"The statute does not in terms prohibit a second marriage in another State, and it should not be extended by construction. The mode of construction contended for by the respondent, if applied to the statutes of treason and dueling and the punishment of second offenses, would make useless those provisions which relate to the conduct of a citizen out of the State and the commission of crime in this State by one convicted in another State. Can they be disregarded, or the legislature charged with useless enactments? On the contrary, we must give weight and meaning to them; to their presence in those laws and their absence in the one of marriages. The difference is essential, and the varying language cannot be disregarded. There is first a prohibition broad as in the act before us, wide enough to take in all persons within the State, and prohibiting certain acts - a personal prohibition. Not content with that, the statutes go further and extend the same consequences to those acts when committed out of the State. These provisions are lacking in the law before us. When, therefore, we consider the legislation of this State before referred to, and the general rules regulating the territorial force of statutes, we cannot but regard the omission to provide by law for cases like the present as intentional, but if not, in the language of Lord Ellenborough, in Rex vs. Skone (6 East., 518), 'we can only say of the legislature quod voluit non dixit.' This view is sustained by the course of decision and legislation in Massachusetts. In Med-way vs. Needham (supra) the plaintiff sued for the support of certain paupers - one Coffee and his wife - alleged to have their legal settlement with the defendant. The only question on the trial, or the subsequent hearing before the whole court, respected the validity of his marriage. He was a mulatto and his supposed wife a white woman. They were inhabitants and residents of Massachusetts at the time of their marriage, and the statement is that 'as the laws of the province at that time prohibited all such marriages, they went into the neighboring province of Rhode Island and were there married according to the laws of that province,' and returned immediately to their home. Both courts held the marriage good. The statute regulating marriages in Massachusetts was at that time like our own, but the court placed their decision upon the general principle that a marriage good according to the laws of the country where it is entered into shall be valid in any other country, Parker, Ch. J., saying: This principle is considered so essential that even where it appears that the parties went into another State to evade the law of their own country, the marriage in the foreign State shall be valid in the country where the parties live;' and, referring to the statute which declares second marriages absolutely void, says: They are only void if contracted within this State.' West Cambridge vs. Lexington (1 Pick., 506) involved the rights of infant children of Samuel Bemis, paupers, to public support in that State. The question turned upon the validity of his second marriage; the first had been dissolved for his adultery. Afterward and while his former wife was living, he married in New Hampshire, and the children were from that union. The court held that if the marriage had been contracted in Massachusetts, it would be unlawful and void, but that the laws of no country have force outside of its own jurisdiction, and therefore one, who by reason of his offense against it is disabled from contracting another marriage, may lawfully marry again in a State where no such disability is attached to the offense; and further, having a right to marry there, he could not while there violate the statutes of Massachusetts against polygamy. It was therefore held that the children were legitimate, their settlement to be where that of their father was, and the town entitled to recover for their support. The circumstances of Putnam vs. Putnam (8 Pick., 433) are singularly like those before us; and it was held that although the second marriage was a clear case of evasion of the laws of the Commonwealth, it was valid upon the general rule referred to in the cases already cited. The court also say: 'If it shall be found inconvenient or repugnant to sound principle, it may be expected that the legislature will explicitly enact that marriages contracted within another State, which if entered into here would be void, shall have no force within this Commonwealth.' There is thus recognized a necessity discussed earlier in this opinion, for express legislation, if the citizen is to be held bound by the laws of his State for acts performed by him outside its limits. Legislation to this end was afterward had. (Rev. Stat, of Mass., ch. 75, § 6; Gen. Stat., ch. 106, § 6.) Referring to provisions of the act making void marriages between certain parties, or by persons in prescribed conditions or under certain circumstances, it declares, 'where persons resident in this State, in order to evade the preceding provisions and with an intention of returning to reside in this State, go into another State or country and there have their marriage solemnized, and afterward return and reside here, the marriage shall be deemed void in this State.' It is not necessary to consider the extent or scope of this statute. It has been discussed by the courts of that State, and is said by Dewey, J., in Com. vs. Hunt (4 Cush., 49), 'to have been intended to meet this class of cases, that is, of individuals fraudulently attempting to evade the law of Massachusetts, so far as respects persons divorced for the crime of adultery, and to declare such marriages by the guilty party to be void in this Commonwealth;' or as Hubbard, J., says, in Sutton vs. Warren (10 Mete, 453): 'The only object of this provision is, as stated by the commissioners in their report, to enforce the observance of our own laws upon our own citizens, and not suffer them to violate regulations founded in a just regard to good morals and sound policy.' We have no law in relation to this subject similar to that of Massachusetts or our statutes before cited in reference to dueling and treason. There is nothing in the statute to indicate an intention of the legislature to reach beyond the State to inflict a penalty. Nor can I discover an intent so to impress the citizen with the prohibition as to make an act, which is innocent and valid where performed, an offense when he returns to this State and himself a criminal for performing it. Every presumption is against such intention. The respondents rest their case upon the general words of the statute. These, taken in their natural and usual sense, would undoubtedly embrace the case of the appellant. 'No second * * * marriage shall be contracted by any person during the lifetime of any former wife of such person.' 'Every such marriage shall be absolutely void.' 'No defendant convicted of adultery shall marry again until the death of the complainant.' Equally broad are the provisions of the criminal law declaring the punishment of the offender. They would comprehend every second marriage wherever celebrated, and take in the citizens of every State. It cannot be denied that they are subject to explanation and restraint. Mosher vs. The People (supra), and the principle on which it rests, shows the criminal law to have no application to a marriage out of the State. The same rule was applied in Sims vs. Sims (75 N. Y., 466), where, after a very full discussion of the question involved, it was decided that the provision of the Revised Statutes (2 R. S., 701, § 23), declaring a person sentenced upon a conviction for felony to be incompetent as a witness, does not apply to a conviction in another State; that it has reference only to a conviction in this State. The conviction was in Ohio; it was assumed that the convict would have been incompetent as a witness in this State. Suppose a judgment here followed his evidence, and it was afterward prosecuted in Ohio. Would it be competent in defense to show that it was obtained upon evidence inadmissible by the laws of Ohio? Clearly not. And the reason is stated in the case cited: 'The disqualification is in the nature of an additional penalty following and resulting from the conviction and cannot extend beyond the territorial limits of the State where the judgment was pronounced.' He was, therefore, a competent witness in the State of New York. There is in principle a close analogy between the case I have supposed and the one before us. In each there is a personal disqualification. In one, to marry; in the other to testify. In neither case does the disqualification arise from any law of nature of or nations, but simply from positive law. Each deprives the offender of a civil right. Now in case of the witness, his testimony in New York results in a judgment, a contract of record, to which, when it reaches Ohio, full effect must be given, and for its enforcement the machinery of the law of that State put in motion. In the other case - that in hand - a contract is entered into by the offender, which is a good contract under the laws of the State where made. If so, it should also follow that to each party thereto and to their issue every right and privilege growing out of the relation so established must attach. When, therefore, they return to this State with the evidence of that contract, can the courts do more than in the other case? Are they not limited to the inquiry whether the contract was valid in the State where made? And if it was, how can they deny to the child its inheritance? Let me go a little further. Suppose, on the day the decree of divorce was granted, Barker had also been convicted and sentenced for a felony. He would then have been subject not only to the statutes above cited, but to that other which declares 'that no person sentenced upon a conviction for felony shall be competent to testify in any cause.' (2 R. S., 701, § 23.) Disqualified therefore to marry or to testify, he does both in Connecticut, brings back to this State the judgment record and the marriage contract. If the first cannot be impeached because of his sentence, neither, as it seems to me, can the other, because of his 'conviction.' And for the same reason, viz.: that stated by Green-leaf as the result of the weight of modern opinion, sanctioned by this court in Sims vs. Sims (supra), that personal disqualifications arising, not from the laws of nature, but from positive laws, especially such as are of a penal nature, are strictly territorial and cannot be enforced in any country other than that in which they originated. (1 Gr. Ev., § 376.)