# Gaines v. Relf/Dissent Wayne

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* Opinion of the Court
* Dissenting Opinion Wayne
United States Supreme Court
53 U.S. 472
Gaines v. Relf
Mr. Justice WAYNE delivered the following dissenting opinion.
I dissent from the judgment just given, and will give my reasons for doing so as briefly as I can. But it will necessarily occupy some time.
I believe that the case of the complainant has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt, as the law requires it to be done; I say as the law requires it to be done, without meaning to imply any doubt of the fact, but that the fact has been proved according to those rules which experience has shown to be necessary and sufficient, to guard conjugal and other domestic relations from capricious and unregulated judgments. Those rules are to be found in adjudicated cases of our own and of the English courts, and in the conclusions of the civil and canon law applicable to cases of this kind.
I think it has been proved, that Myra Clark Gaines is the only child of her father, Daniel Clark, by his marriage with her mother, Zulime Carri ere. That when the marriage took place, the parties were willing to contract, able to contract, and that they did contract marriage in Pennsylvania according to the laws of that state, in the year eighteen hundred and two. I also think that there was nothing then or now in the laws of Louisiana which lessens in any way the validity of that marriage. The proofs of these declarations shall hereafter be pointed out, with the law in support of them.
My first object is to state the evidence relied upon by the parties to this suit, and in what way it should have been examined and appreciated by this court, before its judgment was given. In other words, I mean to say, that a judgment has been given against the complainant upon testimony introduced into the record of the case against the protest of her counsel, which is altogether inadmissible under the rules for the admission of testimony in courts of justice, and which have hitherto been observed and enjoined by this court in its judgments. And further, that admissions and averments in the answer of the defendants in respect to certain portions of testimony offered by them, have been overlooked, by which the complainant has been deprived of proofs, which time out of mind in chancery have been considered conclusive of the fact affirmed in an answer, whether or not the same makes against a defendant or for a complainant.
Secondly, I will show that all of the testimony of a documentary kind introduced by the defendants, except one of them, ought not to have been received by this court as evidence, on account of some of them not being properly authenticated as records of a judicial character, and because others being res inter alios acta, aliis nec prodest nec nocet. And that such documents or papers for the causes just stated have always been rejected by the courts of common law and by courts of chancery, and further that they would not have been received in the courts of Louisiana if this case had been in one of its tribunals.
The defendants deny the marriage between the complainant's father and mother; and if there was a marriage, they contest its validity on account of her mother having then another husband alive. It is admitted that a marriage had been solemnized between her and Jerome Desgrange, but the complainant shows by competent testimony sufficient to establish the fact that Desgrange was a married man, with a wife alive when he married her mother. That such being the fact, their marriage was void ab initio, and that she was at liberty to marry with another as if no such connection had ever existed between Desgrange and herself. In other words, that such a connection, though entered into according to the forms of marriage, makes no impediment by the civil, the canon, or common law, in the way of a second marriage by the party imposed upon. The defendants rejoin, saying, even though the marriage with Desgrange was void on account of his bigamy, that she could not contract marriage again, before she had obtained a sentence of nullity of her marriage with Desgrange. It is also urged by the defendants, if there was a marriage between the father and mother of the complainant, that it was void on account of what the canon law terms its clandestinity. That according to that law, as it then prevailed in Louisiana, the issue of such a marriage was illegitimate, and that it has no civil effect to give rights of property or inheritance to the issue of such a marriage. To this the complainant replies that the marriage of her father and mother was solemnized in the state of Pennsylvania according to the law of that state. That the lex loci contractus gives to the issue the status of legitimacy for all purposes in Louisiana and elsewhere, whether the issue was born there or out of its jurisdiction, and further, that marriages which have been clandestinely solemnized, that is, by not observing the solemnities of the church, though they are condemned by the canon law, as it existed in Louisiana, are not made void-cap. quod nobes. tit, que filii sunt legis. To the objection that there had not been a sentence of the nullity of the marriage with Desgrange, the complainant answers, that when a marriage by the canon law and as it then was in Louisiana, is ipso facto, null and void, that no declaratory sentence of nullity is absolutely necessary, though it may be expedient to have one, to reinstate the parties in their original unconnected condition. That this is especially so, when one of the parties at the time of marriage had been previously married and that marriage had not been dissolved by death or by operation of law. That a sentence of nullity is only absolutely necessary to restore the ability of persons to marry, when it is sought to have a marriage declared de facto void on account of non-compliance with the law directing the mode for solemnizing marriage, or when one of the parties seeks a dissolution on account of fear,-such as the fear of death or imprisonment having been used to compel a party to marry,-or where the marriage is voidable for incest or impotence, or if the woman is nimis arcta, for which an ecclesiastical court will pronounce it null and void in the lifetime of the parties, which when done restores the parties, except in the third case mentioned, to their former ability to contract espousals and marriage with others as if they had not been in that connection with each other.
The defendants, to maintain their denial of the marriage between the father and mother of the complainant, attempt to discredit her witnesses who were examined to prove it. For that purpose they examined persons as to the character of the witnesses. They attempt to show contradictions in the testimony of two of them taken at different times, and allege concealment of facts which it is said they were bound to disclose in their examination; and they were also permitted to put in evidence certain papers relating to the marriage with Desgrange, and its continuance after the alleged marriage of Zulime with Clark. Those papers are, 1st, One termed an ecclesiastical prosecution of Desgrange for bigamy in 1802; 2d, The proceedings of a court in Louisiana in 1805 at the instance of Zulime against Desgrange for alimony; 3d, Another for a like purpose at the instance of Mr. Davis, to whose care the complainant was confided by her father in her infancy, in which she is called a natural child of her father; 4th, An imperfect record of a suit brought by the complainant's mother in 1806 in her maiden name against the name of Desgrange, for a divorce or a sentence of nullity of their marriage, in which there was a judgment against him, or in her favor.
The last record stands in this suit upon a different footing from the ecclesiastical proceedings, inasmuch as it is properly authenticated to make it evidence as a judicial record, and the other is not so. Also, because the defendants introduce it and declare it in their answers to be a petition by the complainant's mother, Zulime n ee Carri ere, wife of the said Desgrange, to a competent judicial tribunal in New Orleans, therein representing herself as the wife of Desgrange, and praying for a divorce and dissolution of the bonds of matrimony existing between her and Desgrange, which was subsequently decreed, after the birth of the complainant. And they further aver in their answers, that, having obtained a divorce and having resumed her maiden name, she afterwards, in 1808, intermarried with one James Gardette. The defendants also rely upon the conduct of Clark and Zulime, before and after it is said they were married, to disprove their marriage and to establish that they were illicitly connected, before and until after the birth of the complainant. She resists this by proofs which will hereafter be more particularly noticed, and further urges that the defendants having alleged in their answers a divorce between Desgrange and her mother by a competent tribunal, they cannot now be permitted to disclaim it, for, though the petition in that case has not been returned with the rest of the record, on account of its loss, that its object and purpose are made out both by external and internal proofs in what remains, as the law requires the loss of the whole or of a part of a judicial record to be supplied, and in that way it is shown to have been a petition for a sentence of nullity of her marriage with Desgrange on account of its original invalidity.
Having stated the positions taken by the parties in respect to the marriage between Clark and Zulime, between her and Desgrange, and her subsequent connection with Gardette without a divorce from Clark, when he had abandoned her, and the legal points raised and replied to by both parties, I will now proceed to state the kind of testimony upon which they respectively rely, the use which has been made of it, indicating at the same time what I believe to be the law upon each point of the complainant's case, and also upon all of those made by the defendants.
1st. As to the marriage between the father and mother of Mrs. Gaines: It is proved by one witness, Madame Despau, her aunt, who was present at the marriage when it took place in Philadelphia. By another witness, Madame Caillavet, also her aunt, who swears that Clark made proposals of marriage for Zulime to her family, after her withdrawal from Desgrange, which was caused by her having heard that he was the husband of another woman then alive. She also swears that Clark, after his marriage with Zulime, admitted it to her, and that so did Zulime. They also rely upon Clark's acknowledgment of his marriage to three other witnesses, Mrs. Harper, Bellechasse, and Boisfontaine, to each of whom he repeatedly said that Myra was his legitimate child, also upon his treatment of her and declarations concerning her, from her birth to within two hours of his death, when he declared that Myra was his legitimate child. One of these witnesses, Mrs. Harper, is the lady who suckled Myra with her own child; not as a hireling for that office, but as the friend of Clark. To this witness he made at different times frequent declarations of the child's legitimacy, and of his marriage with her mother; and to another of the witnesses, Boisfontaine, Clark said that he would have avowed the marriage, but for her subsequent connection with Gardette. In proof also of the marriage and of the child's legitimacy, they rely upon the facts that Clark made large provisions of fortune for her in trust to others, to whom he declared her to be his legitimate child when the trusts were made, and that a short time before his death, he made a will in her favor as his universal legatee, in which she was declared to be his lawful child, about which will he spoke with anxiety and penitential affection within an hour before his death, as having by that act repaired the wrong he had done her.
The witness, Madame Despau, says she was at the marriage of Zulime and Mr. Clark, in 1803 or 1802, that it took place in Philadelphia, and the ceremony was performed by a Catholic priest, in the presence of other witnesses as well as herself. She states that she was present when her sister gave birth to Mrs. Gaines, that Clark claimed and acknowledged her to be his child, that she was born in 1806. That the circumstances of her marriage with Daniel Clark were these: Several years after her marriage with Desgrange she heard he had a living wife. Our family charged him with the crime of bigamy in marrying Zulime. He at first denied, but afterwards admitted it and fled from the country. These circumstances became public, and Mr. Clark made proposals of marriage to my sister, with the knowledge of all of our family. It was considered essential, first, to obtain record proof that Desgrange had a living wife at the time he married my sister, to obtain which from the Catholic church in New York, where Mr. Desgrange's prior marriage was celebrated, we sailed for that city. On our arrival there we found that the registry of marriages had been destroyed. Mr. Clark arrived after us. We heard that a Mr. Gardette, then living in Philadelphia, was one of the witnesses of Mr. Desgrange's prior marriage. We proceeded to that city and found Mr. Gardette. He answered that he had been present at the prior marriage of Desgrange, and he afterwards knew Desgrange and his wife by that marriage. That this wife had sailed for France. Mr. Clark then said, 'You have reason no longer to refuse being married to me. It will be necessary, however, to keep our marriage secret till I have obtained judicial proof of the nullity of your marriage with Desgrange.' 'They were then married. Soon afterward our sister, Madame Caillavet, wrote to us from New Orleans, that Desgrange's wife whom he had married prior to marrying Zulime had arrived at New Orleans. We hastened our return to New Orleans. He was prosecuted for bigamy, Father Antoine, of the Catholic church in New Orleans, taking part in the proceedings against Desgrange. Mr. Desgrange was condemned for bigamy in marrying Zulime, and was cast into prison, from which he secretly escaped by connivance, and was taken down the Mississippi river by Mr. Le Breton D'Orgenois, where he got to a vessel, and, according to the best of my knowledge and belief, never afterwards returned to Louisiana. This happened in 1803, not a great while before the close of the Spanish government in Louisiana. Mr. Clark told us that before he could promulgate his marriage with my sister, it would be necessary that there should he brought by her an action against the name of Desgrange. The anticipated change of government created delay, but at length, in 1806, Messrs. James Brown and Elizaer Fromentin, as the counsel of my sister, brought suit against the name of Desgrange in the city court, I think, of New Orleans. The grounds of said suit were, that said Desgrange had imposed himself in marriage upon her at a time when he had a living lawful wife. Judgment in said suit was rendered against Desgrange. Mr. Clark still continued to defer promulgating his marriage with my sister, which very much fretted and irritated her feelings. Mr. Clark became a member of the United States Congress in 1806. While he was in Congress my sister heard that he was courting Miss Caton, of Baltimore. She was distressed, though she could not believe the report, knowing herself to be his wife; still his strange conduct in deferring to promulgate his marriage with her had alarmed her. She and I sailed for Philadelphia to get the proof of his marriage with my sister. We could find no record, and were told that the priest who married her and Mr. Clark was gone to Ireland. My sister then sent for Mr. Daniel W. Coxe, mentioned to him the rumor; he answered that he heard it to be true that Clark was engaged to her. My sister replied it could not be so. He then told her that she would not be able to establish her marriage with Mr. Clark, if he was disposed to contest it. He advised her to take counsel, and said he would send one; a Mr. Smythe came and told my sister that she could not legally establish her marriage with Mr. Clark, and pretended to read to her a letter in English (a language then unknown to my sister), from Mr. Clark, to Mr. Coxe, stating that he was about to marry Miss Caton. In consequence of this information, my sister Zulime came to the conclusion of having no further communication or intercourse with Mr. Clark, and soon after married Mr. Gardette, of Philadelphia.'
The testimony of this witness has been given in her own words, in her answers to questions put on both sides. The cross-interrogatories were filed by distinguished counsel, having before them at the time the direct interrogatories to be put to the witness. It often happens, in the investigation of causes, that the capacity of the advocate has an influence upon our conclusions in respect to testimony. It is right, also, in this remarkable suit, that those who have been professionally connected with it, for or against the complainant, should be mentioned. In this instance it will show that the cause was conducted by lawyers of ability and experience, and that they made a searching scrutiny into the veracity of the witness, by all those ingenious and pressing inquiries which the rules of evidence permit to be asked, and which the case itself and the testimony of the witness suggested. The cross-interrogatories answered by Madame Despau were filed by L. C. Duncan, J. J. Mercier, Z. M. Shepard, John Slidell, Julien Seghers, P. A. Zost, H. Lockett, and Isaac T. Preston, Esquires.
It is worthy of notice, too, that the testimony of Madame Despau was taken three times, at long intervals. It is admitted that she does not contradict herself in anything she said in her first examination, and that she did not afterward testify to more or less than she did at first. It was urged, however, against her credit, that the subsequent examinations were so frequently in the language of the first, that she must have had copies of the latter and merely repeated them, from which it might be inferred that she had been tampered with. But it was not intimated by whom, as a better discretion, in the absence of all proof of it, restrained counsel from giving personality to the insinuation, either as to the counsel of the complainant or herself. I have carefully compared the depositions in connection with the interrogatories, and cross-interrogatories put to the witness, without having been able to find such an identity in her answers, as might not very well have occurred from the sameness of the interrogatories, in each instance to a witness who is asked for a narrative of the same facts. Besides, her testimony was not orally given in court. It was taken by commission each time, long enough before the trial in the court below, for the considerate examination of counsel, who could have obviated what is now complained of, by a motion to the court for an oral examination of the witness in court, which the judges would have granted if they had seen in the depositions any foundation for the charge; or from anything in them, the slightest indication that the witness had been corrupted, or that the commissioners, in taking her testimony, had done so irregularly, by permitting her to use a copy of her first deposition. But the conclusive answer to the objection is, that the witness is sustained by other witnesses in all respects, except as to the fact of the marriage, of which she was a witness, and of which they were not, but which they swear was admitted to them by Mr. Clark. The next objection to the credit of the witness, and that most relied upon by the court for discrediting her testimony, and also that of her sister, Madame Caillavet, is, that neither of them, in giving the account of the purpose for which Madame Despau and Zulime left New Orleans for New York, in 1801, tell that Zulime was then enciente by Clark, and went there to be confined. There is no doubt that Zulime gave birth, in Philadelphia, during that absence from New Orleans, to the child known in the record maidenly as Caroline Clark, and afterwards as Mrs. Barnes. But as to the time of the birth of that child, there is nothing in the record conflicting with any probability against the declaration of Madame Despau, that it took place in 1801, notwithstanding the uncertain statement made by Mr. Coxe, of her birth having been in 1802, which last date has been used to show that Caroline was the child of Mr. Clark, and could not have been the child of Desgrange, on account of the latter's absence in France.
Before, however, a witness (as Madame Despau), will be discredited by an omission to state a fact of the kind mentioned, it is necessary to took at the interrogatories put to her by counsel on both sides of a cause, to determine if they called for such an answer either directly or indirectly and that it had been purposely withheld. Or that the fact was in issue between the parties, and that a question to elicit it had been reluctantly answered by the witness. I have more than carefully examined the interrogatories, which both Madame Despau and Madame Caillavet were asked to answer, without finding in any one of them any thing relating to the point, that Zulime left New Orleans to be confined at the north. And if there had been such a question, it would have been suppressed by the court on account of its irrelevancy to the issues between the parties as they are made by the bill and answers of the defendants. The fact of Zulime's confinement in Philadelphia is not in any way alluded to in either the bill or the answers, and through disclosed in the testimony of Mr. Coxe in the way it is, it cannot be used to discredit the witness, or to bear upon the subsequent marriage between Clark and Zulime, which is the point at issue, or have any other effect, it is should have any at all, that to show that Clark, according to the religious faith in which he was born, and according to the new laws of Louisiana, encouraged by the canon law, and frequently done under like circumstances, had determined to legitimate the child Caroline, per subsequens matrimonium, believing her to be his child. But there is nothing in the evidence of either of the aunts of the complainants, showing that either had wilfully suppressed Zulime's confinement, to the injury of the defendants or with an intention to conceal it; or that they knew Caroline was the child of Clark, and not the child of Desgrange. Indeed if the then law of Louisiana is to be decisive of the paternity of a child born during the marriage of parties, Caroline would be considered the child of Desgrange, for as the time of her birth is not established, (notwithstanding what is said to the contrary), on account of the differences between witnesses in respect to it, and the absence of Desgrange in its beginning being equally uncertain according to the proofs in the case, no inference can be drawn of such a time of absence, as precludes the possibility of access between husband and wife. Besides, as there is no proof in this case, when Desgrange sailed for France upon his mission to settle the Carri ere estate, the first heard from him there being as late as the-July, 1801; in his letter to Mr. Clark, even allowing Mr. Coxe's conjecture to be certain, that Caroline was born in the spring of 1802, and not in 1801, as the other witnesses say she was, she would by the law of Louisiana at that time, be adjudged to be the child of Desgrange, as that declares a child born in ten months in wedlock to be legitimate. L. 4, tit. 33, p. 4; and there could be no legal foundation to exclude her from that paternity, on account of the absence of Desgrange. In this point of view, the witnesses cannot be charged with the suppression of the fact of the confinement of Zulime in Philadelphia, and that was done to conceal from Desgrange that she had conceived and borne a child in his absence. They could neither have known the fact if it was, so, nor had they any right to assert it contrary to the conclusion which is made by the law in such a case. They therefore are not liable to be discredited in that way, by connecting it with the ecclesiastical paper which the defendants offered as evidence in the case, of which I shall speak hereafter both as to its inadmissibility as testimony, and its worthlessness to establish the validity of marriage between Desgrange and Zulime. In an inquiry to deprive a child born in wedlock of its legitimacy, on account of the non-access of the husband, the law requires certainty as to the time of absence, and without it, a child's filiation and its inheritance cannot be taken from it, by any comparison of witnesses or inferences from evidence. In such a case there must be dates, not as to a day or a month, but that time enough has passed from the absence of the husband and birth of a child, to make it certain that he could not have been the father of it. I will here in this connection give the testimony of Mr. Coxe, as that it principally relied upon to establish that Madame Despau had wilfully suppressed the fact of her sister's confinement in Philadelphia, and that upon that account she should be discredited. The 14th interrogatory, rec. 605, put to Mr. Coxe, is: Did Daniel Clark ever speak to you or write to you about his relationship with Madame Desgrange, the reputed mother of the complainant Myra. If any, state what that conversation was, the circumstances connected with it and all about it. The answer will be found on the 615th page of the record. 'Daniel Clark did both write and speak to me about his relationship or connection with Madame Desgrange, the reputed mother of the complainant Myra. In the early part of the year 1802, Madame Desgrange presented herself to me, with a letter from Daniel Clark, introducing her to me and informing me in confidence, that the bearer of that letter, Madame Desgrange, was pregnant with a child by him, and requesting me as his friend, to make suitable provision for her, and to place her under the care of a suitable physician; requesting me at the same time to furnish her with whatever money she might want and stand in need of, during her stay in Philadelphia. As the friend of Clark, I undertook to attend to his request and did attend to it. I employed the late William Shippen, M. D., to attend to her during her confinement, and procured for her a nurse. Soon after the birth of the child, it was taken to the residence of its nurse. That child was called Caroline Clark, and at the request of Mr. Clark, the child was left under my general charge and exclusive care until the year 1811. After that period she was not so exclusively under my charge, but I had a general charge of her, which continued up to the period of her marriage with Dr. Barnes, formerly of this city. She is now dead, as is also Dr. Shippen, before spoken of. Daniel Clark arrived in this city within a very short time after the birth of Caroline, which was, I believe, in April, 1802, when I received from him the expression of his wishes in reference to the child. He left here shortly afterwards, as before stated by me. During Daniel Clark's subsequent visits to Philadelphia, he always visited that child, acknowledged and caressed it as his own, and continued to give me the expression of his wishes in reference to her. On the occasion of Mr. Clark's visit to Philadelphia, immediately after the birth of Caroline, in conversation with me in reference to Madame Desgrange, he confirmed what he stated in his letter of introduction, stating to me that he was the father of this illegitimate child, Caroline, and that he wished me to take care of her, and to let the woman have what money she stood in need of until she returned to New Orleans.' In Mr. Coxe's answers to subsequent interrogatories, he substantially repeats parts of the foregoing without addition or any thing material besides. In his answers to the 20th, 21st, and 22d interrogatories, he recites the marriage of Zulime n ee Carri ere with Dr. Gardette, in August, 1808, she having arrived, from New Orleans, in Philadelphia, in the autumn of 1807. In his answer to the 27th interrogatory, he says: 'I also think it proper to state, that in the year 1808, after Madame Desgrange had returned to Philadelphia from New Orleans, and when lodging in Walnut street, she sent for me, and during a private interview with her, at Mrs. Rowan's, where she lodged, she stated that she had heard Mr. Clark was going to be married to Miss Caton, of Baltimore, which she said was in violation of his promise to marry her, and added that she now considered herself at liberty to connect herself in marriage with another person, alluding doubtless to Dr. Gardette, who at the moment of the disclosure, entered the room, when after a few words of general conversation I withdrew, and her marriage to Mr. Gardette was announced in a few days after.' Now, let it be remembered that the point under discussion is not whether Caroline is the child of Clark or Desgrange, but whether Madame Despau committed perjury in saying that she was one of the children of Desgrange, and that she purposely and corruptly concealed and withheld the fact of Zulime's confinement with Caroline in Philadelphia, from her apprehension of its influence upon the interest of the complainant whose witness she was. Nor is it at all a dispute or doubt of Mr. Coxe's veracity. It is merely a question, and a very important one too, of evidence, and the legal use which can be judicially made of it, altogether unconnected with the immorality of the persons disclosed in the record, with whom the complainant is unfortunately associated only as to the legitimacy of her birth, and of whom personally she knew nothing in her bringing up, nor any thing since, beside those voluntary communications to her after her marriage, concerning her birth and paternity, made to enable her to receive her just rights in her father's estate.
By what principle, then, is it, I ask, or by what cases for authority to do so, is it, that the unsworn declarations of Clark, now repeated by Mr. Coxe, have been used to discredit Madame Despau's sworn evidence concerning a transaction in which Coxe discloses Clark to have been the criminal transgressor, and Madame Despau at most, only as the attendant of a frail sister to aid her in her travail, and to shelter her and her family from disgrace. There are those whom the weak, the unfortunate, and the wicked have natural claims upon, not disallowed by the law, and the discharge of which, without a violation of law, it does not even reproach. This is putting the narrative of Mr. Coxe in the strongest light against Madame Despau, upon a presumption only, however, that she knew Caroline to be the child of Clark, and that she was not the child of Desgrange. I say knew, apart from that intuitive perception, which is not evidence, which women have in other matters, and especially concerning such as we are speaking of, bringing them to a conclusion with the quickness of instinct, and which are only uncertainly reached by men, after a comparison of facts with the instincts of their own nature, without that of women to aid them. The distinguished Sherlock says, without any satirical intention or meaning to say that women are inferior to men, 'Whilst she trusts her instinct she is scarcely ever deceived, and she is generally lost when she begins to reason.' And I need not tell my brethren, as evidence rests upon our faith in human testimony, as sanctioned by experience, that the conclusion of the great divine, is that of the law, and that the testimony of women is weighed with caution and allowances for them differently from that of men, but never with the slightest suspicion that they are not as truthful. Here then we have from Mr. Coxe, Clark's confession of an offence, subjecting him to stripes and the galleys, used to discredit a sworn witness guiltless of any offence against the law in relation to other facts, subsequently occurring as related by her, and who as to the fact related by Mr. Coxe may have been as much the victim of Clark's contrivance, as Zulime had been of his seduction. I make no theory, except in the sense of a theory resting upon facts; but may it not be probable, enough to relieve this witness from the imputation of having wilfully concealed the fact of Zulime's confinement, and her knowledge that Caroline was the child of Clark, that Clark in the absence of Desgrange in France, arranged matters for her confinement in Philadelphia, with the purpose also of having inquiries made concerning the validity of her marriage with Desgrange, or only pretendingly so, without communicating to the witness that he was the father of her sister's child, conceived, and to be born in Desgrange's absence, with the view of protecting both herself and its mother from disgrace, and both of them from prosecutions for their offence upon the return of the deluded husband. Concealment of its birth by the child having been left in Philadelphia, was obviously the motive of Clark and Zulime. When that was determined upon after the birth of Caroline, her filiation might have been obvious enough to the witness, but as there is no proof that it had been previously communicated to her by Clark or Zulime, it does not conflict at all with her declaration that the object of her going to the north with her sister was to procure proofs of the previous marriage of Desgrange. And if it be as it is said by those who discredit her that Caroline was not born until June, 1802, there had been at the time of her departure from New Orleans no such development of Zulime's pregnancy as necessarily to disclose it to her or any one else. It is in proof in the record, that the witness and Zulime left New Orleans in 1801, that Clark followed them and was in Philadelphia before the expiration of that year and for three months of 1802, or until some time in April. It is not unreasonable then, when the credit of a witness depends upon the supposed concealment of a single fact, that under such circumstances her ignorance of it should be implied until nature pregnantly disclosed it. Further from Mr. Coxe's narrative it does not appear that Madame Despau was ever present at his interviews with her sister, or that he ever had an interview with her. And it does appear that when Zulime delivered to him the letter of which he speaks that Madame Despau was not present. It cannot, then, be assumed, as it has been, without further testimony to bring the knowledge of it home to her, that she knew anything about that letter, or that Mr. Clark had said he was the father of Caroline, or of any of those arrangements made by Mr. Coxe for Zulime's confinement. Her purpose, then, for accompanying her sister to the north, as it is told by herself, ought to have been relied upon, because it is unaffected by any statement made by Mr. Coxe, of Clark's declarations to him. Madame Despau says she was at the birth of Caroline, and that it took place in 1801. This is all that she does say, which can connect her in any way with her sister's confinement with that child. Mr. Coxe is the only witness who says that the child was born in 1802, shortly after Mr. Clark's departure from Philadelphia. This is said with the qualification, to the best of his belief. Such an immaterial difference between two aged persons concerning a fact which took place more than forty years before they were testifying, cannot be used to discredit either, especially when both are before the court, in legal position equally entitled to credit. I will speak of the equality hereafter. Upon the testimony of Mr. Coxe, I make here a remark to show how little reliance can be put in his memory as to the time when Zulime presented to him the letter of which he speaks, or the time of Caroline's birth, or as to Clark's visits to Philadelphia, except that immediately preceding his departure for Europe. In his first examination, he did not state, I suppose he did not remember what he did state in his second, subsequently disclosed by his correspondence with Clark, that the latter had been in Philadelphia from late in 1801 to the last of April, 1802, all of which time Zulime was there, that it was in April that Clark returned to New Orleans and afterwards revisited Philadelphia in July, 1802, Zulime being still there, on his way to Europe. When he speaks, too, of the time of Caroline's birth, he does not do so with certainty, but only as he believes. There is then no cause for using any part of his testimony to discredit Madame Despau.
The next objection to Madame Despau's credit is made on account of her alleged want of character. It is said she was unchaste, and the defendants were allowed to put in proof a paper or record of a separation between herself and her husband upon his prosecution for a divorce upon which a judgment was given in his favor, which cut her off on account of his charges of her infidelity, from any interest in the property which he had, to a part of which she would otherwise have been entitled. I confess my inability to see, even supposing it to have been altogether regular, as an adjudication in a competent tribunal, which it is not, how this paper was received as evidence in this case, either against the witness or against the complainant. I have expressed myself too moderately with respect to the character of this paper, but in vindicating what I believe to be the rule of evidence, I am anxious not to offend any one, and to keep myself within the strictest limits of judicial forbearance. I will not say one word by way of inference concerning it, but will appeal to the paper itself for the correctness of what I shall say. It cannot be used as evidence in this suit because it is res inter alios acta. It does not in any way affect the truthfulness of Madame Despau, and cannot be used to affect her character, except so far as every wife may be degraded in the public estimation, when she is charged by her husband, truly or not, with infidelity to her marriage vow. This paper itself discloses in terms, and not inferentially, every fact which I am about to state. It seems that Madame Despau and her husband lived unhappily and had agreed to a divorce. Whilst the proceedings for it were pending, for the distribution of property, but after a decree had been made, her husband advertised the property for sale. She, by an application to the court, enjoined the sale, claiming that community in it to which she was entitled by the laws of Louisiana. The husband's answer asks the court to permit the property to be sold and that he may be allowed to give bond to deposit the proceeds with a responsible person. The court allowed him to do so. In a year after this, the husband filed a petition in which Madame Despau is charged with having left Louisiana for 'some place in North America,' without the consent of her husband, and that she is living in adultery. Supplemental affidavits were filed, declaring that Madame Despau had left the territory, and an affidavit in which it is said 'her conduct had not been regular, and that her husband had reason to complain of her.' In what respect is not stated. Upon these ex parte affidavits, made without the service of any process upon Madame Despau, or any appearance by her or for her by any person, to the last petition of her husband, the court decreed that she had forfeited her community in the property, divorcing them a mens a et thoro. The grounds of the decree were not stated. It certainly could not have been for proved adultery, there being no such evidence either general or particular against her. It does not become me to utter a word of reproach against the judge by whom that decree was given, but I may say the decree itself and the use of it in this case, show, whatever care may be taken to prevent irregularities in the trials of causes, that they sometimes occur to the great injury of parties, and to a want of confidence in the uniform correctness of judicial action.
But besides this paper, the defendants called witnesses to impeach the character of Madame Despau. I regret too, that there was in this particular a disregard of all those rules in respect to the impeachment of the credit or character of a witness. I do not remember a more marked departure from them. Before being more particular in this matter, I will state my judicial convictions of the manner of impeaching the character of a witness for veracity or for want of moral character, annexing judicial decisions, that it may be seen how far my views are sustained by authorities, and how much they were violated in this instance.
I understand that the credit of a witness may be impeached, 1st. By the results of a cross-examination. 2d, By witnesses called to disprove such of the facts stated by the witness whether in his direct or cross examination, as are material to the issue. 3d, By evidence reflecting upon the character of the witness for veracity. Under this the evidence must be confined to general reputation, and particular facts will not be permitted, for the law presumes every one to be capable of supporting the one, and that it is not likely that a witness, without notice, will be prepared to answer the other. Bull., N. P., 296, 297; Rex v. Lookwood, 13 How. St. Tr., 210, Sir Thomas Trevor, Att. Gen. argu.; Rex v. Layer, 16 How. St. Tr., 285, per Pratt, C. J.; Rex v. Lookwood, 13 How. St. Tr., 211, per Lord Holt, who says the mischief of raising collateral issues would itself be a sufficient reason for the adoption of this rule. The regular mode of examining into the character of the person in question, is to ask the witness whether he knows his general reputation among his neighbors-what that reputation is, and whether from such knowledge he would believe him upon his oath. Rex v. Watson, 32 How. St. Tr., 495, 496; Rex v. Delamotte, 21 How. St. Tr., 811, per Buller, J.; Mawson v. Hartsink, 4 Esp., 103, 104, per Lord Ellenborough; The People v. Mather, 4 Wend. (N. Y.), 257, 258; The State v. Boswell, 2 Dall., 209, 211. Anon. 1 Hill (S.C..), 258. These cases are cited from Taylor on Evidence, &c., &c. I do not think that the inquiry into the general character of a witness is restricted to his reputation for veracity, but that it may be made in general terms, involving entire moral character. On the other hand, notwithstanding the bad character of the witness in other respects, the witness deposing to that may be asked if the former has not preserved his reputation for truth. Rex v. Lookwood, 13 How. St. Tr., 211; Carpenter v. Wall, 11 Ad. & E., 803; Lord Stafford's case, 7 How. St. Tr., 1459, 1478; Sharp v. Scoging, Holt, N. P. 2, 541, Gibbs, C. J.; 1 Hill (S.C..), 251, 258, 259; State v. Boswell, 3 Dev. (N. C.) L., 209, 210; Hume v. Scott, 3 A. K. Marsh. (Ky.), 261, 262. But when it is attempted to impeach a witness on account of a want of moral character, it cannot be done by the impeaching witness 'merely stating what he has heard others say, for those others may be but few. He must be able to state what is generally said of the person, by those among whom he dwells or with whom he is chiefly conversant, for it is this only which constitutes his general character.' The impeaching witness, too, should be from the neighborhood of the individual whose character is in question. Boynton v. Kellogg, 3 Mass., 192, Parsons, C. J.; Wike v. Lightner, 11 Serg. & R. (Pa.), 198, 200; Kimmel v. Kimmel, 3 Id., 337, 338; Douglas v. Toucey, 2 Wend. (N. Y.), 352; Mawson v. Hartsink, 4 Esp., 103, Lord Ellenborough.
It is scarcely necessary for me to say that when the general reputation of a witness has been impeached, that his credit may be established by cross-examining the witnesses who have spoken against him, as to their means of knowledge and the grounds of their opinion, or as to their own character and conduct, or by calling other witnesses to support the character of the first witness, or to attack in their turn the general reputation of the impeaching witnesses. 4 Esp., 103, 104; 2 Phil. Ev., 433. But no further witnesses can be called to attach the character of the last. In other words, a discrediting witness may himself be discredited by other witnesses, but there the recrimination must end. Lord Stafford's trial, 7 How. St. Tr., 1484. In this instance the character of Madame Despau was most signally supported. I only now mention that another mode of impeaching a witness is by proof that other statements were made out of court contrary to what has been testified in court. No such attempt was made in respect to Madame Despau's statements. It will be seen directly that my particular statement of the rules for discrediting a witness is appropriate to the case. I now proceed to state what was said by those who were called to impeach the character of Madame Despau. Carraby says nothing good was said of her; another witness, that her reputation was on the same footing as that of Madame Desgrange. Two others, the daughters of Gardette, place her on a footing with her sister Zulime; Courcelle says the same, and all say reports were unfavorable to Zulime. I have given the testimony of all of them who were introduced to impeach the character of Madame Despau. There was no attempt to impeach her credit except by assailing her for a want of character forty years before. Thirty-two witnesses were called to support it. They knew her all of that time, several of them in her three different residences-to the hour when they deposed. All of them swear to her exemplary life and conduct in every place she had resided, and no one of them had found any thing with which to reproach her character or veracity. There is, perhaps, not another instance in our law cases, of a witness whose character has been so triumphantly lifted above every imputation of offence, and especially above the slanders of her husband, too readily received by the public, when he contrived, in her absence, judicially to rob her of her portion of his estate, and that, too, more than a year after they had been divorced a mensa et thoro, which released her in every other particular as well as to residence, from all marital control. There has then been a signal failure in the attempt to discredit this witness on account of a want of character or veracity. The marked difference between the witnesses upon that point, is that the few who impeach do not swear positively as to what was gonerally said of her by those where she dwelt, and those who were called to sustain her general reputation do so, every one of them, without any qualification. Nay, more, they swear that in forty years' knowledge of her, that they had not heard her reproached by any, and that her life had been exemplary, particularly in the care she had taken of those children whom her husband had falsely said she had abandoned. Under such circumstances the defendants were precluded from insinuating, much less from insisting upon her want of character, and the weight of testimony excludes a different judicial conclusion.
In the different examinations of this witness, there were long intervals between them, without any variation in any particular but one. That is, that in her last examination she stated that there were circumstances which made her think the marriage between Clark and Zulime had taken place in 1802; and that she had previously said it took place in 1803. Such a difference might have been decisive against her veracity, had it been connected with anything else in her testimony which made it probable that it was an alteration with an untruthful intention. It was not pretended that such was the case, but for the purpose of raising a suspicion against her, it was intimated that she had learned from an interested source that the defendants could or had proved that Clark had not been in Philadelphia in 1803. Before such an insinuation can be regarded by the court as entitled to its notice, it must be shown that it has some foundation. It has been already said that her evidence did not furnish it. It is disclaimed that the complainant's counsel furnished the information, and was only so feebly suggested that it might have been done by the complainant, that both the ethics of professional practice and the law discountenance such an attempt to prejudice a court or jury against a party in a cause upon its trial. But the difference in the depositions of the witness may be satisfactorily accounted for. She is speaking of the time of an occurrence which took place more than forty years before, in connection with its locality, the presence of the parties there, their return to New Orleans after it, the cause of their return in connection with transactions, the larger portion of which she relates correctly, which the defendants have proved happened in 1802. In respect to Clark's being in Philadelphia, and of his having followed the departure of herself and Zulime from New Orleans in 1801, she is confirmed by the proofs furnished by the defendants, which show that he was in Philadelphia when they were there for several months beginning in 1801 and extending to April, 1802, and also again in July, 1802, until he sailed for Europe in August of that year. In all of this the testimony of Mr. Coxe concurs and that witness also speaks uncertainly as to time in several particulars, relating to Clark and Zulime, with the reserve and caution of old age concerning events happening in the middle time of life when it is engrossed in the cares and perplexities of business.
Hitherto my object has been to show that Madame Despau cannot be discredited by anything contradictory in her evidence, or by anything offered exterior from it, or by any contradiction of her by any other witness. It is admitted by all of my brethren that there is no contradiction of herself in all of her examinations. No witness disproves any fact stated by her, her character for veracity rose above the attempt to assail her general reputation. It is not shown that she ever made statements out of court contrary to her testimony at the trial, and it is shown that the scandals against her, as they are reported by the witnesses of the defendant, are made more than improbable, by an exemplary life sustained there, and carried by her through forty years into a respected old age. I think that her testimony, corroborated as it is, in its most material particular, by four other witnesses, who are not impeached at all by circumstances in the case, or by any attempt to discredit them, and two of whom the defendant's witnesses declare were men of standing and high character, prove the marriage between the complainant's mother and father as fully as such a transaction can be ascertained by proofs, and in the way which has always hitherto been adjudicated by courts, to be sufficient to establish marriage in cases of this kind. The corroborating evidence are the statements of Madame Caillavet, that Clark made proposals of marriage for Zulime to her family, after her voluntary withdrawal from Desgrange, upon her hearing that he had then a previous wife alive. That Clark acknowledged to her the marriage afterwards, and that Zulime did the same. The oath of Mrs. Harper, who nursed the complainant as the friend of her father, that Clark repeatedly acknowledged to her that Myra was his lawful child. The will which he made in her favor a short time before his death, which Mrs. Harper saw and read, in which he made Myra his universal legatee, terming her in it his lawful child. The proof by several witnesses that such a will was made by him, which no one can doubt whose mind is open to the proper bearing of testimony in ascertaining truth. His solicitude about that will and the object of it, when conscious that he was within the grasp of death without a hope of a reprieve, in that last moment of life here, when that which presses most upon the parting spirit, is revealed in its naked truth; Clark then said, that Myra was his legitimate child, that he had made her the successor of his whole estate. With dying words pointed out where the will would be found, and directed with all the earnestness of his condition, that it might be delivered as soon as he died, to him who had promised to be her tutor and guardian, to whose hands she was confided to be brought up in the rank and condition of her legitimate paternity, as the dearest and last object of her father's affection. Mrs. Smyth says that Clark always spoke of Myra to her as his legitimate daughter, before he made the will of 1813, then so describing her in the will, and afterwards in their conversation about her. This witness, in her answer to the tenth cross-interrogatory, gives the cause of the final separation between Clark and Zulime. It is, that when Mr. Clark was absent in Washington, individuals had, or supposed they had, a great interest in dissolving his connection with the mother of his child, commenced a plan of breaking it up, by writing to Mr. Clark imputations against her, and by filling her mind with unfavorable impressions against him, till at length his mind was so poisoned, that when he arrived in New Orleans she and he had a severe quarrel, and separated. She immediately after this left New Orleans. Madame Caillavet swears that she was not present at the marriage of Clark and Zulime, but says, 'I do know that Clark made proposals of marriage for my sister, and subsequently Zulime wrote to me that she and Clark were married. Mr. Clark's proposals of marriage were made after it became known that her marriage with Mr. Desgrange was void, from the fact of his having then and at the time of his marrying her a living wife. These proposals were deferred being accepted, till the record proof of Desgrange's previous marriage could be obtained, and Zulime and Madame Despau sailed for the north of the United States, to obtain the record proof. Mr. Clark acknowledged her to me as his lawful child.' Pierre Baron Boisfontaine, after reciting with much minuteness, circumstances connected with the will of 1813, says, Clark spoke to him of Myra as his legitimate child, and in speaking to him of her mother, he says, 'he spoke of her with great respect, and frequently told me after her marriage with Gardette, that he would have made his marriage with her public, if that barrier had not been made, and frequently lamented to me that this barrier had been made, but that she was blameless.' Col. Bellechasse also says, that Clark repeatedly acknowledged to him that Myra was his legitimate child, and styled her in his will of 1813, his legitimate daughter. This witness also gives a very full account of the will of 1813. I have cited only so much of the testimony of these witnesses, as is confirmatory of the testimony of Madame Despau, in respect to the marriage of Clark with her sister, and of Clark's acknowledgment to others of his marriage with Zulime, and of their child's legitimacy.
And now it may well be asked, upon what rule of evidence it is that the testimony of Mr. Coxe, standing as he does in this case in the same legal relation as a witness with Madame Despau, can be used to discredit both her and her sister Madame Caillavet. There is no contradiction by him of any fact stated by them or either of them. No conflict between them in any one point, unless it be the differences between himself and Madame Despau, as to the time of the birth of Caroline, and the time of Mr. Clark's being in Philadelphia in the last of 1801, until April, 1802, in which Madame Despau is confirmed by Mr. Clark's correspondence with Mr. Coxe, furnished by the latter for the defence in this case. Indeed, the witnesses, though speaking of the same persons, are testifying to different transactions in their history-Mr. Coxe to a connection between Mr. Clark and Zulime, founded upon Mr. Clark's declarations of it to him, and Zulime's acknowledgment by her delivery to him of Mr. Clark's letter, his assistance to her in consequence of it, his preparations for her delivery and the birth of Caroline, and Clark's subsequent recognition of that child as his; and Madame Despau, of a fact of marriage happening afterwards, Madame Despau being present at it; and Madame Caillavet stating that before it took place Mr. Clark had made proposals of marriage to all of her family for Zulime, after her separation from Desgrange. Certainly Mr. Coxe's opinions concerning the marriage, and his recital of Mr. Clark's courtships of another lady, years after it, when his relation to society had become changed, and there had been added to the notoriety of his commercial enterprise something of political consequence, ought not to be permitted to preponderate against witnesses who swear to the fact of marriage, Clark's subsequent acknowledgment of it when time and trouble had obscured his fancied greatness, and his repeated declarations to disinterested witnesses that Myra was his lawful child. But we shall see how this testimony of Mr. Coxe has been associated with a paper in this case, to give to it a bearing upon the evidence of Madame Despau and Madame Caillavet, without which they would not have been assailed, and with which it is according to the rules of evidence worthless.
Having concluded in my own mind that the evidence establishes the marriage between the father and mother of Mrs. Gaines and that she is the child of their union, I proceed to the next most interesting point in the cause.
It is that neither their marriage nor her birth will be available to establish the claim of Mrs. Gaines, because at the time when Clark married her mother she had then another husband alive. That marriage being admitted, and that Desgrange was alive when the marriage with Clark was solemnized, the objection will be sufficient, unless it can be removed. Upon the part of Mrs. Gaines, it is said, and I think is proved as the law requires it to be done, that her mother's marriage with Desgrange is as void on account of his having been a married man when he married her, as if there never had been such a relation between them.
The attitude of the parties in the cause is then this, that each charges a bigamy in support of their respective rights-with this difference, that the defendants do so for the twofold purpose of establishing the fact upon the mother of Mrs. Gaines, and from the nature of the testimony upon which they rely, to show that it also disproves the marriage between her and Clark. I will examine both, and fearing that I may omit something, I will state the proofs upon which each party relies, after having stated the kind of proof which the law permits to be given in a civil suit, where begamy is the point to be determined.
A charge of bigamy in a criminal prosecution cannot be proved by any reputation of marriage; there must be proof of actual marriage before the accused can be convicted. But in a civil suit the confession of the bigamist will be sufficient when made under circumstances from which no objection to it as a confession can be implied. The proofs relied upon by Mrs. Gaines to establish the bigamy of Desgrange when he married her mother, are his confessions of it to witnesses contemporary with the fact of their separation, more than a year before he was prosecuted for bigamy, when it does not appear by any proof in the cause that he was menaced with a prosecution. To such confession is added his flight from New Orleans during the pendency of an inquiry against him for bigamy and an adjudication afterwards upon his return to New Orleans, by a competent tribunal, in an inquiry into the validity of that marriage, at the suit of Zulime in her maiden name, in which judgment was given in her favor, and against him. In respect to the marriage of her father and mother, the complainant relies upon the proof of it by Madame Despau, who was present when it took place, upon the declaration of Madame Caillavet as to Clark's previous proposals of marriage to her family for her, their and her acceptance of them conditionally upon proof being obtained of Desgrange's previous marriage; Clark's admission of that marriage to several witnesses, as I have already shown, her father's conduct towards her from her birth to his death, his frequent acknowledgement of her legitimacy, the provisions of fortune which he made for her at different times, and the will which he made in her behalf, declaring her to be his legitimate child, and making her as such his universal legatee. On the other hand, the defendants rely upon the validity of Desgrange's marriage to Zulime, upon the secrecy of her intercourse with Clark, or of their alleged marriage; upon their not having lived in open cohabitation as man and wife; upon Clark's subsequent courtship of other females with offers of marriage; upon Zulime's marriage with Gardette in 1808, without any attempt to prove her marriage with Clark, or any application by her to dissolve it by legal means or to enforce it with the proofs which she had of it, when she discovered his infidelity to her. They also rely upon certain papers to be found in the record.
The first of them is what they term an ecclesiastical record of a prosecution of Desgrange for bigamy, and a declaration in it imputed to the complainant's mother. The second paper is her suit against Desgrange for alimony as late as the year 1805. The third is a suit brought by her guardian, Mr. Davis, in her infancy, against the executors of her father for aliment, and the fourth is a record of a court, properly authenticated, of a suit brought by Zulime in her maiden name against the name of Desgrange. This last was introduced by the defendants to show, as late as 1806, that the marriage with Desgrange had not been legally dissolved. And until it was, it is urged that there was such an impediment in the way of her marriage with Clark as to make that marriage null and void, the offspring of it illegitimate, especially so for the purposes of inheritance, even admitting that her filiation as the child of Clark had been established.
It has been said that the invalidity of a marriage in a civil suit, on account of those causes which make it void ab initio, particularly in the case of one void on account of the bigamy of one of the parties, may be proved by the admission of the fact by that party. It so happens in this case that Desgrange's admission of his bigamy, excluding his admission of it to Zulime's family for the present, is proved by a witness whose testimony has not been assailed and cannot be. Madame Benguerel has no connection with the family of the complainant, and her standing and character are such that the defendants could not impeach her credit on account of the want of either. She was subjected, too, to their cross-interrogation, and it brought out neither difference or contradiction of herself, nor any thing in the way in which she gave her testimony to subject her to any suspicion of friendship to the complainant or of any want of memory or uncertainty of her narrative. Madame Benguerel says, 'My husband and myself were very intimate with Desgrange, and when we reproached him for his baseness in imposing upon Zulime, he endeavored to excuse himself by saying that at the time he married her, he had abandoned his lawful wife and never intended to see her again.' In her answer to a cross-interrogatory put upon this point, she answers, I am not related to the defendants nor with either of them, nor with the mother of Myra, nor am I at all interested in this suit. It was in New Orleans where I obtained my information. It will be seen by my answers how I know the facts-I was well acquainted with Desgrange, and I knew the lawful wife of Desgrange whom he had married before imposing himself in marriage upon Zulime. Now let this evidence be taken in connection with the arrival of Barbara D'Orci in New Orleans from France, contemporary with the return of Desgrange and at his instance, and the antecedent connection between them as that is represented by both, and that there is in the record a certificate of a marriage between one Jacobus Desgrange and one Barbara n ee D'Orci, in every other particular corresponding with the relation which these persons had been in, to each other in the year 1790, excepting in this that Desgrange was afterwards known as Jerome and not as Jacobus, and it will be admitted that the facts just recited, with Madame Benguerel's evidence, are sufficient to establish the bigamy of Desgrange when he married the complainant's mother. Against this confession, what is urged? Nothing but the misapplication of the case of Harman v. McClelland, 16 La., 26, in which it was rightly ruled that in an application for a divorce, it would not be granted upon the confession of a husband and wife of adultery. The proof in the case also shows that Desgrange disappeared from New Orleans in 1802, on account of the current charge that he was a bigamist and whilst a prosecution of him was pending for that offence. There is also proof that he did not return to New Orleans until 1805, when Louisiana having become a portion of the United States, he could do so without liability to a renewal of an ecclesiastical criminal prosecution for bigamy or to the punishment inflicted by the provincial law for that offence.
But sufficient as such proof is to establish bigamy in a civil suit, the complainant adds it to record evidence of the fact of Desgrange having been a married man when he imposed himself upon her mother in marriage. The record and judgment of a court, of competent jurisdiction, was introduced by the defendants as a part of their proofs to show that there was a legal impediment in the way of Clark's marriage with Zulime when it occurred, and that continued up to 1806, when they alleged that they were divorced. It was used for that purpose and much relied upon, and it was not until it was shown that the judgment in that case had relation back to the marriage making it absolutely void ab initio, that it was urged that the record was of no account because a part of it was wanting. Here it is necessary to be particular. I cite from their answers their averments concerning that record. Upon page 58 of the record the defendants introduce it in the following terms, 'That afterwards, on or about the 24th of June, 1806, Zulime n ee Carri ere, wife of the said Desgrange, did present another petition to the competent judicial tribunal of the city of New Orleans, therein representing herself as the wife and of having intermarried with Jerome Desgrange, and praying for a divorce and a dissolution of the bond of matrimony existing between her and the said Jerome Desgrange, and which was subsequently decreed, subsequent to the birth of the complainant, Myra; and for further answer, say that in the city of Philadelphia, on or about the 2d day of August, 1808, Mrs. Desgrange having obtained a divorce from her husband, Jerome Desgrange, and having resumed her maiden name, did enter into a contract of matrimony with and did intermarry with James Gardette.' The preceding extract shows that the defendants not only use it to establish the fact of a divorce, but for the purpose of sustaining the rightfulness of Zulime's marriage with Gardette. Now if the record, imperfect though it may be, shows that the divorce could only have been decreed on account of the legal invalidity of the marriage with Desgrange, at the time of its occurrence, then unless it can be shown that the law interposed an impediment to marriage in the way of the party imposed upon, until a sentence of nullity had been obtained, Zulime's marriage with Clark was a good and valid marriage, though for marrying without such a sentence, she may have subjected herself to the discipline of the church. It will be seen, before this opinion is closed, what the law is upon that point.
The deficiency in the record of divorce is the want of the petition. In every other particular it is perfect. So much so that it discloses the object of the petition, or the cause for which the suit was brought, and for which the judgment of the court was given.
It was introduced by the defendants, who allege that it was a decree of divorce, annulling the bonds of matrimony between Desgrange and Zulime, by a competent tribunal in New Orleans; record 58, 59, 216; and was so pleaded in their answers. When so introduced by them and admitted by the court as admissible evidence, the complainants proved the loss of the petition, and the short manner of entering judgments in the court of which it was a record. 1206. I must here remark, though so brought forward by the defendants, that the majority of this court has rejected it from having any such effect.
At this point, then, my inquiries begin in opposition to the court's conclusion, as it has been announced by my learned brother. The points are, can we learn what is the effect of judgment without the petition? Can we ascertain the cause for which the judgment was rendered without the petition?
What is the effect of the judgment? It is one of a court of record having jurisdiction of the subject and over the parties to the suit. It annuls the bonds of matrimony-as the act of a competent tribunal the judgment must be presumed to have been rightfully rendered, until the contrary appears. This rule applies as well to every judgment or decree rendered in the various stages of a cause, from initiation of a suit to the final adjudication, affirming that the plaintiff either has or has not a right of action; 10 Pet., 472. The decree then had a legitimate cause until the contrary shall be shown. Now as the defendants plead this record to be true, averring it to be so upon their oaths, it cannot be further inquired into by the court, with a view to take from either party in the suit what it discloses. Its rejection by the court places its judgment in the remarkable and unexampled condition of denying to the complainant the benefit of the defendant's answer, as to a fact which they plead to be true. Further, it decides against the complainant, not upon the deficiency of her proofs, but by a denial of a fact, sworn to by the defendants to defeat the complainant's suit.
What but divorce, as contradistinguished from separation a mens a et thoro, could have been the cause of the suit? The witnesses, one and all of them say, that the bigamy of Desgrange, or his having been charged with it, induced Zulime to separate herself from him, and to return to her family.
But the cause assigned in the petition for the divorce may be satisfactorily made out, from the law of Louisiana as it then was, and from the rest of the record. Between 1803 and 1807, the United States Territorial Government of New Orleans passed no law upon the subject of marriage and divorce. This judgment then in Zulime's suit could not have been founded upon any statutory enactment after the transfer of Louisiana to the United States. In the discussion of this point, in order that I may be better understood, that must be kept in mind. Then I say, that the laws of Spain as they were in the provincial condition of Louisiana, concerning marriage and divorce, and in every other respect, by the laws of nations, and by the act of Congress of 1804, organizing a government for New Orleans, remained in force there until legislatively repealed. Now, we learn from those laws, that they provided for sentences of the nullity of marriages and for divorces. From the same law, we learn that marriage could not take place, if there existed any canonical or civil impediment. 1 White, Recop., 44; Johnson's Civil Laws of Spain, 50. There are fourteen canonical impediments for which divorces were granted a vinculo matrimonii. In 1 M. & C. S. Partidas, 460, it is said there are fifteen, but upon the examination of the recital of them, it will be found there are substantially only fourteen, the last mentioned being only a prohibition subjecting the party to the discipline of the church, not extending to the dissolution of the marriage.
Canonical doctors express the fourteen impediments as I shall state them, which for all the purposes of this case, and for understanding them, will be found explained, though not in their order, in the Partidas.
Error, conditio, votum, cognatio, crimen,
Cultus, disparitas, vis, ordo, ligamen, honestas
Si parochi et duplicis desit, presentia testis
Raptare sit mulier, nec parti reddita tutae.
The civil impediments are those which proceed from want of understanding, & c., &c., and from previous marriage, the wife or husband of the party contracting a second marriage being alive. For such causes as have just been stated, divorces could be granted a vinculo matrimonii. Such was the law of marriage and divorce of the Catholic church, so it is still, and it was the law of Louisiana before its transfer to the United States, and afterward until it was legislatively repealed, and by it the judgment was given which divorced Zulime from Desgrange. For its continuance after the transfer of the territory to the United States, see 2 Story's Laws, 907, and the act of the 3d March, 1805, 2 Story, 972, expressly providing for 'the continuance of the former laws of Louisiana, until repealed or modified by the territorial legislature.'
With then the law in view, we are prepared to ask for what cause was the divorce sought by Zulime in her petition? We see, from the statement which has been made of the law, that it could not have been for a supervenient cause, and that it must have been for one antecedent to the marriage, which made it absolutely void from its beginning, notwithstanding all the forms of marriage had been observed. And what this cause alleged in the petition must have been, cannot be more conclusively shown than it is by the evidence in this case, and by the record of divorce, excluding all other enumerated causes of divorce a vinculo, excepting that of the bigamy of Desgrange. I shall state the evidence hereafter, keeping myself now to the point of the jurisdiction of the court in rendering a judgment of divorce. It having been shown that the provincial law of Louisiana was in force when the judgment upon Zulime's petition was given, it follows, as the County Court of New Orleans was constituted with a civil jurisdiction, comprehending also what had been before exclusively ecelesiastical, that the court could only grant divorces a vinculo, for the same causes for which they could have been given by the ecclesiastical courts. Fortunately, the position just stated is that of the highest tribunals of this country, and in those of Louisiana expressly, when they have been called upon to decide what portion of the jurisdiction of the consistory courts for enforcing the canon law, appertained to our tribunals organized with civil jurisdiction. It follows then that the judgment of the County Court upon Zulime's petition, defectively as that judgment is expressed, could only have been given upon a petition for a sentence of the nullity of the marriage between the petitioner and Desgrange. Thus with the guide of a settled principle in respect to the law of a country transferred from one dominion to another, until that law has been repealed, the purpose and object of the lost petition in Zulime's application for a sentence of the nullity of her marriage with Desgrange, is made out with as much certainty as if the petition had not been lost.
I think these results have been shown in respect to the judgment of the County Court upon Zulime's petition for a sentence of the nullity of her marriage with Desgrange.
1. That the territorial government had not, when the County Court gave the judgment, any statutes concerning marriage and divorce. 2. That the laws of Spain upon those subjects were then in force. 3. That by such law a marriage between persons, either or both of whom had a lawful wife or husband alive, was void ab initio. 4. That the County Court of New Orleans had a general civil jurisdiction, including the power to divorce, but that it could not divorce for a supervenient cause, and could only divorce a vinculo, for an impediment existing before the marriage, which made it dissoluble. 5. That having given such a judgment upon Zulime's petition against Desgrange, it relates back to its origin, and is res adjudicata controlling all other testimony in this cause, which has been given with a view of showing that Desgrange, when he married Zulime, did not commit bigamy.
I consider, then, that the complainant has established by such proof as the law requires, that Desgrange committed the offence of bigamy when he married her mother; that she could legally disregard the connection and marry another person; that she did marry Clark, that the complainant is the only offspring of their union, and is entitled to her legitime in her father's estate.
I will here take another view of the record to show that there is in it, complete and satisfactory secondary evidence of of the object and purpose of the lost petition. The plea put in by the counsel of Desgrange affords a clew, not of itself entirely sufficient, but which, united with the other proceedings, make up what the law terms good secondary evidence the contents of the petition. It is admitted or cannot be denied, that secondary evidence may be given to supply the loss. The plea denies the jurisdiction of the court over divorce cases, and then urges that the court could not consider the question of damages, until the validity of the marriage between the defendant and Zulime had been ascertained and declared,-validity of the marriage, it must be remembered. Can anything show more plainly that its invalidity was the cause assigned in the petition? Again, the evidence in the record of the County Court shows that Desgrange's bigamy in marrying the complainant's mother was the subject of her petition and of the court's inquiry. I take from the record of the County Court a part of what, upon the trial of the case, the defendant introduces as his testimony, which the defendants in this suit have made theirs by the introduction of it. The witnesses speak of imputed bigamy to Desgrange, his flight on account of it, and his confession. In the County Court, not one of them answers to anything else than to the inquiry, whether or not Desgrange had been married, and whether or not that wife was not alive when he married Zulime. One of the witnesses, and the most conclusive that could be in such a case, tells the cause of the suits and no one disputed it. Besides, the suit is in the maiden name of the plaintiff against the name of Desgrange, and the cause is so entitled. Certainly nothing more in the nature of secondary evidence can be wanting to establish the cause for which the divorce from Desgrange was sought. Yet there is more; for two witnesses swear that her suit was brought to get a sentence of the nullity of her marriage with Desgrange on account of his bigamy. I cannot but regard it as singular and unexampled, too, that any objection should have been made to the character and force of this paper on account of the deficiency of the petition after its introduction by the defendants to maintain an averment in their answers to the complainant's bill. It was introduced and used by the defendants to show that there had been a divorce between Zulime and Desgrange. The complainant could not object to its introduction as proof of an averment in the answer to her bill. It was good for what it was worth or for what it might disclose for or against either party in this suit. The complainant relied upon it, as her counsel may very well do, to establish the original invalidity of the marriage with Desgrange. The defendants relied upon it to show the lawfulness of Zulime's marriage with Gardette, and the improbability from that fact that Clark had ever married her. We have then, the defendant's admission that the judgment of the County Court was rendered for a cause which made the marriage with Desgrange void ab initio. To put, then, this record aside as nothing in the case, is a denial to the complainant of the benefit resulting from the action of the defendants, which in my view is a surprise entitling her to a rehearing of the cause by this court. It matters not whether the surprise has been caused by the action of the court and not by that of a party to the suit. The same right follows. In cases at common law a new trial would be granted, and in cases in chancery a rehearing will be given. If such secondary evidence shall not be deemed sufficient to make up for a lost paper, one, too, in this case, which the complainant had every motive to produce, which she sought for in the office where it was, without success, but which the defendants subsequently obtained and made evidence as they thought exclusively for themselves. Without regard to the want of the petition then, I cannot suppose that anything less than a literal copy would satisfy those who have taken a different view of it from myself.
My views having been given upon the credit of Madame Despau and upon the testimony relating to the bigamy of Desgrange, I turn to that upon which the defendants rely to disprove it. Their first paper is termed the ecclesiastical proceedings in a prosecution against Desgrange, in 1802, for bigamy. It will be found at length in the opinion read by Mr. Justice Catron for the majority of the judges who sat in the trial of the cause.
It is not used to show that he was not a bigamist, for the paper contains only an interlocutory order, suspensive of further action, until the inquiry shall be resumed. But it is used, because it is said there is in this paper a declaration by Zulime of her disbelief of the charge against Desgrange, and that she was then his wife.
It is the misfortune of the complainant, that her case has been considered by the court with the rejection of the judicial proof of the bigamy of Desgrange, which is admitted to be admissible in evidence, and with the allowance against her of another paper, to which her counsel objected in the court below and here also, which in the way it was offered is not admissible. Two questions arise upon this paper: Is it an official register or record of a court, authenticated as it should be to make it testimony? What is its effect as testimony?
It has no other authentication of its genuineness than the declarations of Bishop Blanc and Father Kemper. The latter says, he is the keeper of the records of the Catholic church at New Orleans, and that the copy in the record is an exact copy of a paper found there, Rec. 577. The bishop says, he has the charge of such records of the bishopric as exists, and he finds among them a paper which is truly copied, Rec. 694.
Under these certificates this paper has been used by the court to rebut the parol proofs of the bigamy of Desgrange. The intention cannot be objected to, but rebutting testimony must have legal admissibility before it can be received in evidence. In this instance it is altogether wanting.
Public writings consist of the acts of public functionaries in the executive, legislative, and judicial departments of government, including under such general head the transactions which official persons are required to enter into books or registers, or to file, where books are not kept, in the course of their public duties, and which occur within the circle of their own personal knowledge and observation. To this class may be referred the acts of foreign states and the judgments of foreign courts.
Now this ecclesiastical record, as it is called, is either a transaction which official persons are required to keep, or it is the judgment of a foreign court. Whether one or the other, the certificates of the bishop and Father Kemper are not sufficient to make it testimony.
If it shall be said to be the first, before it can be received as an official register, it must be shown by the party offering it, to be one which the law required to be kept for the public benefit.
Such writings are admissible in evidence on account of their public nature, though their authenticity be not confirmed by the usual tests of truth; namely, the swearing and the cross-examination of the persons who prepared them. They are entitled to this extraordinary degree of confidence, partly because they are required by law to be kept, partly because their contents are of public interest and notoriety, but principally because they are made under the sanction of an oath of office, or at least under that of official duty, by accredited agents appointed for that purpose. Moreover, as the facts stated in them are entries of a public nature, it would often be difficult to prove them by means of sworn witnesses. The same rule prevails with respect to foreign and colonial registers. That is, copies of such foreign registers will only be admissible as proof where they are required to be kept by the law of the country to which they belong. Tayl. on Ev., 2, 1050. In Huet v. Le Messurier, 1 Cox, 275, a copy of a baptismal register in Guernsey was rejected, because it did not appear by what authority it was kept. In Leader v. Barry, 1 Esp., 353, and in the Athlone Peerage, 8 Cl. & F., 262, copies of the marriage register in the Swedish ambassador's chapel, at Paris, and a copy of the book kept at the British ambassador's hotel, in Paris, in which the ambassador's chaplian had made and subscribed entries of all marriages of British subjects celebrated by him, were rejected upon the same principle. The rule in its application is made more certain, for we find, contemporary with some of the cases mentioned, that an examined copy of a marriage register in Barbadoes was admitted, it expressly appearing that such a register was kept by the law of that colony. So a Jewish record of circumcision, kept at the Great Synagogue, in London, was rejected, though it was proved that the entries in it were in the handwriting of a deceased Chief Rabbi, whose duty it was to perform the rites of circumcision, and to make corresponding entries in the books. Davies v. Lloyd, 1 Cl. & F., 295, per Lord Denman & Patteson, JJ. When this last decision was made, its correctness was questioned by some members of the profession as not being reconcilable with the principles regulating the admission of the declaration of persons in the course of office or business. But it has not been judicially questioned, and is judicially considered to be a decision within the rule as to official registers, though there have been careless departures from it. The reasons for the rejection of the copy in that case, were, that the law did not require such a record to be kept. That it did not appear how those entries were kept in the synagogue to secure them from false entries, or to whose custody they were exclusively officially confided. So also the birth, marriage, or burial register, of any dissenting chapel in England was rejected, until the act of 3 & 4 Vict., c. 92, provided for them to be received as evidence, when they have been deposited in the office of the Registrar-General and entered in his list, pursuant to that act.
I have thus shown what the rule of evidence is in respect to public or official writings, from adjudicated cases. The same rule prevails in the courts of all of the states of this Union, and has hitherto done so in the courts of the United States. In England we have just seen, that the statute of 3 & 4 Vict. confirms it, by the provision which it makes in respect to the registers of dissenting chapels. In Louisiana the rule is substantially the same as it is in the courts of the other states-the only difference being that it is better guarded and has been put, in its application to cases there, upon a broader or more precise comprehension of the philosophy of evidence. This paper, under the decisions of the courts of that state, would not have been permitted to be evidence in the cause. Each state may regulate for itself the admission of such writings in evidence. Until it shall be done, the general rule must be in all of them as it has been, and it is binding in the courts of the United States.
It matters not that this paper is termed an ecclesiastical record. Such a designation gives it no authority over any other official register. It has the same force and no more than any other paper of the same kind would have from any other church or sect of Christians in our country. It stands upon the same footing as such a paper would, coming from the bishop and rector of an Episcopal church, or from any other denomination of Christians. All of them under our constitutions-state and national-being separately, according to the faith of each, upon an equality and having the same legal protection from all tortious interference and disturbance. The rule for which I have been contending, induced me, in the consideration of this case, to reject the certificate of the marriage of Desgrange with Barbara D'Orci, introduced by the complainant. It is not sufficiently authenticated to make it evidence any more than the ecclesiastical paper is-but it is as much so. And I should not have mentioned it at all, had it not been that this court, in making its decision, has used her declarations in that paper to show that Barbara and Desgrange were not married, though both admit they were engaged to be married, and that she left her father's house with that intention.
But I have not yet done with this paper. Fatiguing as it is to me to state all of the legal objections to its admissibility in evidence, I yield my own conveneience to the importance of the rule for which I am contending, in some hope that what I write may attract professional attention, and prevent the disregard of it again.
Before this paper with such certificates could be made evidence as an entry or file in the course of business or of office, it should have been shown that it was filed or entered contemporaneously with the act to which it relates. So strict is this rule to guard against impositions of papers as official registers, that it requires, either where the original or a copy is offered, that it shall appear to have been made or entered contemporaneously with the transaction. Where several days had passed before the file or entry was made the paper has always been rejected. I give the cases, comprehending, from the first to the last of them, a long time. Price v. Torrington, 1 Salk., 285; Vance v. Fairis, 2 Dall., 217; Curren v. Crawford, 4 Serg. & R. (Pa.), 3, 5; Ingraham v. Bockins, 9 Id., 285; Forsythe v. Norcross, 5 Watts (Pa.), 432. And in Waller v. Bowman, 8 Id., 544, the interval of a day between the transaction and the entry was held to be a sufficient objection.
Indeed, I do not know a rule of evidence which has been more uniformly adhered to than this has been. I regret that it should have been overlooked in this case, for I know it will be mischievously used, though I may not be able to anticipate the extent of mischief it may do. I take the rule to be this: that such registers must be promptly made, at least without such delay as to impair their credibility, and that they must be made by the person whose duty it is to make them, and in the mode required by law, if any has been prescribed. Doe v. Bray, 8 B. C., 813; Walter v. Wingfield, 18 Ves., 443. This ecclesiastical paper, now so much relied upon and so fatally used against the complainant, has no one of the requisites to make it evidence. It has a date, but how it got among the records of the church, or when, or by whom it was put there, no one knows. I remember a case where the record of a baptism made by a minister before he had any connection with the parish, with the private memorandum of the clerk who was present at the ceremony, was rejected. It was not contemporaneous with the occurrence; but the clerk's memorandum was not enough. How far short this ecclesiastical paper is from having such proof to sustain it! I will now proceed to apply the rules of evidence as they have been stated, because it will show that more formidable objections exist to the use of this ecclesiastical paper than merely legal insufficienty of its authenticity.
It purports to contain the action of public authorities having a criminal jurisdiction, before Louisiana was ceded to the United States. The presumption is that it and other documents like it had a regular official depository. The defendants invoke it as such. It should then have been placed upon the transfer of the public papers of Louisiana, with the authorities of the United States who were appointed to receive them. That, it seems, was not done. This paper, then, was retained by the civil or ecclesiastical authorities of Spain as one not included in such as were to be delivered up to the United States, but as one which might be left in the cathedral at New Orleans, although it was a public document. The latter being the fact, it is not unreasonable to ask, before it shall be used as an authentic document, upon the certificates of those who had no political connection then with the cathedral of New Orleans, for some proof that this paper had been regularly derived from the authorities by whom it had been provincially kept, and that it had been faithfully and honestly preserved.
The Catholic church in Spain, and the Spanish ecclesiastical authorities in New Orleans, had a political character, and did exercise an undefined jurisdiction in criminal matters of a certain description. And records may have been kept of its transactions.
But, since the cession of Louisiana to the United States, the Catholic society in New Orleans has not had any political connection with that institution. There has not been any regular association or hierarchy of Catholic Christians there since the change of government. The cathedral church, formerly a part of that institution, became private upon the transfer of the Province to the United States, whatever may be its voluntary ecclesiastical subordination to the church of which it was once a political part. This separation suggests at once the inquiry, what portion of the records and papers of the original Spanish hierarchy were transferred to the private and unrecognized body of American Catholics in New Orleans? Also what measures were taken by them in their new relation to our government to preserve them from mutilation or from additions? Have there been in the cathedral of New Orleans regular keepers of these papers from the beginning of the political change in the condition of that church? None of these inquiries can be judicially assumed. Courts cannot recognize any private association of persons or sect of Christians as legitimately the successors of the political authorities of Spain for the custody of documents of a public nature. If these records had been handed over by the bishop to his successor, or were considered as any part of those public archives which were to be transferred to the United States, proofs of such connection should have been made before the paper in question could be received as evidence. There is no proof of any such connection, or that anything of the kind was done. All that is proved about it is that the present bishop has the charge of such papers as are to be found in the cathedral, without any proof that they were regularly transmitted to him by his predecessors or to any one of them who succeeded to the diocese after its separation from the authorities of Spain. Nothing, for the purpose of making this paper evidence, can be inferred from the fact that there is still in New Orleans a congregation of the same name and faith worshiping in the same building. The inquiries suggested cannot be taken upon trust. The pertinency of them must be obvious when it is remembered that this paper has found its way into this case upon the oaths of the present incumbent of the cathedral, who is only thirty-two years of age and of a prelate of recent accession to that dignity; neither of whom have spoken or can speak of the integrity of the papers of which they say they have the care, or of the manner they have been kept by their predecessors, or how they were derived from the ecclesiastical authorities of Spain.
I speak with a proper sense of the sacred characters which they fill, but I cannot judicially recognize them to be the successors of the public authorities of Spain in Louisiana for the custody of papers forming a part of its provincial judicial documents.
If the paper in question had been handed over officially to the predecessors of the bishop, or had been allowed inadvertently to continue among the archives of the cathedral, the bishop should have been called upon to prove all that he knew about it, before this paper was made evidence in this case. And so of any other that may be in the archives of the cathedral, and which may be hereafter offered as evidence in any other case. For all that appears this paper may have found its way irregularly and fraudulently into the archives of the church. No one proves that it formed a part of them at any time preceding the commencement of this suit. It had been repeatedly sought for without success. When found by the defendants-or for them-it was under circumstances which show that the papers of the cathedral have not been kept with care or regularity, or with any knowledge of what they were. What they now are as a whole is not known. They have neither been collated nor catalogued. What they were when the ecclesiastical authorities of Spain ceased to have a political existence in Louisiana no one knows. The bishop speaks of them as being only a part of what once existed.
In this deficient condition of the archives of the cathedral, without knowing how it has happened, I cannot say that any paper has been abstracted or fraudulently added, to serve such a purpose as this paper has done. But I can say, from the proofs in this cause, that the archives of the cathedral have been too negligently kept, for any paper in them of provincial date, to be received as evidence, without the most cautious scrutiny into its authenticity. The rules for the admission of puplic papers as evidence must be rigidly complied with in respect to them, or consequences may follow in Louisiana, which have not hitherto been anticipated. Comprehending, as they must do, notices of marriages, births, and deaths, they may be invoked to guide or disturb the descents of property or to fix and unfix a relationship between persons differently from that which has been generally recognized. My object in what I have hitherto said concerning this ecclesiastical paper, has been to show that it was not admissible in evidence either as an official register or a judicial proceeding.
I proceed now to show the misuse which has been made of it and its worthlessness as testimony.
It does not disprove Desgrange's admission that he was a married man when he married Zulime. It positively leaves him under a criminal prosecution for bigamy. The order given in it is not an acquittal. It suspendes proceedings only for further investigation, and releases Desgrange from jail, because, up to that time, his guilt had not been proved. In other words, the evidence was thought sufficient to subject him to another trial, and not enough for a final judgment against or for him. Such is the paper. It cannot, then, be used for any other or larger purpose. The depositions which it contains cannot be made evidence in any case between other parties. The whole of the paper is an unfinished suit in which nothing was determined. It stands upon the same footing as other unconcluded prosecutions, where there has been a judgment of discontinuance, non-suit, nolle prosequi, or the ignoramus of a bill by a grand jury. All of us know that the proofs taken in either of these cases cannot be used as evidence in another inquiry into the truth of facts at issue. They are excluded, as well by the practice in Louisiana, as they are by the other state courts, and by those of England. Indeed, the rule excluding such proofs includes the exclusion of such as are annexed to judgments in a criminal prosecution. Such a judgment cannot be given in evidence in a civil action to establish the truth of the facts on which it was rendered, any more than a judgment in a civil action could be given for the same purpose in a criminal prosecution. I cite the cases, Smith v. Rummens, 1 Campb., 9; Hathaway v. Barrow, Id., 151; 2 Cromp. M. & R., 139; Jones v. White, 1 Str., 68, Bull. N. P., 233; Hillyard v. Grantham, cited by Lord Hardwicke in Brownsword v. Edwards, 2 Ves. Sr., 246; Gibson v. McCarthy, Cas. t. Hardw., 311; Wilkinson v. Gordon, 2 Addams, 152; Jamieson v. Leitch, Miln. Ecc. Tr. t. Radcl., 690. These cases establish, without a doubt, that this ecclesiastical paper ought not to have been admitted as evidence to affect in any way the right of the complainant.
I will now notice another departure from the rules of evidence, in the use which has been made of one of the depositions in it, said to be Zulime's.
The rule is, that depositions taken in one cause may be used in another trial between the same parties, involving the same issues, if the witnesses are dead or absent. They have never been permitted, when the witness was alive and within the jurisdiction of the court. No case can be found in which it has been done before it was allowed in this, and this will never be cited as an authority for a different rule. The rule is the same everywhere. In no courts has it been more clearly affirmed than it has been in the courts of Louisiana. In Hennen v. Munro, 4 Mart. (La.) N. S., 449, it is said that a deposition of a witness taken in a former suit is admissible if he be dead or absent.
Here the fact in dispute was the bigamy of Desgrange. For that he was arraigned, and in fact tried. Among other depositions found in the proceedings, is one which it is said was made by Zulime. The object of the defendants was to use it, to show that she had admitted herself to be the wife of Desgrange, and had expressed her disbelief of his bigamy, after it is said she had married Clark. They were permitted to do so, though it was known to the court and to the parties, that Zulime was alive, and then within the jurisdiction of the court. Indeed, the defendants had joined in a commission to take her testimony. Why it was not executed does not satisfactorily appear. But that she was within the court's jurisdiction when this case was tried, and that it was known to the court and to the defendants, the record proves. The defendants then had no legal right to use a deposition which they ascribed to her, as having been made in a criminal proceeding more than forty years before. If her testimony was wanted for their defense, they ought to have made her a witness. They could have done so. There was nothing in her relation to the parties in this suit to prevent it. Had she been made a witness, and in her examination had made a different representation of facts from those attributed to her in the deposition, then would have occurred the question, whether the latter could be used to contradict and impeach her. The use of such depositions, is what is termed secondary evidence. In order to make them substitutes for the viva voce testimony of the deponents, it is essential that they be regularly taken under legal proceedings duly pending, on an occasion sanctioned by law; and unless the case be provided for by statute, or by a rule of court, it must further appear that the witness cannot be personally produced. I give the rule as it is, without meaning that the courts of the United States could make any such exception by a rule of court. But the rule, as I have given it, is substantially admitted by the defendants, for they did not attempt to avail themselves of the deposition as evidence in their favor, until they had sought to make an apparent foundation for doing so, by an attempt to prove, by a comparison of handwriting, that the signature to the deposition was Zulime's. It will attract the notice of the profession with some surprise, that experts should have been called to prove, by comparison, Zulime's signature to this deposition, when the proof concerning it could have been made by herself, with an explanation of all the attending circumstances.
But I pass on, as hastily as I can, to another objection to the use of this deposition, and one more interesting than those which have been already stated.
It is, that by the law of Louisiana, as it then was and still is, Zulime could not be a witness in the criminal prosecution against Desgrange, supposing her to be his wife, as the defendants assert her to have been. A husband may not be a witness for his wife, or the wife for the husband, in a criminal proceeding. A wife may impeach marriage to obtain a sentence of nullity; she may be a witness to certain facts in relation to those impediments deemed by law sufficient to annual the marriage. But neither by the civil nor canon law, or by the common law, can she be a witness for or against her husband, when he is prosecuted for any offense which the law punishes in his person. Nor can she be a witness in a prosecution of him for bigamy with herself, until after the relation of husband and wife has been proved not to be legal, on account of direct and positive proof of the husband's first marriage; then she may be a witness to prove the second marriage. I read from 1 Greenl., § 339, p. 409, this sentence: 'Upon a trial for bigamy, the first marriage being proved and not controverted, the woman with whom the second marriage was had, is a competent witness, for the second marriage is void. But if the proof of the first marriage were doubtful, and the fact is controverted, it is conceded she would not be admitted. It is said in Cowen's Phillips, vol. 1, p. 79, ed. of 1849: on an indictment for a second marriage, though the first wife cannot be a witness, yet the second wife may, after proof of the first marriage; after such proof she would be competent to give evidence for as well as against the prisoner. Such was the law of Louisiana when Desgrange was prosecuted for bigamy, and when Zulime was forced into it as a witness. I known of but three exceptions to the incompetency of a wife to testify against a husband in a criminal case; they give to her ample security against abuse. She is a competent witness in an inquiry against her husband, upon a charge which affects her liberty or person. Such, for instance, as a prosecution for a forcible marriage, though she may have cohabited with him. 2 Russ., 206; Wakefield's case, 4 How. St. Tr., 575; Hawkins, P. C., B., 1; C. 41, § 13: or she may be a witness for any gross injury committed on her person. Lord Audley's case, 1 St. Tr., 393; 3 How. St., Tr., 413: She may be a witness if he beats her, to protect herself from his future brutality. Such being the law, the deposition ascribed to Zulime in the prosecution against Desgrange was illegally taken, and it cannot be used for any purpose relative, certainly not to affect the rights of third parties. What was the state of the prosecution when she was summoned to give testimony? There had been no proof of Desgrange's former marriage. There was proof of his having married her. She then stood, as far as that prosecution had been carried, as the wife of Desgrange. The Vicar-General presiding in it, says, not being able to prove the report of Desgrange's bigamy, and having no more proofs for the present, let all proceedings be suspended. Under such circumstances, the mother of the complainant, then twenty-two years of age, was called upon to give testimony against Desgrange. He had imposed upon her it is true. She had parted herself from him on account of it. But is it remarkable, being the father of two of her children then alive, that she should refuse, when forced to testify, to convict him of an offense, the punishment of which was stripes and the galleys? I represent the paper precisely as it is. The deposition of Zulime was illegally taken there; it is so here, and this court, in making up its opinion in this case, should not have considered it as admissible in evidence.
But in another view this deposition is good for nothing. It places Zulime in an inconsistent position with herself, and it is opposed by all the other proofs in this cause. Its utmost weight, in respect to her, is to diminish the force of her declaration, in respect to the filiation and legitimacy of her child, and that very remotely. Her acts and conduct are at variance with the deposition; the last was taken when she had been for some time separated from Desgrange, avowedly for his bigamy in marrying her. She had not lived with him for more than a year, and did not at any time afterwards live with him. When the prosecution of Desgrange began she was living with her family. When Desgrange was released from prison no steps were taken by either for a reunion. He left New Orleans immediately upon his release from jail, and did not return to it until after the Vicar-General's power to resume the prosecution against him had ceased, by the transfer of Louisiana to the United States. He is charged in the prosecution with an intention to leave New Orleans to avoid it. He did so instantly upon his release from prison. He returned in three years; then the relations of man and wife between them were not resumed, nor sought to be by either. On the contrary, as soon as it could be done, she prosecutes him in her maiden name, to be released from his name, and for a divorce. A judgment was given in her favor. The deposition ascribed to her neither proves nor disproves his bigamy. It means, and cannot be made to mean any thing else, than that Desgrange and herself had been married, that she had left him on account of reports of his bigamy, that she had not then been able to get proofs of it; that it then gave her no uneasiness and that she had not heard, and did not believe, that he had three wives. In the condition in which she stood in that tribunal, shall what she there was induced to say to save Desgrange from disgraceful punishment, be relied upon to overturn and outweigh all the other evidence in the cause, of her marriage with Clark; his and her repeated confessions of it to witnesses, and his recognition of their offspring as his legitimate child? It is remarkable, too, that this deposition, as well as others in this ecclesiastical record, confirms all the facts related by Madame Despau. Her voyage from New Orleans to the north-the object of it-the time when it was made; the arrest and imprisonment of Desgrange for bigamy, his flight from New Orleans, though not in the way stated by her; the subsequent cohabition of Clark and Zulime; that Clark and Zulime were in Philadelphia for several months in the fall of 1801, and spring of 1802, under circumstances involving familiar relations and intercourse; that they thought there was a sufficient cause for them to keep the marriage secret, Clark having been told by counsel that a sentence of the nullity of Zulime's marriage with Desgrange must be obtained, before her marriage with him could be safely proclaimed. Both parties have repeatedly declared that they were secretly married. Clark, from the birth of the complainant until he died, in all of his conduct to her, acted consistently with such a declaration. He frequently declared her to be his lawful child. No one doubts that he made a will, in which he proclaimed her to be so, making her his universal legatee, whatever may have become of that will after his death. Against all of this evidence, there is nothing but the deposition in the ecclesiastical record, which has been forced in evidence in this cause, contrary to law.
I will now briefly notice two other papers which the defendants were permitted to use as evidence in this cause in violation of every rule for its admission. One of them is the record of a suit for alimony, which, it is said, was brought by the mother of the complainant, against Desgrange, in 1805. The other is a proceeding by Mr. Davis, the guardian of the complainant, against the executors of Clark, for maintenance during her infancy, in which she is termed the natural child of Clark.
The petition in the first is in the usual formula to get such a case before the court, but the facts averred in it are not sworn to. It is signed by counsel in behalf of the petitioner, but without more to show that she had directed it, or that she was in any way informed of its contents. It is dated about the time of the complainant's birth. The object of the defendants in introducing this paper is to show that the mother of the complainant admitted herself in the petition to be the wife of Desgrange, three years after her alleged marriage with Clark. This cannot be done. Such a paper would not be admissible in a suit against Zulime herself. It cannot, then, be so in any other suit between other parties. The petition, in such a case, is not admissible in another suit against the petitioner, because, not being sworn to, its language is regarded as merely the suggestion of counsel, made for the purpose of bringing in a defendant to answer. An answer in chancery, put in under oath, is receivable against the party who swears to it; but that the narrative part of a bill in equity, or a declaration at common law can be used in another suit against the plaintiff in the first, has never been decided. The reverse has repeatedly been. It would certainly not do in the artificial and technical modes, in which rights are prosecuted in courts of justice to make us answerable for the manner in which they are described or averred by counsel. If, then, the mother of Zulime would not be bound in another suit by what is stated in the petitioner of the paper in question, it must be admitted that the paper was erroneously used as evidence, to affect that rights of her child in this suit.
It is only necessary to say concerning the statement in the proceeding brought by Davis, that he denies upon oath that he authorized his counsel to say that the complainant was the natural child of Clark.
I have now noticed every paper which has been brought into this suit as evidence. My views of each of them are sustained by cited authorities. They show that the ecclesiastical record, and every paper in connection with it, and the records for alimony, have been forced into this case as evidence for the defendants contrary to law.
Besides these papers, the defendants have no other evidence to gainsay the proofs which the complainant has given of her father's marriage with her mother, her right to marry him when she did so, on account of the bigamy of Desgrange. There is nothing in the record making it doubtful that her father and mother repeatedly acknowledged that she was their legitimate child. One witness, and one only, was called by the defendants to prove that on one occasion Clark spoke of her to him as a natural child. That was De la Croix. He says that Clark spoke of her as such to him. His testimony cannot be allowed to outweigh Clark's declarations to Bellechasse, Boisfontaine, and Mrs. Harper, that she was the lawful child of his marriage with her mother, especially when this was said to those witnesses, contemporarily with what De la Croix says Clark said to him, and to all of them for the same purpose. De la Croix says Clark told him so when he asked him to become her tutor, and to be one of his executors to that will in which she was called his legitimate child and universal legatee. The other witnesses speak of the same time in connection with that will. De la Croix says he saw that will in its envelope; Mrs. Harper saw and read it. She swears that Clark spoke of her in it as his legitimate child and universal legatee. Clark spoke again of that will to his friends at his bedside in the last hour of his life. Their testimony is on the record. It is full, positive, direct, and particular, without any difference between them. The credit and character of those witnesses are unimpeached. The defendants attempted to assail them, but these witnesses examined for that purpose, one and all of them, declare that Bellechasse and Boisfontaine were persons of truth, honor, and standing. No one has attempted to assail the veracity of Mrs. Harper. De la Croix's statement must have been a misunderstanding of Clark's language. If not so, still it must yield to the testimony of three witnesses, to each of whom Clark said at different times in connection with his will that Myra was his legitimate child, and to two of whom he admitted his marriage with her mother.
There was but one way to get rid of the force of the complainant's evidence in support of her legitimacy. It was to assail the integrity of her witnesses. The way in which that was attempted I have shown in respect to Mesdames Despau and Caillavet. It has succeeded with the majority of the judges who have tried this cause with me. But I feel authorized to say, that in all of my experience in the profession I have never heard of witnesses so assailed before and upon such illegal testimony; not insufficient, but inadmissibly introduced into this cause for that purpose. My brother Daniel thinks as I do, and will express himself accordingly. Besides, these witnesses have been said to be unworthy of credit, when in the most important particulars of their testimony, concerning Clark's marriage with the mother of the complainant, and of her legitimacy, they are confirmed by other disinterested witnesses to whom Clark admitted both; not once, but several times on different occasions. These persons are strangers to the parties in this suit, in all of those relations of life which might be supposed to incline them to favor either. They have not any connection with each other, except in those social relations which made them companions and the intimate friends of Clark. They have lived apart at remote distances for many years since the death of Clark, knowing nothing of his child, except as she was seen by them in her infancy, receiving publicly the caresses of her father and hearing from him his acknowledgments that she was his legitimate child. Boisfontaine tells us that Clark frequently told him, after Zulime's marriage with Gardette, that he would have made his marriage with her public if that barrier had not been made, and frequently lamented to him that it had been made, but that she was blameless. But this witness shall speak for himself. His testimony is taken from the record without the change of a word.
WILLIAM WALLACE WHITNEY,
and MYRA, his wife, }
v. }
E. O'BEARNE, and others. }
Interrogatories to be propounded to witnesses on behalf of the complainants in this cause:
1st. Were you acquainted with the late Daniel Clark, deceased, of New Orleans; if so, were you at any time on terms of intimacy with him?
2d. Did the said Daniel Clark leave, at his death, any child acknowledged by him as his own? If so, state the name of such child; whether said child is still living; and, if living, what name it now bears; as also state when and where and at what times said acknowledgment of said child was made.
3d. Have you any knowledge of a will said to have been executed by said Clark, shortly before his decease; did you ever read or see the said will, or did Daniel Clark ever tell you that he was making said will, or had made said will? If so, at what time and place; and if more than once; state how often and when and where?
4th. If you answer the last question affirmatively, state whether the said Daniel Clark ever declared to you, or to any one in your presence, the contents, of the said will; and if so, state the whole of said declarations, and the time, place, and manner, in which they were made, before whom, and all the circumstances which occurred, when such declaration was made.
5th. State how long before his death you saw the said Daniel Clark for the last time; how long before his death he spoke of his last will, and what he said in relation to his aforesaid child.
6th. State whether you ever heard any one say he had read the said will; if so, state whom, what was said, and whether the said person is now living or not.
(Signed,) WM. W. WORTHINGTON, For Plaintiff.
1st. Each witness examined and answering any one of the foregoing interrogatories, is desired to state his name, age, residence, and employment; and whether he is in any manner connected with or related to any of the parties to the suit, or has any interest in the event of the same.
2d. How long did you know Daniel Clark, and under what circumstances? And if you presume to state that Daniel Clark left any child at his decease, state who was the mother of said child, and who was the husband of that mother. State all the circumstances fully and in detail, and whether said Clark was ever married; and if so, to whom, when and where.
3d. If said Clark ever acknowledged to you that he supposed himself to be the father of a child, state when and where he made such an acknowledgment, and all the circumstances of the recognition of such a child or children, and whether the act was public or private.
4th. Did said Clark consider you as an intimate friend, to whom he might confide communications so confidential as those relating to his will? If aye, state what you know of your own personal knowledge of the contents of said will, and be careful to distinguish between what you state of your own knowledge, and what from hearsay.
The defendants propound the foregoing interrogatories with a full reservation of all legal exceptions to the interrogatories in chief, the same not being pertinent to the issue, and the last of said interrogatories being calculated merely to draw from the witnesses hearsay declarations.
(Signed) L. C. DUNCAN, For Defendants.
In pursuance of the annexed commission, directed to me, the undersigned, justice of the peace, personally appeared Pierre Baron Boisfontaine, who, being duly sworn to declare the truth, on the questions put to him in this cause, in answer to the foregoing interrogatories, says:
1st. In reply to the first interrogatory, he answers:
I was acquainted with the late Daniel Clark, of New Orleans, and was many years intimate with him.
2d. In reply to the second interrogatory, he answers:
Mr. Clark left at his death a daughter, named Myra, whom he acknowledged as his own, before and after her birth, and as long as he lived. In my presence he spoke of the necessary preparation for her birth; in my presence asked my brother's wife to be present at her birth; and in my presence proposed to my sister and brother-in-law, Mr. S. B. Davis, that they should take care of her after her birth. After her birth he acknowledged her to me as his own, constantly, and at various places. He was very fond of her, and seemed to take pleasure in talking to me about her. When he communicated to me that he was making his last will, he told me he should acknowledge her in it as his legitimate daughter. The day before he died, he spoke to me about her with great affection, and as being left his estate in his last will. The day he died he spoke of her with the interest of a dying parent, as heir of his estate in his last will. She is still living, and is now the wife of William Wallace Whitney.
3d. In reply to the third interrogatory, he answers:
About fifteen days before Mr. Clark's death, I was present at his house, when he handed to Chevalier De la Croix a sealed packet, and told him that his last will was finished, and was in that sealed packet. About ten days before this, he had told me that it was done. Previous to this, commencing about four months before his death, he had often told me he was making his last will. He said this in conversations to me on the plantation, and at his house; and I heard him mention this subject at Judge Pitot's. I frequently denied at Judge Pitot's, with Mr. Clark, on Sundays. The day before he died, he told me that his last will was below in his office-room, in his little black case. The day he died, he mentioned his last will to me.
4th. In reply to the fourth interrogatory, he answers:
I was present at Mr. Clark's house, about fifteen days before his death, when he took from a small black case, a sealed packet, handed it to Chevalier De la Croix, and said, my last will is finished; it is in this sealed packet with valuable papers; as you consented, I have made you in it, tutor to my daughter. If any misfortune happens to me, will you do for her all you promised me; will you take her at once from Mr. Davis? I have given her all my estate in my will, an annuity to my mother, and some legacies to friends; you, Pitot and Bellechasse, are the executors. About ten days before this, Mr. Clark, talking of Myra, said that his will was done. Previous to this, he often told me, commencing about four months before his death, that he was making his last will. In these conversations, he told me that in his will he should acknowledge his daughter Myra as his legitimate daughter, and give her all his property. He told me that Chevalier De la Croix had consented to be her tutor in his will, and had promised, if he died before doing it, to go at once to the North, and take her from Mr. Davis; that she was to be educated in Europe. He told me that Chevalier De la Croix, Judge Pitot, and Colonel Bellechasse, were to be executors in his will. Two or three days before his death, I came to see Mr. Clark on plantation business; he told me he felt quite ill. I asked him if I should remain with him; he answered that he wished me to. I went to the plantation to set things in order, that I might stay with Mr. Clark, and returned the same day, to Mr. Clark, and stayed with him constantly, till he died. The day before he died, Mr. Clark, speaking of his daughter Myra, told me that his last will was in his office-room below, in the little black case; that he could die contented, as he had insured his estate to her in the will. He mentioned his pleasure that he had made his mother comfortable by an annuity in it, and remembered some friends by legacies. He told me how well satisfied he was that Chevalier De la Croix, Judge Pitot, and Bellechasse, were executors in it, and Chevalier De la Croix Myra's tutor. About two hours before his death, Mr. Clark showed strong feelings for said Myra, and told me that he wished his will to be taken to Chevalier De la Croix, as he was her tutor as well as one of the executors in it; and just afterwards Mr. Clark told Lubin, his confidential servant, to be sure, as soon as he died, to carry his little black case to Chevalier De la Croix. After this, and in a very short time before Mr. Clark died, I saw Mr. Relf take a bundle of keys from Mr. Clark's armoire, one of which, I believe, opened the little black case; I had seen Mr. Clark open it very often. After taking these keys from the armoire, Mr. Relf went below. When I went below I did not see Mr. Relf, and the office-room door was shut. Lubin told me that when Mr. Relf went down with the keys from the armoire, he followed, saw him then, on getting down, go into the office-room, and that Mr. Relf, on going into the office-room, locked the office-room door. Almost Mr. Clark's last words were that his last will must be taken care of on said Myra's account.
5th. In reply to the fifth interrogatory, he answers:
I was with Mr. Clark when he died; I was by him constantly for the last two days of his life. About two hours before he died, he spoke of his last will and his daughter Myra in connection, and almost his last words were about her, and that this will must be taken care of on her account.
6th. In reply to the sixth interrogatory he answers:
When, after Mr. Clark's death, the disappearance of his last will was the subject of conversation, I related what Mr. Clark told me about his last will in his last sickness. Judge Pitot and John Lynd told me that they read it not many days before Mr. Clark's last sickness; that its contents corresponded with what Mr. Clark had told me about it; that when they read, it was finished; was dated and signed by Mr. Clark; was an holographic will; was in Mr. Clark's handwriting; that in it he acknowledged the said Myra as his legitimate daughter, and bequeathed all his estate to her; gave an annuity to his mother, and legacies to some friends; the Chevalier Delacroix was tutor of said Myra, his daughter; Chevalier Delacroix, Colonel Bellechasse, Judge Pitot, were executors. Judge Pitot and John Lynd are dead. The wife of William Harper told me she read it. Colonel Bellechasse told me that Mr. Clark showed it to him not many days before his last sickness; that it was then finished. Colonel Bellechasse and the lady, who was Madame Harper, are living.
In reply to the first cross-interrogatory, he answers:
My name is Pierre Baron Boisfontaine; my age about fifty-eight; I have been some time in Madisonville; the place of my family abode is near New Orleans, opposite side of the river; I was eight years in the British army; I was several years agent for Mr. Clark's plantations; since his death have been engaged in various objects; I now possess a house and lots, and derive my revenue from my slaves, cows, &c. I am in no manner connected with, or related to, any of the parties of this suit; I have no interest in this suit.
In reply to the second cross-interrogatory, he answers:
I knew Daniel Clark between nine and ten years; I knew him as the father of Myra Clark; she was born in my house, and was put by Mr. Clark, when a few days old, with my sister and brother-in-law, Samuel B. Davis. I was Mr. Clark's agent for his various plantations-first the Sligo and the Desert, then the Houmas, the Havana Point, and when he died of the one he purchased of Stephen Henderson. He respected our misfortunes, knowing that our family was rich and of the highest standing in St. Domingo before the revolution. The mother of Myra Clark was a lady of the Carri ere family. Not being present at any marriage, I can only declare it as my belief, Mr. Clark was her husband. To answer this question in detail as is demanded, it is necessary that I state what was communicated to me. It was represented to me that this lady married Mr. Desgrange in good faith; but it was found out some time afterwards that he already had a living wife, when lady n ee Carri ere, separated from him. Mr. Clark, some time after this, married her at the North. When the time arrived for it to be made public, interested persons had produced a false state of things between them; and this lady being in Philadelphia, and Mr. Clark not there, was persuaded by a lawyer employed, that her marriage with Mr. Clark was invalid; which believing, she married Monsieur Gardette. Some time afterwards, Mr. Clark lamented to me that this barrier to making his marriage public, had been created. He spoke to me of his daughter Myra Clark, from the first, as legitimate; and when he made known to me that he was making his last will, he said to me that he should declare her in it as his legitimate daughter. From the above I believe there was a marriage.
In reply to the third cross-interrogatory, he answers:
Mr. Clark made no question on this subject before and after her birth, and as long as he lived he exercised the authority of a parent over her destiny. He was a very fond parent; he sustained the house of Mr. Davis and Mr. Harper, because my sister had her in care, and Mrs. Harper suckled her. He sustained Harper as long as he lived, and conferred great benefits on my brother-in-law. He spoke of her mother with great respect, and frequently told me after her marriage with Mr. Gardette, that he would have made his marriage with her public if that barrier had not been made, and frequently lamented to me that this barrier had been made, but that she was blameless. He said he never would give Myra a stepmother. When, in 1813, he communicated to me that he was making his last will for her, he showed great sensibility as to her being declared legitimate in it. While I was with him at his death-sickness, and even at the moment he expired, he was in perfect possession of his senses; and no parent could have manifested greater affection than he did for her in that period. Nearly his last words were about her, and that his will must be taken care of on her account. She, the said Myra, is the only child Mr. Clark ever acknowledged to me to be his. She was born in July, 1805.
In reply to the fourth cross-interrogatory, he answers:
I was a friend of that confidential character, from the time of said Myra's birth. Mr. Clark treated me as a confidential friend in matters relating to her and his affairs generally.
In reply to the fourth cross-interrogatory:
I have stated what I knew concerning Mr. Clark's last will. My recollection of these facts is distinct. The circumstances connected with them were of such a character that my recollection of them could not easily be impaired.
(Signed) P. BARON BOISFONTAINE.
Which answers being reduced to writing were sworn to and signed by the said witness in my presence; in testimony whereof I have hereunto affixed my hand and private seal, at the parish of St. Tammany, in the State of Louisiana, this twenty-seventh day of May, eighteen hundred and thirty-five.
(Signed) DAVID B. MORGAN, Justice of the Peace. [L. S.]
A true copy of the commission for interrogatories, (and answers thereto,) propounded to Pierre Baron Boisfontaine, on file in court of probates, in and for the parish and city of New Orleans.
W. F. C. DUPLESSIS, Register of Wills.'
New Orleans, 20th April, 1840.
Bellechasse's testimony confirms that of Boisfontaine, as to Clark's frequent acknowledgments that Myra was his legitimate daughter. Mrs. Smyth, formerly Mrs. Harper, who nursed her, does the same. Each of them also speak with positiveness concerning the will of 1813. With three such witnesses to sustain them, I believe that Mesdames Despau and Caillavet have spoken the truth concerning Clark's marriage with Zulime. If they did not, the testimony of Bellechasse, Boisfontaine, and Mrs. Smyth, is the most remarkable coincidence of truth with falsehood that has ever happened, and it can only be resisted by imputing to all of them, a combination to perjure themselves for the same purpose. That no one has said or can believe. Bellechasse and Boisfontaine were brought into this case as witnesses, with characters of their own to command belief and respect. Neither of them can be doubted, for the defendant's witnesses who were brought to assail them, could only answer that both had always been honorable men. Mrs. Smyth's veracity has not been questioned in any way. I cannot then but believe, that the paternity and legitimacy of Myra Clark Gaines has been fully established, as the law requires it to be done. There is nothing in the case opposed to it, but those doubts and suspicions which will sometimes bear down truth, in its relation to the extraordinary realities of life. The history of Mrs. Gaines is one of them. It has been made more so by the result of her case in this court.
I will now notice two other points which were urged in the argument of this case.
It was said, the complainant could not recover, even if it had been proved or was admitted that her father and mother were married, because there had not been, before that marriage took place, a sentence of the nullity of the marriage with Desgrange.
The other was, supposing Zulime to have been then free to marry and that she did marry Clark, it was a clandestine marriage, which has no civil effects according to the law of Louisiana, to give to the issue a right of inheritance.
An inaccurate translation of the 4th Law, of the 20th Tit., of the 8th Book, of the Nueva Recopilacion, was cited in support of the first. It shall be given at length, followed by the original, and with what I believe to be a correct translation. Without doing so, the inapplication of the law to this case, would not be seen.
The 8th Book, Tit., 20, Law 4, Nueva Recopilacion, as translated, and cited reads thus: 'Should a woman, either married, or even only publicly betrothed, before Our Holy Mother the Church, commit adultery, although she should ALLEGE AND SHOW that her marriage is NULL AND VOID, either on account of near relationship by consanguinity, or affinity within the 4th degree, OR BECAUSE ONE OF THE SPOUSES WAS PREVIOUSLY BOUND BY ANOTHER MARRIAGE, or had made a vow of chastity, or was about entering a religious community, or had some other reason-YET FOR ALL THIS she is not to be allowed to do what is forbidden; and she cannot prevent her husband from bringing a suit for adultery, both against HER and the ADULTERER, as if THE MARRIAGE WAS NOT A TRUE ONE. We decree against such persons-WHOM WE CONSIDER AS HAVING COMMITTED ADULTERY, (quo habemos por adulteros,) the law of the fuero be strictly followed, which treats about adulters, and is the first law of this title.' See Nueva Rec., Book 8, Tit. 20, Law 4.
Ley IIII. Que la desposada que comete adulterio, no se escusa por dezir que el matrimonio fue ninguno y no valio.
Si alguno muger estando con alguno casada, o desposada por palabras de presente en haz de la sancto madre Iglesia cometiere adulterio, que aungue se diga y prueue por algunas causas y razones q' el dicho matrimonio fue ninguno, hora por ser parientes en c osanguinidad, o afinidad, dentro del quarto grado, hora porque qualquiera dellos sea obligado antes a otro matrimonio, o aya facho voto de estidad o de entrar en religion, o por otra cosa alguna, pues ya por ellos no q' do de fazer lo q' no deuia, q' por esto no se escusen a que el marido pueda acusar de adulterio, asi ala muger como al adultero, como si el matrimonio fuesse verdadero. Y mandamos, q' enestas tales q' assi auemos por adulteros, y en sus bienes, se execute lo contenido en la ley del fuero de las leyes, que fabla de los que cometen delicto de adulterior, quees la primera deste titulo.
Law IV. That the married woman who commits adultery cannot excuse herself by saying that the matrimony was null and void.
If any woman being married to a man, or engaged by word de proesenti, in the face of the holy mother church, shall commit adultery, and shall say and prove by certain causes and reasons, that the said matrimony was null either because the contracting parties were related by consanguinity or affinity within the fourth degree, or because either of them may have before contracted the obligation to marry another person, or may have made vow of chastity, or to enter into any religious order, or for some other reason, on which account they were not willing to do what they ought not to do, nevertheless these reasons are not such as to prevent the husband from accusing as well the wife as the adulterous man, the same as if the marriage had been valid. And we order that, with regard to these persons, whom we hold to be adulterers, and likewise with regard to their goods, there shall be executed what is prescribed in the law fuero de las leyes; which relates to those who commit the crime of adultery.
Recopilacion de las leyes; Libro VIII., Titulo XX., de las adulterios incestos y esturpros.
I write diffidently upon such subjects, but not without due care. The result of my examination is, that the law just given has no bearing upon this case.
It has not so, in the first place, because the penalties to be imposed by it can only be applied to one who has been charged and convicted of adultery, upon an authorized accusation. By that is meant, such as the laws of Spain permit to be made against an adulterer or adulteress, only by certain persons, and within fixed times. The Spanish law for such a purpose is as fixed as is the punishment of the offence. It does not permit the charge to be made by any or every one. Certain persons are named who may make it, and another can only do so when the scandal has become notoriously offensive to public purity and morals.
I shall cite from the Institutes of Asa Y. Maniel, illustrated by Palaccos, having the original work and Johnson's translation before me. And I do so because I find the translation introduced into White's Recopilacion is frequently cited in Louisiana, and is so by one of the learned judges who sat in this case in the Circuit Court.
'While the marriage is not dissolved by the sentence of the church, the father, the adulteress, her brother, paternal and maternal uncles were legitimate accusers of the adulterer, and for sixty days after a dissolution, either of them may accuse.
Whilst the marriage continued, if the adultery is publicly scandalous, any one belonging to the town may accuse, and for four months afterward.
If the husband dies, the accusation may be made in six months after, computing from the day when the crime was committed.
So, whilst the married persons were united, five months were allowed for an accusation, unless force was used, and then the ravisher might be charged at any time within thirty years.
An accusation made after the times stated might be avoided by the accused by such an exception. It was another available exception if the wife could prove she had committed the offence with the consent of her husband: so if knowing the adultery he continues to cohabit with his wife. Nor could he accuse after having said before the judge that he did not wish to accuse his wife. After accusation and an acquittal for want of proofs, the prosecution could not be renewed. A husband of bad habits and dissolute character could not accuse.' I do not notice the note by Palacios to the text, from which the citation has just been made, because it does not particularly bear upon the point in question. Palacios mo recula ilus lix da; Tomo Segundo; Sep. Ed., 150.
I have, however, been more particular in citing the law for such accusations, that it may be seen, as the mother of the complainant was never accused of adultery according to law, that she cannot be charged now with being an adulteress, to bring upon herself or her child any of the consequences which might have resulted to both, if she had been convicted under the 4th Law, in Title 20, of the 8th Book, of Nueva Recopilacion. But had she been so, the law fuero de las leyes, by which she would have been punished, does not declare a child that she may have had, illegitimate. That can only be done in another proceeding, in which it shall be proved that such child was the conception of an adulterous connection.
Further, a brief analysis of the law will show that it has no relation to the purpose for which it was cited.
It provides for five specific causes of canonical impediments for which a marriage may be invalidated or pronounced null, with a general provision for others of a like kind, without mentioning any civil disability for which a marriage is null and void, and declares that a married woman, for such causes of canonical impediment, even though her marriage on account of them was not valid, should not prevent the husband of that invalid marriage from accusing her of adultery, and the person also with whom she may have offended. And pronounces them adulterers 'upon whom shall be executed what is prescribed in the law fuero de las leyes, which relates to those who commit the crime of adultery.'
I mention the impediments in the order that they are in the case. Consanguinity or affinity within the 4th degree, a contract to marry another person, a vow of chastity, or one to enter into any religious order.
The error of the first translation is a misapprehension of the original in respect to the contract to marry another person. The words in the original are, 'Hora porque qualquiera dellos sea obligado antes a otro matrimonio.' They are rendered, 'or because one of the spouses was previously bound by another marriage.' They should have been, 'or because either of them may have before contracted the obligation to marry another person.'
The difference between the two is, that the mistranslation substitutes for a contract or obligation to marry, which does not excuse the woman from the charge of adultery, though it may make her marriage invalid, an actual marriage disregarded by her from her marriage with another, which is bigamy, and which being imputed to the complainant's mother, is said to make her illegitimate, because, when she married Clark, there had not been a sentence of the unllity of the marriage with Desgrange.
The law of which we are speaking is one which declares that certain criminal impediments to marriage, mentioning only some of them, shall not excuse a woman from being an adulteress, when she has been either 'married or betrothed before the holy mother, the church.' But bigamy is not an impediment in the sense in which that word is used canonically in respect to marriage. It is a civil objection, because one already married, and that marriage not being dissolved by death or the operation of law, neither of the parties to it can contract marriage with another without being guilty of the offense of bigamy, which is punished by the Spanish law as an offense, differently from what adultery is, and with the severest penalties. Had it been intended that a marriage with a bigamist should make a woman an adulteress, if, upon finding out the imposition upon her, she shall abandon the imposter and marry another, it would have been so declared. But that is not done, and therefore the 4th law of the 20th title of the 8th book of the Nueva Recopilacion cannot be applied in this case.
But there was in the argument a further misapprehension of the ecclesiastical law of Spain in respect to the cases of marriage for which sentence of nullity was necessary, before the marriage was considered as legally dissolved or only partially so for separation a mens a et thoro. Such sentences were so, only in cases of canonical impediments, whether they were such as made the marriage void or voidable. But in the case of an objection to the validity of a marriage on account of a civil disability, and not a canonical impediment, no declaratory sentence of nullity is absolutely necessary. The most familiar instances of the last found in the books, is, when, at the time of a second marriage, one of the parties had been previously legally married, and that marriage not dissolved by death or the operation of law. Such was the marriage of the complainant's mother with Desgrange.
In such cases, the marriage being void from its beginning, on account of the bigamy, it is not necessary that there should be a declaratory sentence of nullity to reinstate the party imposed upon in all the rights of a single person, or unmarried condition. Where there is bigamy there is never a complete marriage, it being only an abuse of the forms of marriage in violation of the ecclesiastical and civil law, which declares 'that marriage is null where either of the parties stand already married to another person, for as one cannot be married to two persons at once, the marriage to the first being valid, the other must be void.'
It is true, in such cases, the ecclesiastical court may be resorted to by the party imposed upon, to get a declaration from it that the marriage is void, but not on account of its being a matrimonial cause exclusively of ecclesiastical cognizance, because, as Palacios says, that the causes or trials of those who contract a second marriage during the life of the first wife are by a royal circular of the 5th February, 1770, L. 10, tit. 28, lib. 12, Neu. Recop., declared exclusively of royal or lay and military jurisdictions, according to the persons who may offend; but that by the royal decree of the 10th December, 1781, (which, however, does not appear in the Neu. Rec.), the ecclesiastical jurisdiction may also take cognizance of the mode, and for the reason expressed by the same decree. White, Rec. 1, 46, note 28. But it is optional to the party to make such an application to the ecclesiastial court, and if it be done, the question of the validity of the marriage will be raised, and whatever sentence the court may give will be binding. But if convinced of the bigamy, the victim of it may voluntarily withdraw from cohabitation with the bigamist. For doing so, no penalty, ecclesiastical or otherwise, is incurred, nor any for marrying again without a sentence of the nullity of such vicious marriage.
It has, however, been suggested if in a marriage void for bigamy, a party shall be allowed to withdraw from it, without a sentence of nullity being obtained, that the obligation of marriage will be impaired. The answer is, that experience shows the contrary, as the suit which is allowed in such cases for the restitution of conjugal rights, at the instance of the party who has been left, is sufficient to prevent such abuse, and to preserve the integrity of marriage. In such a suit, the husband or wife, as the case may be, alleges that the party proceeded against, has withdrawn from cohabitation, and asks that the defendant may be compelled to return to it. The process to compel an answer is vindicatory if the defendant is contumacious. When, however, the party answers, the marriage can be denied; or if there had been a valid marriage, other causes being sufficient to justify a separation a mens a et thoro, can be pleaded in bar of the suit. If, in such a suit, the validity of the marriage is affirmed, the defendant is compelled to return to cohabitation. Again, the law for punishing bigamy prevents parties from marrying in such cases, unless the proof that it was committed against them is certain and conclusive.
In conclusion upon this point, the law declares that bigamy makes a marriage void as if it never had been, replaces the parties as they personally were before such a connection, and though it may be expedient to have a sentence of its nullity declared for the purpose of restoring rights of property, it is not necessary to enable the party imposed upon to marry again. Every thing concerning property or marital rights, when such a sentence has been given, returns hinc inde to its former condition. But the sentence in such cases is not a divorce or dissolution of the marriage, for that cannot be dissolved which was never contracted, but it is a declaration that it was null and void from the beginning, and that the party is free from any bond of marriage, and had and hath the liberty and freedom of marrying with another person. Not that as a consequence of the sentence the party has a right to marry another person, but had a right before the sentence of nullity was announced, on account of the marriage having been void from the beginning. Duchess of Cleveland's case against Fielding, in the Arches Court of Canterbury.
Such is the fixed form in ecclesiastical proceeding for a sentence of the nullity of a marriage on account of bigamy.
It now only remains for me to notice the other objection against the right of the complainant to recover. It is that as the marriage of Clark with her mother was clandestine, that it illegitimates her for the purposes of inheritance. I shall not speak of the general or particular consequences of clandestine marriages under the Spanish law, as the facts of the case do not seem to me to make it pertinent. All that may have been said upon this point as to the effect of such a marriage in Louisiana, upon the parties and upon children can have no influence upon the children of marriages validly contracted in another political sovereignty.
The objection assumes that the marriage of Clark and Zulime in Philadelphia in some way or other, but not definitely stated, was subject on account of the domicil of the parties in Louisiana, to its laws prohibiting clandestine marriages. In other words, that a secret marriage lawfully contracted by persons in transitu in a sovereignty in which such a marriage is not prohibited, will not give legitimacy to the offspring within the jurisdiction of the domicil of the parents, if it be kept secret there.
The right of persons to marry in every country where they may happen to be, is not denied, if there be no impediment there or in the condition of the parties in respect to the law of their domicil to prevent them from contracting marriage. Before, then, the validity of the marriage of the complainant's father with her mother in Philadelphia, can be denied, it must be shown that they could not contract it on account of a legal disability either there or in Louisiana. The first is not pretended. The only objection to it is that she was previously married to Desgrange. That cannot prevail, for I think it has been shown that Zulime's marriage was void on account of his bigamy in marrying her, and that she had the right, without any sentence of its nullity, to marry another, either in Louisiana or elsewhere. It is certain that in such a case of bigamy, she could marry again in Pennsylvania. Their offspring there would be legitimate. It cannot be made otherwise, because their child happened to be born in Louisiana. Legitimacy is the lawful consequence of lawful marriage and it cannot be taken away by any subsequent misconduct of parents in respect to the marriage itself. Heirship, or the right of legitimate children to inherit from deceased parents, depends upon the law of the place where the property may be. Parents cannot change it except as they may do so according to law. This being so, their misconduct cannot affect the right of a child to inherit or its legitimacy for such a purpose, though it may, in many particulars, affect their own rights as to each other and as to their property. Concealment, in Louisiana, of a marriage elsewhere by persons domiciled there, might very well affect such rights, or the parties to it as relate to property parted with by either whilst they mutually concealed their marriage. But it would not do so because there was no marriage between them, but from their not holding themselves out to the community as man and wife. It is their duty to do that by the ordinary indicia of the relation. If they do not, they must bear the consequences in respect to property and other matters which may concern them, from their misconduct. But as regards their children, as they are legitimate according to the lex loci of the marriage for all purposes and to inherit that portion which the law gives them of the estate of deceased parents, they cannot be affected in any way by their parents' concealment of their marriage, if it shall be proved to have been valid where it was contracted. The rule in such cases is, that where the marriage is valid by the lex loci, it will generally be held (not universally) valid everywhere for the purposes of inheritance. If invalid there, it will generally (not universally) be held invalid everywhere. But in either case, the exceptions grow out of law. They must be shown to exist as such, before the right of heirship can be excluded.
The case of Le Breton v. Nouges, 3 Mart. (La.), 60, cited for a contrary purpose, is absolutely decisive of the reverse. It sustains, inferentially, the view of the right of the inheritance of children under a valid marriage contracted out of Louisiana, and directly, the right of the husband to a marital portion, though he violated the laws of Louisiana in running away with an heiress in her infancy to marry her in another sovereignty. The mother, too, of his wife was declared to be her forced heir after the daughter's death, only because the latter left no child of her own. That case only decides this, that conjugal rights of property in cases of marriages out of the state of Louisiana, the parties being domiciled there, depend upon the laws of the domicil. That is strictly the case everywhere. But the filial right is not the conjugal. The law gives both, and both are protected and measured according to law.
Until it can be shown that there is a law of Louisiana excepting the child of a lawful marriage in Pennsylvania from the rights of heirship in the first, on account of the domicil of the parents at the time of such marriage, the child's right of inheritance cannot be denied.
I have searched in vain all of the codes of Spain and of Louisiana for such a law. I have earnestly sought in judgments of the courts both of Spain and Louisiana for such an one. Nothing can be found in either concerning such a proposition. I think, then, that I run no judicial risk in saying that there is nothing in the way of law to be found interfering with the right of Myra Clark Gaines to the heirship of such portion of her father's estate as the law of Louisiana gives to an only legitimate child.
Something was said that her right to recover was barred by the statutes of prescription of Louisiana. If her right under them shall be measured by the proofs of the time of her birth, she is not barred. If from the time of the illegal disposition or sale of her father's estate by his executors, she is not so. If from the character in which she sues to establish a right of inheritance, there is statute of prescription to bar her rights.
Those of us who have borne our part in the case will pass away. The case will live. Years hence, as well as now, the profession will look to it for what has been ruled upon its merits, and also for the kind of testimony upon which these merits were decided. The majority of my brothers who give the judgment stand, as they well may do, upon their responsibility. I have placed myself alongside of them, humbly submitting to have any error into which I may have fallen corrected by our contemporaries and by our professional posterity.
The case itself presents thought for our philosophy, in its contemplation of all the business and domestic relations of life.
It shows the hollowness of those friendships formed between persons in the greediness of gain, seeking its gratification in a disregard of all those laws by which commerce can only be honestly and respetably pursued.
It shows how carelessness in business and secret partnerships to conduct it with others who are willing to run the risk of unlawful adventures, may give to the latter its spoils and impoverish those whose capital alone gave consequence to the concern.
It shows how a mistaken confidenc give to others by a man who dies rich, may be the cause of diverting his estate into an imputed insolvency, depriving every member of his family of any part of their inheritance.
We learn from it that long-continued favors may not be followed by any sympathy from those who receive them, for those who are dearest to our affections.
It shows if the ruffian takes life for the purse which he robs, that a dying man's agonies soothed only by tears and prayers for the happiness of a child, may not arrest a fraudulent attempt to filch from her, her name and fortune.
We can learn from it, too, that there is a kindred between virtue and lasting respectability in life, and that transgressions of its proprieties or irregular yieldings to our passions in forming the most interesting relation between human creatures, are most likely to make them miserable and to bring ruin upon children.
I do not know from my own reasoning that the sins of parents are visited upon children, but my reason does not tell me that it may not be so. But I do know, from one of those rays shot from Sinai, that it is said for the offence of idolatry, 'I, the Lord God, am a jealous God, and visit the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, and show mercy unto thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.' It may be so for other offences. If it be, let the victim submissively recognize Him who inflicts the chastisement, and it may be the beginning of a communion with our Maker, to raise the hope of a richer inheritance than this world can give or take away.
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