ury, 4 Ad. & El. 286. That was an application for a mandamus against the defendants, who had authority by statute to grant a certain "superannuation allowance." Sir J. Campbell, attorney-general, contended that it was against principle that the court should order a mandamus in the name of the King, directing the King to pay money. But the mandamus was granted. Lord Denman, C. J., said: "If, then, this is only the case of public officers having the control of a sum of money for this particular purpose, there is no reason that a mandamus should not issue. They are officers under the Crown; but the Crown has no more to do with them for this purpose than any other officers. They are merely parties who have received a sum of money as trustees for an individual under the provisions of an act of Parliament. . . . Here it only appears that a sum of money has been voted as an allowance to an individual, which sum they have, and refuse to pay."

There is another consideration which strengthens this position, that is, the supremacy of the Constitution of the United States over State constitutions and State laws. To the duty imposed by the statute and Constitution of 1874 upon its officers there is superadded the duty imposed by the fundamental law of the land not to regard as binding any State enactment which impairs the obligation of contracts.

If the case cited from the Queen's Bench were susceptible of the construction put upon it by this court, it should not have controlling influence. Here no such relations exist between the executive and judicial departments as exist in England between the Crown and the courts. This was shown in the elaborate opinion of Mr. Justice Miller, speaking for the court in United States v. Lee, 106 U. S. 196. That was ejectment to recover real estate, in the actual possession of officers who claimed it, not in any personal right, but for the United States, property used and occupied as a cemetery for dead soldiers of the Union. It was contended that a suit against the officers, having for its object to disturb their possession, was a suit against the government. In support of that position numerous cases were cited from the English courts, which held that a suit could not be maintained against officers of the Crown. But we held that upon such a question

but little weight should be given to those adjudications; that there is a vast difference in the essential character of the two governments in reference to the source and depositaries of power; that while in England the Crown, the fountain of honor, cannot be disturbed in its possession of property by process directed against its officers or agents, "under our system the people, who are there subjects, are sovereign; that their rights, whether collective or individual, are not bound to give way to a sentiment of loyalty to the person of the monarch;" that "the citizen here knows no person, however near to those in power, or however powerful in himself, to whom he need yield the rights which the law secures to him when it is well administered;" that, "when he, in one of the courts of competent jurisdiction, has established his right of property, there is no reason why deference to any person, natural or artificial, not even the United States, should prevent him from using the means which the law gives him for the protection and enforcement of that right." Said the court further, in that case: "No man in this country is so high that he is above the law. No officer of the law may set that law at defiance with impunity. All the officers of the government, from the highest to the lowest, are creatures of the law, and are bound to obey it. It is the only supreme power in our system of government, and every man who, by accepting office, participates in its functions, is only the more strongly bound to submit to that supremacy, and to observe the limitations which it imposes upon the exercise of the authority which it gives."

In that case the court reaffirms the doctrines of Osborn v. Bank of the United States, 9 Wheat. 738. The latter was a suit to recover moneys, which officers of the State of Ohio, in conformity with its statutes, had illegally taken from a bank of the United States. The suit being against the officers of the State, the objection was taken that it could not be sustained without the State itself being a party; that the State could not be sued; consequently, it was argued, the relief prayed - the restoration of the money - could not be granted. But to that objection the court, speaking by Chief Justice Marshall, and this language is quoted ap

provingly in United States v. Lee, said: "If the State of Ohio could have been made a party defendant, it can scarcely be denied that this would be a strong case for an injunction. The objection is, that as the real party cannot be brought before the court, a suit cannot be sustained against the agents of that party; and cases have been cited to show that a court of chancery will not make a decree unless all those who are substantially interested be made parties to the suit. This is certainly true where it is in the power of the plaintiff to make them parties; but if the person who is the' real principal, the person who is the true source of the mischief, by whose power and for whose advantage it is done, be himself above the law, be exempt from all judicial process, it would be subversive of the best-established principles to say that the laws could not afford the same remedies against the agent employed in doing the wrong, which they would afford against him could his principal be joined in the suit."

The decision in that case has not been heretofore questioned in this court. It seems to establish, upon grounds which cannot well be shaken, that a suit against State officers, to prevent a threatened wrong to the injury of the citizen, is not necessarily a suit against the State within the meaning of the Eleventh Amendment of the Constitution; for, said Chief Justice Marshall, "the Eleventh Amendment, which restrains the jurisdiction granted by the Constitution over suits against States, is, of necessity, limited to those suits in which a State is a party to the record." Here, the State is not a party to the record. Here, officers of Louisiana only are parties defendants; and the relief asked is that they be required to perform purely ministerial duties imposed upon them by the statute and Constitution of 1874, whose provisions, as respects the matters now in issue, are still in force and obligatory, because never affected, modified, or repealed, otherwise than by a debt ordinance, subsequently adopted, conceded to be in conflict with the Constitution, and, therefore, absolutely void.

There are other decisions of this court still more directly in point. The leading one is Davis v. Gray, 16 Wall. 203. In that case it appears that the State of Texas made a grant of

lands to a railroad company, upon the basis of which bonds were issued known as land-grant mortgage bonds. They were sold in large numbers in this country and Europe. Subsequently the State, by provisions of its statutes and Constitution, attempted to repudiate and nullify its contract; and, in pursuance thereof, its officers proposed to issue patents to others for a part of the lands embraced in this grant. Thereupon a suit in equity was instituted in the Circuit Court of the United States against the Governor and the Commissioner of the General Land-Office of Texas, to prevent them from issuing patents for the lands or any part of them. The State was, of course, not made a party on the record. The bill was demurred to upon the ground that she could not be sued, and that the suit, being against her officers, was one, within the meaning of the Constitution, against her. The demurrer was overruled, and the relief asked was given.

Touching the question of jurisdiction, the court, speaking by Mr. Justice Swayne, stated these principles as having been announced in Osborn v. Bank of the United States. 1. A Circuit Court of the United States, in a proper case in equity, may enjoin a State officer from executing a State law in conflict with the Constitution, or a statute of the United States, when such execution will violate the rights of the complainant. 2. Where the State is concerned, the State should be made a party, if it could be done. That it cannot be done is a sufficient reason for the omission to do it, and the court may proceed to decree against the officers of the State in all respects as if the State were a party to the record. 3. In deciding who are parties to the suit, the court will not look beyond the record. Making a State officer a party does not make the State a party, although her laws prompt his action, and the State stands behind him as the real party in interest. p. 220. It was in conformity with those doctrines that the relief asked was given. See also Vattier v. Hinde, 7 Pet. 252; Louisville Railroad Co. v. Letson, 2 How. 497; 2 Story's Const., sect. 1685; 1 Kent, Com. 351.

In part upon the authority of Davis v. Gray and Osborn v. Bank of the United States, this court, in Board of Liquidation v. McComb, 92 U. S. 531, 541, maintained the right of a holder

of consolidated bonds to a decree against the officers of the State of Louisiana, who are here defendants, constituting the board of liquidation, preventing the use of such bonds for the payment of a debt due from the State to a levee company. The proposed action of the board was based upon a statute passed March 2, 1875. So that the suit had for its object to prevent State officers, charged with the execution of the latter act, from carrying out its provisions. It never occurred to this court that the suit was, for that reason, one against the State within the meaning of the Constitution. Upon the general question, whether the defendants, being officers of the State, were amenable to process from a Federal court, Mr. Justice Bradley, speaking for this court, observed: "On this branch of the subject the numerous and well-considered cases heretofore decided by this court leave little to be said. The objections to proceeding against State officers by mandamus or injunction are: first, that it is, in effect, proceeding against the State itself; and, secondly, that it interferes with the official discretion vested in the officers. It is conceded that neither of these things can be done. A State, without its consent, cannot be sued by an individual; and a court cannot substitute its own discretion for that of executive officers in matters belonging to the proper jurisdiction of the latter. But it has been well settled, that when a plain official duty, requiring no exercise of discretion, is to be performed, and performance is refused, any person who will sustain personal injury by such refusal may have a mandamus to compel its performance; and when such duty is threatened to be violated by some positive official act, any person who will sustain personal injury thereby, for which adequate compensation cannot be had at law, may have an injunction to prevent it. In such case, the writs of mandamus and injunction are somewhat correlative to each other. In either case, if the officer plead the authority of an unconstitutional law for the non-performance or violation of his duty, it will not prevent the issuing of the writ. An unconstitutional law will be treated by the courts as null and void." Upon these grounds, the decree of the Circuit Court was affirmed, so far as it prohibited the debt due the levee company from being funded in consolidated bonds. Such use of them was