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

 209 U. 8. , J., dizenting. is of the last importance, and vital to the preservation of our system of government. The courts should not permit them- selves to be driven by the hardships, real or supposed, of particular case to accomplish. results, even ff they be just results, in a mode forbidden by the fundamental lw. The country should never be allowed to think that the Constitu- tion can, in any case, be evaded or amended by mere judi.cial interpretation, or that its behests may be nullified by an ingenious construction of its provisions. The importance of the question under consideration is a sufficient justification for such a reference to the authoritie as will indicate the precise grounds on which this court has oftentimes proceeded when determining what is and what is not a suit ?inRt a State within the mning of the Eleventh Amendment. All the cas agree in declaring the incapacity of a Federal court to exercise jurisdiction over a State as a party. But assaults upon the Eleventh Amendment kave oftenest been made in case in which the effort has been, without making the State a formal party, to control the acts of its officers and agents, by such orders directed to them as will accomplish, by indirection, the same results that could be accomplished by a suit directly against the State, if such a suit were possible. It will be well to look at some of the principal adjudged cases. The general question was examined in Cunningham v. Mawn & Brunswick R. R. Co., 109 U.S. 446-451, where the court said that it was conceded in all the casez, and "may be accepted as a point of departure unquestioned, that neither a State nor the United States can be sued as defendant in any court in this country without their consent, except in the limited class of cases in which a State may be made a party in the Supreme Court. of the Uited States by virtue of the - original jurisdiction conferred on this court by the Constitu- tion." The cout has not in any case departed from this U.S. 1, 9, it said that "this immunity of a State from suit is

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