concerning a particular subject-matter not in its essence intrinsically and inherently local is once made within its borders not merely to legislate concerning acts done or agreements made within the State in the future concerning such original contract, but to affect the parties to such original contract with a perpetual contractual paralysis following them outside of the jurisdiction of the State of original contract by prohibiting them from doing any act or making any agreement concerning the original contract not in accord with the law of the State where the contract was originally made. In other words, concretely speaking we must consider the validity of the loan agreement, that is, how far it was within the power of the State of Missouri to extend its authority into the State of New York and there forbid the parties, one of whom was a citizen of New Mexico and the other a citizen of New York, from making such loan agreement in New York simply because it modified a contract originally made in Missouri. Such question, we think, admits of but one answer since it would be impossible to permit the statutes of Missouri to operate beyond the jurisdiction of that State and in the State of New York and there destroy freedom of contract without throwing down the constitutional barriers by which all the States are restricted within the orbits of their lawful authority and upon the preservation of which the Government under the Constitution depends. This is so obviously the necessary result of the Constitution that it has rarely been called in question and hence authorities directly dealing with it do not abound. The principle however lies at the foundation of the full faith and credit clause and the many rulings which have given effect to that clause.1

1 Huntington v. Attrill, 146 U. S. 657; Tilt v. Kelsey, 207 U. S. 43; Fauntleroy v. Lum, 210 U. S. 230; American Express Co. v. Mullins, 212 U. S. 311; Converse v. Hamilton, 224 U. S. 243. And see Bedford v. Eastern Building Ass'n, 181 U. S. 227.

VOL. CCXXXIV-11

It is illustrated as regards the right to freedom of contract by the ruling in Allgeyer v. Louisiana, 165 U. S. 578, and it finds expression in the decisions of this court affirmatively establishing that a State may not consistently with the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment extend its authority beyond its legitimate jurisdiction either by way of the wrongful exertion of judicial power or the unwarranted exercise of the taxing power.1

And an analysis of the opinion of the court below makes it clear that its ruling was rested not upon any doubt concerning the obvious operation of the Constitution which we have pointed out, but because it was deemed that the peculiar facts and circumstances of this case took it out of the general rule and caused it to be therefore a law unto itself. We say this because while it is true the court based its conclusion upon a line of cases previously decided in that State, as all the cases thus relied upon involved only policies of insurance issued in Missouri to citizens of Missouri and were solely concerned with the effect of acts done in Missouri which it was asserted were forbidden by the statutes of that State existing at the time when the acts were done, it could not have been that the cases were deemed to be controlling upon the principle of stare decisis, but they must have been held to be controlling because of the persuasive force of the reasoning upon which they had been decided. Indeed, this is not left to inference, since the court below in its opinion summarized the reasoning in the previous cases as shown by the passage which we have quoted and made it the ground work of its ruling in this case, that reasoning being as follows: Insurance companies chartered by Missouri took their existence from

Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U. S. 714; Overby v. Gordon, 177 U. S. 214, 222; Old Wayne Life Ass'n v. McDonough, 204 U. S. 8; Louisville & J. Ferry Co. v. Kentucky, 188 U. S. 385; Delaware, L. & W. R. Co. v. Pennsylvania, 198 U. S. 341; Union Transit Co. v. Kentucky, 199 U. S. 194; Buck v. Beach, 206 U. S. 392; W. U. Tel. Co. v. Kansas, 216 U. S. 1, 38.

234 U. S.

Opinion of the Court.

the grant of the State and therefore had no power to contract in excess of that which was conferred upon them by the State; hence all acts done by them which were prohibited by the state law were ultra vires and void. But, as foreign insurance companies have no right to come into the State and there do business except as the result of a license from the State and as the State exacts as a condition of a license that all foreign insurance companies shall be subject to the laws of the State as if they were domestic corporations, it follows that the limitations of the state law resting upon domestic corporations also rest upon foreign companies and therefore deprive them of any power which a domestic company could not enjoy, thus rendering void or inoperative any provision of their charter or condition in policies issued by them or contracts made by them inconsistent with the Missouri law. But when this reasoning is analyzed we think it affords no ground whatever for taking this case out of the general rule and making the distinction relied upon. This is so as the proposition cannot be maintained without holding that because a State has power to license a foreign insurance company to do business within its borders and the authority to regulate such business, therefore a State has power to regulate the business of such company outside its borders and which would otherwise be beyond the State's authority. A distinction which brings the contention right back to the primordial conception upon which alone it would be possible to sanction the doctrine contended for, that is, that because a State has power to regulate its domestic concerns, therefore it has the right to control the domestic concerns of other States. It is apparent therefore that to accept the doctrine it would have to be said that the distribution of powers and the limitations which arise from the existence of the Constitution are ephemeral and depend simply upon the willingness of any of the States to exact as a condition of a license granted to a foreign cor

Opinion of the Court.

234 U. S.

poration to do business within its borders that the Constitution shall be inapplicable and its limitations worth nothing. It would go further than this, since it would require it to be decided not only that the constitutional limitations on state powers could be set aside as the result of a license but that the granting of such license could be made the means of extending state power so as to cause it to embrace subjects wholly beyond its legitimate authority.

It is true it has been held that in view of the power of a State over insurance, it might, as the condition of a license given to a foreign insurance company to do business within its borders, impose a condition as to business within the State, which otherwise but for the complete power to exclude would be held repugnant to the Constitution. In other words that a company having otherwise no right whatever for any purpose to go in without a license would not be heard after accepting the same to complain of exactions upon which the license was conditioned as unconstitutional because of its voluntary submission to the same. But even if it be put out of view that this doctrine has been either expressly or by necessary implication overruled or at all events so restricted as to deprive it of all application to this case (see Harrison v. St. L. & San Francisco R. Co., 232 U. S. 318, 332, and authorities there cited,) it here can have no possible application since such doctrine at best but recognized the power of a State under the circumstances stated to impose conditions upon the right to do the business embraced by the license and therefore gives no support to the contention here presented which is that a State by a license may acquire the right to exert an authority beyond its borders which it cannot exercise consistently with the Constitution. But the Constitution and its limitations are the safeguards of all the States preventing any and all of them under the guise of license or otherwise from exercising powers not possessed.

234 U.S.

Opinion of the Court.

As it follows from what we have said that the primary conception upon which the court below assumed this case might be taken out of the general rule and thereby the State of Missouri be endowed with authority which could not be exercised consistently with the Constitution, was erroneous, it results that the necessity for reversal is demonstrated without requiring us to consider other propositions. But before we come to direct the judgment of reversal, we briefly refer to another aspect of the subject, that is, the ruling of the court below as to the subsidiary nature of the loan agreement and its consequent control by the broader principle upon which its conclusion was really based. Of course under the view which we have taken of the case, that is, of the want of power of the State of Missouri because the contract of insurance was made within its jurisdiction to forever thereafter control by its laws all subsequent agreements made in other jurisdictions by persons not citizens of Missouri and lawful where made, that is, to stereotype, as it were, the will of the parties contracting in Missouri as of the date of the contract, it is unnecessary to consider whether the loan agreement was or was not subsidiary, but see on this subject Leonard v. Charter Oak Life Ins. Co., 65 Connecticut, 529; Fireman's Ins. Co. v. Dunn, 22 Ind. App. 332; S. S. White Dental Mfg. Co. v. Delaware Ins. Co., 105 Fed. Rep. 642; 2 Wharton Conflict of Laws, § 467g and cases cited; and see note 63 L. R. A. 833.

Reversed.