Stanley Matthews

“ The question really is whether the circuit court had jurisdiction to entertain the suit in which that order was made, because the sole purpose and prayer of the bill are by a final decree perpetually to enjoin the defendants from taking any steps in execution of the act of May 12, 1887. If the court had power, upon the case made in the record, to entertain the suit for that purpose, it had equal power, as a provisional remedy, to grant the restraining order, the violation of which constitutes the contempt adjudged against the petitioners. ”

“ It cannot be doubted that the eleventh amendment to the constitution operates to create an important distinction between contracts of a state with individuals and contracts between individual parties. ”

“ A defendant sued as a wrong-doer, who seeks to substitute the state in his place, or to justify by the authority of the state, or to defend on the ground that the state has adopted his act and exonerated him, cannot rest on the bare assertion of his defense. He is bound to establish it. The state is a political corporate body, can act only through agents, and can command only by laws. ”

“ It is true that no remedy for a breach of its contract by a state, by way of damages as compensation, or by means of process to compel its performance, is open, under the constitution, in the courts of the United States, by a direct suit against the state itself, on the part of the injured party, being a citizen of another state, or a citizen or subject of a foreign state. ”

“ The object of that suit was to enjoin the attorney general and the commonwealth's attorneys of the several counties, cities, and towns of Virginia from bringing any suits in the name of the commonwealth to enforce the collection of taxes, for the payment of which coupons originally attached to her bonds had been tendered. To enjoin the officers of the commonwealth, charged with the supervision and management of legal proceedings in her behalf, from bringing suits in her name, is nothing less than to enjoin the commonwealth, for only by her officers can such suits be instituted and prosecuted. ”

“ If, in pursuance of other acts of the general assembly, the contract rights of the defendant, as a tax-payer having tendered tax-receivable coupons, are denied to him in that trial, by reason of requirements in regard to the nature and quantity of proof as to the genuineness of the coupons, the errors of law thus committed can only be remedied, according to the common course of judicial proceedings, by a writ of error, which, as it would present a federal question, might ultimately be sued out in this court. ”

“ But it has been well settled that, when a plain official duty, requiring no exercise of discretion, is to be performed, and performance is refused, any person who will sustain personal injury by such refusal may have a mandamus to compel its performance; and, when such duty is threatened to be violated by some positive official act, any person who will sustain personal injury thereby, for which adequate compensation cannot be had at law, may have an injunction to prevent it. In such cases the writs of mandamus and injunction are somewhat correlative to each other. ”

“ If the state is not a party, there is no party against whom a decree can be made. No person in his natural capacity is brought before the court as defendant.' It was therefore held, in that case, that the state was in fact, though not in form, a party defendant to the suit, and that, consequently, the circuit court had no jurisdiction to pronounce the decree appealed from. ”

“ In any judicial proceeding necessary to vindicate his rights under a contract affected by such legislation, the individual has a right to have a judicial determination declaring the nullity of the attempt to impair its obligation. ”

“ The acts alleged in the bill as threatened by the defendants, the present petitioners, are violations of the assumed contract between the state of Virginia and the complainants, only as they are considered to be the acts of the state of Virginia. The defendants, as individuals, not being parties to that contract, are not capable in law of committing a breach of it. There is no remedy for a breach of a contract, actual or apprehended, except upon the contract itself, and between those who are by law parties to it. ”

“ But this is not intended in any way to impinge upon the principle which justifies suits against individual defendants, who, under color of the authority of unconstitutional legislation by the state, are guilty of personal trespasses and wrongs, nor to forbid suits against officers in their official capacity either to arrest or direct their official action by injunction or mandamus, where such suits are authorized by law, and the act to be done or omitted is purely ministerial, in the performance or omission of which the plaintiff has a legal interest. ”

“ That it cannot be done is a sufficient reason for the omission to do it, and the court may proceed to decree against the officers of the state in all respects as if the state were a party to the record. In deciding who are parties to the suit, the court will not look beyond the record. Making a state officer a party does not make the state a party, although her law may have prompted his action, and the state may stand behind him as a real party in interest. ”

“ Much more difficult is it to conceive that it constitutes a grievance of which the complainants in the principal suit have any legal right to complain. No suits against the complainants themselves are apprehended, and their pecuniary interest in the actions threatened against tax-payers who have made tenders of tax-receivable coupons purchased from them, with their guaranty against loss in consequence thereof, is collateral and remote. The bringing of such actions is no breach of any contract subsisting between the complainants and the state of Virginia. ”

“ Marye for seeking the injunction is that the state has passed various acts creating impediments in the way of holders of coupons establishing their genuineness, by which their value will be practically destroyed, and the performance of these obligations be evaded, unless the officers of the state are restrained from prosecuting such suits. ”

“ But it is not to be assumed in advance, either, that such questions will arise, or that, if they arise, they will be erroneously decided. The question, therefore, is narrowed to the single inquiry of the equitable right of the complainants to enjoin the petitioners against bringing any such suits at all. ”

“ Thereupon, on October 8, 1887, the following order was made: 'The court, therefore, doth adjudge, order, and decree that, for his contempt of this court, said John Scott do pay a fine of $10, and dismiss the cases which he has brought in the circuit court of Fauquier county, Virginia, in violation of the restraining order heretofore made in the cause of Cooper and others v. Marye and others, on the 6th day of June, 1887 ”

“ Ct. Rep. 128; Antoni v. Greenhow, 107 U.S. 801, 2 Sup. Ct. Rep. 91; and Cunningham v. Macon, 109 U.S. 458, 3 Sup. Ct. Rep. 292, 609; and as I concurred in the judgments in Poindexter v. Greenhow, 114 U.S. 273, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 903, and Allen v. Railroad Co., 114 U.S. 311, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 925,-I feel obliged to dissent from the opinion and judgment in these cases.
In Cooper v. ”