Page:United States Reports, Volume 209.djvu/251

 209 U. 8. Opon of the Court. of V/r_nla, and they involve questions very much like those in the case at bar. Po/ndter v. Grn/unv was an acti � detinue for personal property distrained by Greenhow for de- linquent taxes, in payment of which Poindexter had tendered coupons cut from bonds issued by the State of Virginia under act of the State passed in 1871. This act, it was held, con~ stituted a contract between the holder of the coupons and the State that they should be received for taxes, which contract, it was further held, was impaired by the subsequent act under which Greenhow justified the distraint of Poindexter's property. It was urged that the action could not be maintained because it was substantially an action against the State to which it had not assented. It was further urged that the remedy was af- forded of a right to recover back all the taxes after payment un- der protest, and that this constituted the sole remedy. The first contention was discussed at length and rejected. The court said, in effect, that the defendant in the action was sued as a wrongdoer, and could only justify himself under a valid law. And it was said: ',The State has passed no such law, for it cannot; and what it cannot do, it certainly, in contem- plation of law, has not done. The Constitution of the United States, and ira own contract, both irrepealable by any act on its part, are the law of Virginia; and that law made it the duty of the defendant to receive the coupons tendered in payment of taxes,.and declared every step to enforce the tax, thereafter to be taken, 'to be without warrant of law. Hs stands ,trippd o! his off chamP, and c.olsi, a psonat viola- tioa o! the plaintiff', rights !or ,hich h rnut Inall{t h is uout dlensc." (Iralice ours.) A distinotion was made between the State and its govern- ment, and it was said that an officer representing and acting for the latter is not an agent of the former. That and other cses were reviewed in Be. lknap v. 3ch//d, 161 U.S. 10, and Mr. Justice Gray, speaking for the court, said: "In a suit to which the State is neither formally nor really a party, its officers, although acting by its order and for its benefit, may be re-

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