property by succession, according to the law of Louisiana. For it is the universally admitted doctrine, that the disposition, succession and distribution of personal property, is governed by the law of the country of the owner’s or intestate’s domicil at the time of his death. (La. Civil Code, art. 935; 2 Kent’s Com. 428; Story’s Confl. Laws, § 481; Penny v. Christmas, 7 Rob. La. Rep. 481; Succession of Packwood, 9 Id. 438.)
The question therefore is, whether, upon the marriage of Mrs.
The plain meaning of 'the statute would seem to be, that the wife’s property in the slaves which she owned before the marriage, continued hers after the marriage, to the exclusion of the marital right of property of the husband; and upon her death without children born of the marriage, the property would go to the next of kin of the wife, according to the laws of descent and succession. In that case, as we have seen, the plaintiffs would be entitled to the property.
But the statute has received a different interpretation by the Court of Appeals in Mississippi, in the case of Lyon v. Knott, 26 Miss. Rep. 548. That was a bill filed in the Superior Court of Chancery in Mississippi, by Knott and his wife, to recover of Lyon certain slaves, claimed by Mrs. Knott under the laws of descent and distribution of that state. The bill alleged that the defendant Lyon, intermarried with Mrs. Speed in Mississippi, in 1844. Mrs. Speed, at the time of her marriage, was the owner of the slaves in controversy. After the marriage, Lyon and his wife removed to Texas, where they became domiciled and continued to reside until the death of Mrs. Lyon, in 1847. Mrs.
We hold it to be indisputable, that the judicial tribunals of every state are- the sole expositors of its local laws, and that the decisions of its courts upon the construction of those laws is
No doctrine can be more obviously rational and just than that the courts of every government have the exclusive authority of construing its local statutes, and their construction will be respected in every other country. Adverting to this principle, in Elmendorf v. Taylor, (10 Wheat. Rep. 152,) Chief Justice Marshall said: “ No court in the universe, which professed to be governed by principle, would, we presume, undertake to say, that the courts of Great Britain or France, or of any other nation, had misunderstood their own statutes, and therefore erect itself into a tribunal to correct such misunderstanding. We receive the construction given by the courts of the nation as the true sense of the law, and feel ourselves no more at liberty to depart from that construction than to depart from the words of' the statute.” (Ibid. 159, 160.)
Since by the law of Mississippi, upon the marriage of Mrs. Marble, her husband acquired a right of property in the slave in controversy, which became absolute upon her death, it follows, that the plaintiffs did not acquire a right to the property, by succession, as her next of kin, by the law of Louisiana; and they are not entitled to' recover in this action. There is therefore no error in the judgment, and it is affirmed.
Judgment affirmed.