Page:United States Reports, Volume 209.djvu/220

 194 OCTOBER TERM, 1907. Amendment, to be regarded as a suit s4pdnst the State, must therefore be taken in connection with the declaration in the same case that the State ha .ring consented that the coramla- sion might be sued in one of its own courts, in respect of the rates established by the statute, must be ta 'ken to have waived its immunity from suit in the Circuit Court of the United States sitting in Texas. In qm/th v. Ames, above cited, which was a suit in a Circuit' Court of the United States, involv- ing the constitutional validity of certain rates established for railroads in Nebraska, it appeared that the statute expressly authorized any railroad company claiming that the mtce were nnreasonble to bring an action aqrtirt the State before the Supreme Court in the name of the railroad company or com- panies bringing the same. Thus the State of Nebraska waived its immunity from suit, and ]roving authorized a suit against itself in one of its courts, in respect of the rates there in ques- tion, it could not, according to the decision in the Reaqan case, deny its liability to like suit in a court of the United States. It is true that this court, in its opinion in $rn/th v. Ames; did not ly any special stress on the fact that Nebraska, by the statute, agreed that it might be sued, but it took especial care in its extended statement of the case to bring out that fact. Its silence on that point is not extraordinary, in view of the fact, as appears from the opinion of this court, that the ques- tion whether that suit was to he deemed one against the State was not discussed at the br by the Nebraska State Board. We there quoted from the Reagan case these words: "When- ever a citizen of a State can go into the courts of a State to defend his property against the illegal acts of its officers, a citizen of another State nmy invoke the jurisdiction of the Federal courts to maintain & like defense. A State cannot tie up a eitir. en of another State, having property rights within its territory invaded by unauthorized acts of its own officers, to snits for redress in its own courts." That the Reaqan and qrn!/th cas did not go as fax as is now claimed for them is made elcar by the later case of F/tts v. MeGbee, aL,'eady re-

�