Page:United States Reports, Volume 209.djvu/204

 178 OCTOBER TERM, 1907. H,-,, J., dimeing. 29 U.$. court was not, upon its face, as to th rdis! sought at the Attorney General o! Minnesota, a suit against the State. Stated in another form, the questioa is whether that court may, by operating upon that offwer in his official capacity, by means of fine and imprisonment, prevent the .State from being repre- sented by its law officer in one of its own courts? If the Fed- eral court could not thus put mn upon the State so as to prevent it from being represented by its Attorney General in its own court and from having the state court pa upon the validity of the state enactment in question in the Perkins- Shepard suit, that is an end to this habeas corp proceeding, and the Attorney General of Minnesota should be dischax by order of this court from custody. It is to be observed that when the State was in effect pro- bibired by the order of the Federal court from appearing in its own courts, there was no danger, absolutely none what- ever, from anything that the Attorney General had ever done or proix)sod to do, that the property of the railway company would be confiscated and its offcers and agents imprisoned, beyond the power of that company to stay any wrong done by bringing to this court, in regular order, any final iudgment o! the state court, in the mandamus suit, which may have bee in derogation of a Federal right. When the Attorney General instituted the mandamu proceeding in the state court against the railway company there was in force, it must not be for- gotten, an order of' injunction by the Federal court which prevented that conpany from obeying the state law. There was consequently no danger rom that direction. Besides, the mandamus proceeding was not instituted for the recovery of any of the penalties prescribed by the state law, and there- fore no judgment in that case could operate directly upon the property of the railway company or upon the persons of its officers or agents. The Attorney General in his response to the rule against him assured the Federal court that he did not contemplate any proceeding whatever against the rail- way company except the one in mandamus. Suppose the

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