OCTOBER TERM, 1907. Oplnion? ?U.? of the State, are clothed with some duty in regard to the en- forcement of the laws of the State, and who threaten and am about to commence prooeedin?s, either of a civil or criminal nature, to enforce against parti? affected an nnconstitution,?l act, violating the Federal Constitution, may be enjoined by a Federal court of equity from such action. It. is objected, however, that F? v. Mc(7h?e, 172 U.S. 516, has somewhat limited this principle, and that, upon the an- tbority of that case, it must be held that the State was a party to the suit in the United States Circuit Court, and the bin should have been cli?mi?ed as to the Attorney General on that ?,ound. We do not think such sontenti?n is well founded. The dec- trine of $m!?/A v. Ar?s was neither overruled nor doubted in the F? co?e. In that case the Alabama legislature, by the act of i895, fixed the tolls to be �harl? for creesins the bride. The penalties for disobeying that act, by demandin? and re-. ceivin? higher tolls, were to be collected by the persons pay- ing them. No officer of the State had any official connection with the recovery of such penalties. The indictments men- tioned were found under another state statute, set forth at pa?e 520 of the report of the case, which provided a fine against a n offcer of a company for takin? any ?reater rate of toll than was authorized b? its charter, or, if the charter did ing any unreasonable toll, to be determined by a jury. This act was not claimed to be uncoustitutional, and the indict- ments found under it were not necessarily connected with the alleged unconstitutional act fixing the tolls. As no state officer who was made a party bore any close official connection with the act fixing the tolls, the making of such officer a party de- fendant was a simple effort to test the constitutio?ality of such act in that way, and there is no principle upon which it could. be done. A state superintendent of schools might as well have been made a party. In the light of this fact it was said in the opinion (page 530):
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