Page:United States Reports, Volume 209.djvu/182

 OCTOBER TERM, 1907. Oplnion U. of the State, are clothed with some duty in regard to the en- forcement of the laws of the State, and who threaten and am about to commence prooeedins, either of a civil or criminal nature, to enforce against parti affected an nnconstitution,l act, violating the Federal Constitution, may be enjoined by a Federal court of equity from such action. It. is objected, however, that F v. Mc(7he, 172 U.S. 516, has somewhat limited this principle, and that, upon the an- tbority of that case, it must be held that the State was a party to the suit in the United States Circuit Court, and the bin should have been climied as to the Attorney General on that ,ound. We do not think such sontentin is well founded. The dec- trine of $m!/A v. Ars was neither overruled nor doubted in the F coe. In that case the Alabama legislature, by the act of i895, fixed the tolls to be �harl for creesins the bride. The penalties for disobeying that act, by demandin and re-. ceivin higher tolls, were to be collected by the persons pay- ing them. No officer of the State had any official connection with the recovery of such penalties. The indictments men- tioned were found under another state statute, set forth at pae 520 of the report of the case, which provided a fine against a n offcer of a company for takin any reater rate of toll than was authorized b its charter, or, if the charter did ing any unreasonable toll, to be determined by a jury. This act was not claimed to be uncoustitutional, and the indict- ments found under it were not necessarily connected with the alleged unconstitutional act fixing the tolls. As no state officer who was made a party bore any close official connection with the act fixing the tolls, the making of such officer a party de- fendant was a simple effort to test the constitutioality of such act in that way, and there is no principle upon which it could. be done. A state superintendent of schools might as well have been made a party. In the light of this fact it was said in the opinion (page 530):

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