Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 2.djvu/427

 420 FEDERAL REPORTBE. �Missouri was a contract governed by the laws of Illinois or Missouri, and it was held to be an Illinois contract, and gov- erned by the law of that state. The court say: "The con- tract to pay the biU was a different contract from that of aeceptance." �The paroi promise, being valid by the law of Illinois, was valid everywhere. This was ail it was necessary to decide ; and while the statement of the general principles of the law rela- tive to contracts made in one state to be perf ormed in another is entitled to great respect, from the high authority of the court from which it was enunciated, it is not controlling upon the present question, and will be found quite inadequate in its application to a great variety of cases which present ques- tions of the conflict of laws. So far as the validity of a con- tract depends upon the formalities requisite to its binding force, the general rule expressed by the text writers is that the test depends upon the law of the place where the contract is made. Westlake, art. 175. An illustration is the case of an unstamped contract, made in a country where a stamp is required. Even in this case the authorities conflict, and Judge Story says it might be different if the contract were payable in another country, where no stamp is required. See Story Confl. of Laws, § 260, and notes. Wharton, (Conflict of Laws, §^401,) states the general rule thus: "Obligations, in respect to their modes of solemnization, are subject to the locus regit actum." The validity of a contract may depend upon the capacity of the parties, or the forms of authentica- tion, or the nature of the consideration ; and it certainly cannot be accepted as an universal criterion that the validity or invalidity of a contract is to be determined by the law of the place where the contract is made. �As respects the capacity of parties the law of domicile may dominate the law of the place of the contract when rights of person as distinct from rights of property are concerned, (see 2 Parsons on. Cont. 572, 574, and notes, 5th Ed. ;) and, as respects the consideration matter, a contract may be invalid by the law of the place of the making, because prohibited by the local law, and jet be valid when to be performed in ����