Page:United States Reports, Volume 209.djvu/183

 YOUNG. l/IT "In the presen case, as we have said, neither of the State officers named held any spedal relation to the particular stat- ute alleged to be unconstitutional. They were not expressly directed to see to its enforcement. If, because they were law officers of the State, a case could be made for the purpo of testing the constitutionality of the statute, by an injunction suit brought against them, then the eonsttutionality of every act psed by the legislature could be tested by a suit against the governor and the attorney general, based upon the theory that the former, as the executive of the State was, in a general sense, e,harged with the execution of all its laws, and the latter, as attorney general, might represent the State in litigation in- volring the enforcement of its statutes. That would be a very convenient way for obtaining a speedy judicial determln,,tion of questions of constitutional law which may be raised by in- dividuais, but it is a mode which canaot be applied to the States of the Union consistently with. the fundamental princi- ple that they cannot, without their aent, be brought into any court at the suit of private persons." In making an officer of the State a party defendant in a suit 'to enjoin the enforcement v of an act alleged to be unconstitu- t/oval it is plain that such officer must have some connection with the enforcement of the act, or else it is merely making him. a party as a representative of the State, and thereby at- tempting to maio the State a party. It has .not, however, been held that it was necessary that such duty should be declared in the same act which is to be enforced. In some cases, it is true, the duty of enforcement has been. co imposod (154 U.. S. 362, 366, � of the act), but that'may ixsibly make the duty more clear; if it otherwise ex- ist it iq..equally efficacious. The fact that the state officer by virtue of his office has some connection with the enforcement of. the act is the importadt and material fact, and whether it �aris out of the general law, or is specially created by the act itself, is not material so long as it exists. In the course of the opinion in the F/ttz o the Reagan and

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