The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1885-02-26

question whether we have jurisdiction as
to the parties to the record. The COM,
plainant being a resident of New York,
and the defendants residents of Virginia,
we have jurisdiction as to the parties
unless the objection be valid that the par
ties defendant here are sued as officers OF =
the State, and that the real defendant is
the Commonwealth Of Virginia. Ii 50,
then we haveno Jurisdiction for although
Virginia in the National Constitution
granted the right to be sued in the Federal
courts in certain cases by the subjects of
foreign countries or citizens of sister
States, yet by the eleventh amendment she
revoked that grant. b si3afo = si5t's' 's3,,
The question therefore is, whether suits
against the officers of a State IN respect to
the discharge of their public duties are, "a
in all cases, suits against the States them
selves; and if not in all, then in what
cases? a1Hnutel ~ #di h fuT tase7,,r'.,,.,s,
When the suit of the Baltimore and Ohio
v!.Alleas. auditor. and Hamilton. Treasurer
IL Federal Reporter, l7l-was before the
judges of this court, severally. in the
spring of 1888, this very question was the
pivotal one on which the case turned. On,
application by the company to me for a
preliminary injunction to restrain the
revenue officers of Virginia from distrain31,
ing for taxes after tender of coupons. /
IcIuoSu tlO luJullCVlOu, pllllClpdily OA OIIC
ground that the suit was. In fact. against
the Commonwealth, and only in form
against her officers personally The Cir
cut judge Judge Bond). a day or two
afterwards, on application to him, granted
the injunction, taking the opposite view,
and holding that that was not suit against
the State. Not only was this but other
important questions connected with the
obligations of the State and her officers to
receive tax-receivable coupons were III
volved. An appeal was taken, and we
have been continually anxious that the
Supreme Court should decide that case,
and give us the guidance of its rulings on
the questions presented in it. But it has
been allowed to await it's turn on the over
burdened docket of that court. The APP
pellee-the railroad company cannot move
to advance it and, although section 949 OF
the United States Revised Statutes, in all
cases when State is a party, or the ex-
ecution of the revenue laws OF a State IS
enjoined or stayed authorizes the State
herself to move to advance, and the State
has been all the time entitled to a speedy
hearing of this and other causes on the
docket of the Supreme Court, If she but
demanded it. this important case was not
advanced until lately, when it with others
in which she is a party. was set down for
hearing on the 18th of March prOximo.
we nave pOSGpOuSu Oul OWH dOOlOH III
many coupon cases now before us. await
ing decisions in those now in the Supreme
Court. Our policy has been to refrain
from all action which with any color of
propriety can be postponed for that pur-
pose. aaf f4Aesl9e
do not. however, think that the ques-
tion of jurisdiction as to parties in the
case at bar is any longer undecided in the
Supreme Court. At the last term it de-
cided the case of Cunningham D. The Ma
CON and Branaswick Railroad Conlpasyare-
ported in 100 Z. s., 446, in which it elab-
orately discussed the question which con-
fronts this court in the case at r.,tThe
Supreme Court said ltsisiss
"The failure of several of the States of the
Union to pay the debts which they have con-
tracted and to discharge other obligations of a
contract character, when taken in connection
with the acknowledged principle that no State
be sued in the ordinary courts defend
ant except by her own consent, has led, in re-
cent times. to numerous efforts to compel the
performance of their obligations by judicial
proceedings to which the State is not party.
These suits have generally been instituted in
the Circuit Courts of the United States, or have
been removed into them from the state courts.
''In such suits the effort has been made, while
acknowledging the incapacity of those courts
to assume Jurisdiction of State as party, to
proceed in such manner against the officers
or agents of the State government, or against
the property of the State in their hands, that