Edward Douglass White

“ And the context of the Constitution, that is, the express prohibition which it contains as to the power of the states to contract with each other except with the consent of Congress, the limitations as to war and armies, obviously intended to prevent any of the states from resorting to force for the redress of any grievance real or imaginary, all harmonize with and give force to this conception of the operation and effect of the right to exert, at the prayer of one state, judicial authority over another. ”

“ The rights reserved to the states by the Constitution, it is further insisted, may not be interfered with by the judicial power merely because that power has been given authority to adjudicate at the instance of one state a right asserted against another, since although the authority to enforce the adjudication may not be denied, execution to give effect to that authority is restrained by the provisions of the Constitution which recognize state governmental power. ”

“ On the other hand, West Virginia insists that the defendant as a state may not as to its powers of government reserved to it by the Constit tion be controlled or limited by process for the purpose of enforcing the payment of the judgment. Because the right for that end is recognized to obtain an execution against a state and levy it upon its property, if any, not used for governmental purposes, it is argued, affords no ground for upholding the power by compelled exercise of the taxing authority of the state to create a fund which may be used when collected for paying the judgment. ”

“ It is obvious that the subject was referred to in connection with the duty of West Virginia to comply with the requirements of the judgment upon the hypothesis that if the United States owed the claim and if in a suit against the United States recovery could be had, and if West Virginia received its share, it might be used, if sufficient, for discharging the judgment and thus save West Virginia from resorting to other means for so doing.
That judicial power essentially involves the right to enforce the results of its exertion is elementary. ”

“ The fact that in the Convention, so far as the published debates disclose, the provisions which we are considering were adopted without debate, it may be inferred, resulted from the necessity of their enactment as shown by the experience of the colonies and by the specter of turmoil if not war which, as we have seen, had so recently arisen from the disputes between the states, a danger against the recurrence of which there was a common purpose efficiently to provide. ”