foreign to the United States; and the judgment being foreign, this court cannot examine and adjudicate upon the jurisdiction of the foreign tribunal that rendered it. See Bose vs. Hinely, 4 Cranch, 24.
Was this a court de facto or otherwise that rendered this judgment? To be a court of any jurisdiction it must have been a constitutional court. See 24 Wendell, 520,—Chancellor Walworth's opinion, and authorities cited; Obarman vs. Booth, 21 Howard, 515. The authority the court had was derived from the confederacy; and to give it legal power, the confederacy must have been a civil government de facto, or de jure; and the decision of this question belongs to the state department. Hoyt vs. Ghelston, 13 John., 139 ; Rose vs. Hinely, 4 Cranch, 24; Kennett vs. Chambers, 14 How., 38; Luther vs. Borden, 7 How., 1.
There can be no de facto court. There may be a de facto judge of a constitutional court. 1 J. J. Marsh., 205.
The court derived its authority from the confederacy, and that was not a de facto civil government with power to make a constitutional circuit, as has been decided by the political department of the government, and this court must follow that decision.
Belligerent rights do not constitute a civil government. Lawrence Wheaton on Int. Law, 40 and a note.
The constitutional convention which made the constitution under which this court is now acting expressly repudiate and declare null and void all legislative and judicial acts of the state of Arkansas, while acting under the ordinances of the convention of the 4th of March, 1861. The proviso cannot do away with the body of the act or section to which it is a proviso. The rule is thus stated. It is the general rule of law, which has always prevailed and become consecrated almost as a maxim in the interpretation of statutes, that when the enacting clause is general in its language and objects, and a proviso is afterwards introduced, that proviso is construed strictly, and takes no case out of the enacting clause which does not fall fairly within its terms. In short, a proviso covers special exceptions only out of
