CORRIE'S CASE.—2 BLAND. 473

The State would, however, fall short in this its duty, if it failed
to provide some means of securing satisfaction to its own citizens
as well from the property found here of their foreign insolvent or
deceased debtors, as from their foreign and solvent living debtors.
That provision of the Federal Constitution, which declares that
the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and
immunities of citizens in the several States; Art. 4,s. 2, cl. 1; looks
to other privileges, such as the right to acquire and hold property,
to take by descent, and the like, and does not at all affect the duty
which, in this respect, each of the several States of our Union
owes to its own citizens; Campbell v. Morris, 3 H. & McH. 535; Ward
v. Morris, 4 H, A* McH. 340; or that course of distribution conse-
quent upon intestacy, which, by the general comity prevailing
among nations, is regulated according to the testator's domicil.
Thorne v. Watkins, 2 Ves, 36: 5 Ann. ch. 8, Art, 4. The law of
nations, so far as it applies to the regulations of commerce, is, as
in all other respects, founded on principles of perfect reciprocity
and equality; and, therefore, it cannot be applied to cases which
do not admit of reciprocation and equality. In England, and ill
some other countries, there are bankrupt laws; in this there are
none. Under the insolvent laws of some of the States of our Union,
the person of the debtor may be released from confinement, leaving
all his then held, or thereafter acquired property liable; but, under
our law, a debtor maybe so absolutely discharged as to protect his
future acquisitions of property as well as his person. And, besides,
bankrupt and insolvent laws are not so much regulations of
* commerce, as they are mere municipal rules of law for wind- 495
ing up and adjusting cases of interrupted and broken commerce;
they are forced upon debtors: without any alternative as the only
means of escaping imprisonment, and are highly penal in many of
their provisions; they cannot, therefore, be considered as in all
respects voluntary, and must be, from their very nature, entirely
local in their operation.

Hence, it has always been held here, that the bankrupt and in-
solvent laws of the other States of our Union, as well as of other
countries, could not be allowed to operate, in any way whatever,
upon the property of the debtor found here, and particularly in
contravention of any rule in relation to immovable property lying
within this State, or to the prejudice of any citizen of this State;
as they clearly would, if they were allowed to vest any right in the
assignees or trustees of such bankrupt or insolvent debtors, or
were permitted to give an exclusive right to have such property
removed any where beyond the jurisdiction of the State, there to
be distributed among all his creditors, including those resident
here, which would be, in effect, to restrain our own citizen credi-
tors from touching their absent insolvent debtor's property found
here, upon which he had been credited, and to direct them to fol-