In this state of the law, it cannot be held that the official character of the present defendants constitutes of itself a reason why they may not be enjoined from infringing the rights, if any, which the plaintiff has under the copyright laws of the United States. A state cannot authorize its agents to violate a citizen’s right of property, and then invoke the constitution of the United States to protect those agents against suit instituted by the owner for the protection of his rights against injury by such agents. Of course, if property be the subject of litigation, and if the property belong to the state, and is in its actual possession by its officers, a suit against such officers to enjoin them from using and controlling the property would be regarded as a suit against the state, and, for the reasons stated in Belknap v. Schild, would be dismissed by the court.
The defendants, in the case before us, assert that the original manuscript constituting Miller’s compilation was and is the property of the state, and for this reason it is assumed that the doctrine of Belknap v. Schild determines the present case in their favor. It may be true—indeed, we think it is true—that the manuscript of the Miller compilation is the property of the state; and the mere preparation of such manuscript and the possession of it by the state do not constitute a legal wrong to the plaintiff. And if this suit had as its only object a decree disturbing the state's possession of that manuscript, and ordering the surrender of it to the plaintiff, or its destruction, so that it could not be used, we should say, according to the rule announced in Belknap v. Schild, that such a suit would be one against the state, and could not be entertained. But such is not the present case. Its principal object is to prevent the defendants from distributing or selling the Miller compilation so far as it has been printed, and from printing the part still in manuscript and in the hands of the public printer to be printed and delivered to the proper officers of the state for distribution and sale. Although the plaintiff may not,