duty purely ministerial, is not, within the meaning of the Eleventh Amendment, an action against the State." Mr. Justice Lamar in Pennoyer v. McConnaughy, 140 U. S. 1, and citing Osborn v. Bank, supra; Davis v. Gray, 16 Wall. 203; Tomlinson v. Branch, 15 Wall. 460; Litchfield v. Webster County, 101 U. S. 773; Allen v. Baltimore & Ohio Ry. Co., 114 U. S. 311; Board of Liquidation v. McComb, 92 U. S. 531, and Poindexter v. Greenhow, 114 U. S. supra, from which we have quoted. Other more recent cases are Scott v. Donald, 165 U. S. 112; Sinyth v. Ames, 169 U. S. 466; In re Tyler, 149 U. S. 164, 190; Tindal v. Wesley, 167 U. S. 204, 220; Prout v. Starr, 188 U. S. 537, and Ex parte Young, supra. The facts in the McConnell case do not fit the doctrine of In re Ayres, 123 U. S. and that line of cases, but they do fit the line of cases followed by us as above indicated.
I am unable to see how the "dignity and sovereignty of the State are involved" in a suit to restrain her officers from exceeding their powers, and arbitrarily setting aside a contract, and destroying valuable rights thereunder. Nor do I think that the dignity and sovereignty of the State are involved in a suit to compel an officer to perform merely ministerial duties under a contract made under the authority of the statute. Such is the McConnell case, as the judges who rendered the decision, viewed the facts and the law. The doctrine there announced erects the same high standard for honesty and good faith in the conduct of public officers as that required by the law of private individuals in their dealings with each other. If I am correct in my views, this doctrine should remain the law in Arkansas forever.
BATTLE, J., (dissenting.) The contract involved in this case is the same as that held to be valid in McConnell v. Arkansas Brick & Manufacturing Company, 70 Ark. 568. But this is denied by saying that the contract adjudged to be valid in the McConnell case has expired. I do not think so. The Board of Commissioners of Arkansas State Penitentiary failed often to comply with that contract by furnishing the Arkansas Brick & Manufacturing Company with the labor of convicts as it had agreed to do, and upon each of such failures and during the life of the contract promised to furnish the company with such labor until it had furnished all it had contracted to do, and adopted resolutions to that effect, and caused them to be spread at length
