the authority and
power of the State government by military force; * * * [which was
divesting the State] of her legally and constitutionally established and
guaranteed existence as a body politic and a member of the Union." The
Supreme Court dismissed the suit for want of jurisdiction, holding that
for a case to be presented for the exercise of the judicial power, the
rights threatened "must be rights of persons or property, not merely
political rights, which do not belong to the jurisdiction of a court,
either in law or equity."[171] The rule of the Stanton case was applied
and elaborated in Massachusetts _v._ Mellon,[172] where the State in its
own behalf and as _parens patriae_ sought to enjoin the administration
of the Maternity Act[173] which, it was alleged, was an unconstitutional
invasion of the reserved rights of the State and an impairment of its
sovereignty. The suit was held not justiciable on the ground that a
State cannot maintain a suit either to protect its political rights or
as _parens patriae_ to protect citizens of the United States against the
operation of a federal law. Concerning the right of a State to sue in
its own behalf to protect its political rights, the Court said: "In that
aspect of the case we are called upon to adjudicate, not rights of
person or property, not rights of dominion over physical domain, not
quasi sovereign rights actually invaded or threatened, but abstract
questions of political power, of sovereignty, of government."[174]
However, these holdings do not affect the right of a State as _parens
patriae_ to intervene in behalf of the economic welfare of its citizens
against discriminatory rates set by an alleged illegal combination of
carriers,[175] or the right of a State to assert its quasi sovereign
rights over wild life within its domain,[176] or to protect its citizens
against the discharge of noxious gases by an industrial plant in an
adjacent State.[177]

ABSTRACT, CONTINGENT, AND HYPOTHETICAL QUESTIONS

Closely related to the requirements of adverse parties and substantial
interests is that of a _real_ issue as contrasted with _speculative_,
abstract, hypothetical, or moot cases. As put by Chief Justice Stone in
Alabama State Federation of Labor _v._ McAdory,[178] it has long been
the Court's "considered practice not to decide abstract, hypothetical or
contingent questions," or as Justice Holmes said years earlier by way of
dictum, a party cannot maintain a suit "fo