Page:United States Reports, Volume 209.djvu/219

 ground' that the statute is unconstitutional and void. And that question can be ultimately brought to this court for final determination." I am unable to distinguish that case, in principle, from the one now before us. The F/tts co is'not overruled, but is, I fear, frittered away or put out of sight by unwarranted distinctions. Two cases in this court are much relied on to support the proposition that the Perkins-Shepard suit in the Circuit Court is not a suit against the State. I refer to Reagan v. Farrs' U.S. 466, 472. But each of those cases differs in material respects from the one instituted by Perkins and Shepard in the court below. In the Ran coe it appears that the very act, undcr which the railroad commission proceeded; au- thoriy.l the railroad company, or any interested party, if dissatisfied with the action of the commission in establishing rates, to bring suit against that commission in any court, in a named county, with right to appeal to a higher court. This court when combatting .the suggestion that only the state court had jurisdiction to proceed against the commission, and give relief in respect of the rates it established, said: "It may be laid down as a general proposition that, whenever a citizen of a State can go into the couits of a State to defend his property against the illegal acts of its officers, a citizen of another State may invoke the jurisdiction of the Federal courts to maintain a like defense. A State cannot tie up a citizen of another State, having property rights within its territory invaded by unauthorized acts of its own officers, to suits for redress in its own courts. Given a case where a suit can be maintained in the courts of the State to protect prop- erty rights, a citizen of another State may invoke the juris- diction of the Federal courts .... It comes, therefore, within the very terms of the act. It cannot be doubted that a State, like any other g9vernment, can waive exemption from suit." The declaration of the court in the Ran co, that that suit was not, within the true meanng of the Eleventh

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