Replies

Please, Article IV refers ONLY to acts being valid in another state: "Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State." It is in reference of preventing each state for having to validate/prove (as in evidence) the acts of another state - a judgement in court, a will etc

Yeah, states have to prove their acts to other states. Thugs grabbing a gavel and proclaiming secession doesn't qualify, I'd say. If secession was never proven then those thugs engaged in a coup and were indeed rebels.

[#3Fan] Yeah, states have to prove their acts to other states.

They prove (authenticate) their official acts by affixing the official state seal. That's the law.

http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a4_1s6.html

Article 4, Section 1

[Volume 4, Page 472]

Document 6

An Act to Prescribe the Mode in Which the Public Acts, Records and Judicial Proceedings in Each State, Shall Be Authenticated So As to Take Effect in Every Other State

1 Stat. 122 1790

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the acts of the legislatures of the several states shall be authenticated by having the seal of their respective states affixed thereto: That the records and judicial proceedings of the courts of any state, shall be proved or admitted in any other court within the United States, by the attestation of the clerk, and the seal of the court annexed, if there be a seal, together with a certificate of the judge, chief justice, or presiding magistrate, as the case may be, that the said attestation is in due form. And the said records and judicial proceedings authenticated as aforesaid, shall have such faith and credit given to them in every court within the United States, as they have by law or usage in the courts of the state from whence the said records are or shall be taken.

Approved, May 26, 1790.

SOURCE: U.S. Supreme Court, MILWAUKEE COUNTY v. M.E. WHITE CO., 296 U.S. 268

The faith and credit required to be given to judgments does not depend on the Constitution alone. Article 4, 1, not only commands that 'full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State' but it adds 'Congress may be general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.' And Congress has exercised this power, by Act of May 26, 1790, c. 11, 28 U.S.C . 687, 28 USCA 687, which provides the manner of proof of judgments of one state in the courts of another, and specifically directs that judgments 'shall have such faith and credit given to them in every court within the United States as they have by law or usage in the courts of the State from which they are taken.'