COUPON OASES. 



the State. It is idle to say that the proceed- 

 ing is only against the officers. 



But it is said that it is not the State, but the gov- 

 ernment of the State, which declines to receive the 

 coupons, contrary to engagement. It is said that the 

 government does not represent the State when it does 

 an unconstitutional act, or passes an unconstitutional 

 law. While this may be averred (as it was averred 

 in Texas vs. White, 7 Wallace's Reports, 700), when 

 the government of a State attempts to force the State 

 from its constitutional relations with the United 

 States, and to produce a disruption of the fundament- 

 al bonds of the national compact ; and while in such 

 a case it may be admissible to say that the govern- 

 ment of the State has exercised a usurped authoritv, 

 this mode of speech is not admissible in ordinary cases 

 of legislation and public administration. A State can 

 onlv act by and through its constituted authorities, 

 and it is represented by them in all the ordinary exhi- 

 bitions of sovereign power. It may act wrongly ; it 

 may act unconstitutionally ; but to say that it is not 

 the" State that acts is to make a misuse of terms, and 

 tends to confound all just distinctions. It also tends, 

 in our judgment, to inculcate the dangerous doctrine 

 that the government may be treated and resisted as a 

 usurpation whenever the citizen, in the exercise of his 

 private judgment, deems its acts to be unconstitu- 

 tional. 



But, then, it will be asked, has the citizen no re- 

 dress against the unconstitutional acts or laws of the 

 State ? Certainly he has. There is no difliculty on 

 the subject. Whenever his life, liberty, or property is 

 threatened, assailed, or invaded by unconstitutional 

 acts, or by an attempt to execute unconstitutional laws, 

 he may defend himself, in every proper way, by ha- 

 beas corpus, by defense to prosecutions, by actions 

 brought on his own behalf, by injunction, by manda- 

 mus. Any one of these modes of redress, suitable to 

 his case, is open to him. A citizen can not, in any 

 way, be harassed, injured, or destroyed by unconsti- 

 tutional laws without having some legal means of re- 

 sistance or redress. But this is where the State or its 

 officers move against him. The right to all these 

 means of protection and redress against unconstitu- 

 tional oppression and exaction is a very different 

 thing from the right to coerce the State into a fulfill- 

 ment of its contracts. The one is an indefeasible 

 right, a right which can not be taken away ; the other 

 is never a right, but may or may not be conceded by 

 the State ; and, if conceded, may be conceded on sucn 

 terms as the State chooses to impose. 



All the cases that are cited from the books in which 

 redress has been afforded to individuals by the courts 

 against State action are cases arising out of the first 

 class, and not out of the second : cases of State ag- 

 gression, and not of refusal to fulfill obligations, in 

 all these cases the State has attempted to do some un- 

 constitutional act injurious to the party, or some act 

 which it had entered into a contract not to do ; and 

 redress was sought against such aggressive act ; they, 

 none of them, exhibit the case of a State declining 

 to pay a debt or to perform an obligation, and the 

 party seeking to enforce its performance by judicial 

 process. 



As for the great mass of cases in which the reme- 

 dies of mandamus and injunction have been sanc- 

 tioned, to compel State officers to do, or refrain from 

 doing, some act in which the plaintiff had an interest, 

 they nave generally been cases in which the law made 

 it the duty of the officers to do the act commanded, or 

 not to do the act forbidden. Those of a different 

 character, as where a remedy has been taken away. 

 have been purely cases of demands by one individual 

 airainst another, and not of an individual against the 

 State. 



The present cases differ toto ccdo from any of these. 

 They are attempts to coerce a State by judicial pro- 

 ceedings j as before stated, they are that, and nothing 

 else. It is useless to attempt to deceive ourselves by 

 VOL. xxv. 18 A 



CUBA. 



273 



an adroit use of word*, or by a train of metaphysical 

 reaeomng. We can not, in that way, change tho nu- 

 ture of tilings. 



This is the first time, we believe, since the eleventh 

 amendment was adopted, in which a State baa been 

 coerced by judicial proceedings ut the suit of indi- 

 viduals in the Federal courts. That this is such a 

 case, seems one of the plainest propositions that can 

 be stated. 



(For an earlier opinion of the United States 

 Supreme Court on suits against the State, and 

 also its opinion on suits against the United 

 States, see "Annual Cyclopaedia" for 1882, 

 pages 462, 460.) 



CPBA, an island in the West Indies, belong- 

 ing to Spain. (For statistics of area, popula- 

 tion, etc., see the "Annual Cyclopaedia" for 

 1883.) 



Dominion Proposals to Spain. In reply to an 

 interpellation on February 24, Mr. Leonard 

 Tilley, the Canadian Minister of Finance, said 

 that in 1884 Sir Charles Tupper, High Com- 

 missioner of the Dominion at London, had been 

 instructed by the Governor-General to take cer- 

 tain steps with a view of securing the same 

 advantages for Canada that were enjoyed by 

 the United States under the flag treaty with 

 Spain of 1884. Instructions were given to Sir 

 Charles to make certain propositions through 

 the British minister, at Madrid, and correspond- 

 ence was entered into, the result of which was 

 that the Government at Madrid declined to 

 enter into negotiations with the Canadian Gov- 

 ernment or its representatives until the fate of 

 the larger reciprocity treaty with the United 

 States relating to Cuba and Porto Kico was 

 finally known. 



Agreement with the United States. In August 

 the American minister, Mr. Foster, reached an 

 agreement with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, 

 at La Granja, near Madrid, to the effect that 

 the provisions of reciprocity contained in the 

 former treaty relating to Cuba and Porto Rico- 

 were to be considered abandoned. 



A new treaty was drawn up, confined to re- 

 forms in the Cuban customs laws, Spain accept- 

 ing the modus vivendi, signed in February,. 

 1884, which was contended for by the United 

 States. The settlement of the claims of Ameri- 

 can citizens against the Spanish Government 

 arising from the insurrection in Cuba was also 

 provided for. 



Army. The Commander- in-Chief and Cap- 

 tain-General of the island is Don Ramon Fa- 

 jardo 6 Izquierdo ; the Civil Governor of Ha- 

 vana is Don Antonio Telleria. The strength 

 of the Spanish forces in Cuba, in 1885, was 

 22,000 men. A large portion of this military 

 force was kept busy during the year in captur- 

 ing the various small filibustering expeditions 

 that effected a landing. These bands of ad- 

 venturers found neither material nor even 

 moral support and sympathy on shore, and 

 most of the men composing them were tried 

 by court-martial and shot. 



Finance. Cuban indebtedness in 1885 stood 

 as shown in the following table : 



