"In Cook vs. Cook (1882), 56 Wis., 195, 14 N. W. Rep., 33, 443, however, in an elaborate opinion, an ex parte divorce obtained in Michigan upon constructive service merely, by a husband who had deserted his wife, in Wisconsin, was held not to affect the status of the wife in Wisconsin nor to bar her from suing in Wisconsin for divorce, alimony, allowance, and a division of the property of such husband situated within Wisconsin.

"Deducing the law of the several states from the rulings of their courts of last resort which we have just reviewed and ignoring mere minor differences, the law of such states is embraced within one or the other of the following headings:

"(a) States where the power to decree a divorce is recognized, based upon the mere domicile of the plaintiff, although the decree when rendered will be but operative within the borders of the state, wholly irrespective of any force which may be given such decree in other states. Under this heading all of the states are embraced, with the possible exception of Rhode Island.

"(b) States which decline, even upon principles of comity, to recognize and enforce as to their own citizens, within their own borders, decrees of divorce rendered in other states, when the court rendering the same had jurisdiction over only one of the parties. Under this heading is embraced Massachusetts, New Jersey (with the qualification made by the decision in 59 N. J. Eq., 606), and New York.

"(c) States which, whilst giving some effect to decrees of divorce rendered against its citizens in other states, where the court had jurisdiction of the plaintiff alone, either place the effect given to such decrees upon the principle of state comity alone, or make such limitations upon the effect given to such decree as indubitably establishes that the recognition given is a result merely of state comity. As the greater includes the less, this class of course embraces the cases under the previous heading. It also includes the states of Alabama, Maine, Ohio, and Wisconsin.

"(d) Cases which, although not actually so deciding, yet lend themselves to the view that ex parte decrees of divorce rendered in other states would receive recognition by virtue of the due faith and credit clause. And this class embraces Missouri and Rhode Island.

"Coming to consider, for the purpose of classification, the decided cases in other states than those previously reviewed, which have been called to our attention, the law of such states may be said to come under one or the other of the foregoing headings, as follows:

"Proposition (a) embraces the law of all the states, since in the decision of no state is there an intimation expressing the exception found in the Rhode Island case which caused us to exclude that state from this classification.

"Under proposition (b) comes the law of the states of Pennsylvania, Vermont, and South Carolina. A line of decisions of the state of North Carolina would also cause us to embrace the law of that state within this classification, but for a doubt engendered in our minds as to the effect of the law of North Carolina on the subject, resulting from suggestions made by the North Carolina court in the opinion in the Bidwell case, 139 N. Car., 402, 52 S. E. Rep., 55.

"Proposition (c) embraces the law of Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, and New Hampshire. And it is pertinent here to remark that in Michigan, 3 Comp. Laws Mich. (1897), par. 8621, C. 232, Sec. 6, the obtaining of a divorce in another state from a citizen of Michigan is made cause for the granting of a divorce in Michigan to its citizens. A like provision is also in the statutes of Florida. Rev. Stat. Florida (1902), Sec. 1480.

"Under proposition (d) we embrace the remaining states, although as to several the classification may admit of doubt, viz., California, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, and Tennessee.

"It indubitably, therefore, follows from the special review we have made of cases in certain states, and the classification just made of the remaining state cases which were called to our attention, that the contention is without foundation, that such cases establish by an overwhelming preponderance that, by the law of the several states, decrees of divorce obtained in a state with jurisdiction alone of the plaintiff are, in virtue of the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution, entitled to be enforced in another state as against citizens of such state. Indeed, the analysis and classification which we have made serves conclusively to demonstrate that the limited recognition which is given in most of the states to such ex parte decrees of divorce rendered in other states is wholly inconsistent with the theory that such limited recognition is based upon the operation of the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution of the United States, and on the contrary is consistent only with the conception that such limited recognition as is given is based upon state comity. No clearer demonstration can be made of the accuracy of this statement than the obvious consequence that if the full faith and credit clause were now to be held applicable to the enforcement in the states generally of decrees of divorce of the character of the one here involved it would follow that the law of nearly all of the states would be overthrown, and thus it would come to pass that the decisions which were relied upon as establishing that the due faith and credit clause applies to such decrees would be overruled by the adoption of the proposition which it is insisted those decisions maintain. The only escape from this conclusion would be to say that the law of the states as shown by the decisions in question would remain unaffected by the ruling of the full faith and credit clause because not repugnant to that clause. This would be, however, but to assert that the full faith and credit clause required not that full faith and credit be given in one state to the decrees of another state, but that only a limited and restricted enforcement of a decree of one state in another would fulfil the requirements of that provision of the Constitution. To so decide would be to destroy the true import of the full faith and credit clause as pointed out in the outset of this opinion. Thus, in its ultimate aspect the proposition relied upon reduces itself to this, either that the settled law of most of the states of the Union as to divorce decrees rendered in one state, where the court rendering the decree had jurisdiction only of the plaintiff, must be held to be invalid, or that an important provision of the Constitution of the United States must be shorn of its rightful meaning. "Without questioning the power of the state of Connecticut to enforce within its own borders the decree of divorce which is here in issue, and without intimating a doubt as to the power of the state of New York to give to a decree of that character rendered in Connecticut, within the borders of the state of New York and as to its own citizens, such efficacy as it may be entitled to in view of the public policy of that state, we hold that the decree of the court of Connecticut rendered under the circumstances stated was not entitled to obligatory enforcements in the state of New York by virtue of the full faith and credit clause. It therefore follows that the court below did not violate the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution in refusing to admit the Connecticut decree in evidence; and its judgment is, therefore, affirmed."