me Court has refused to take jurisdiction of a number of suits
brought by States because of the lack of a justiciable controversy. In
cases like Mississippi _v._ Johnson[486] and Georgia _v._ Stanton,[487]
the political nature of the controversy constituted the dominant reason.
In others, like Massachusetts _v._ Mellon[488] and Florida _v._
Mellon,[489] the political issue, though present, was accompanied by the
inability of a State to sue in behalf of its citizens as _parens
patriae_ to contest the validity of an act of Congress when in national
matters the National Government bore the relation of _parens patriae_ to
the same persons as citizens of the United States. Moreover, a State may
not bring a suit in its own name for the benefit of particular
persons.[490]

JURISDICTION CONFINED TO CIVIL CASES

In Cohens _v._ Virginia[491] there is a dictum to the effect that the
original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court does not include suits
between a State and its own citizens. Long afterwards, the Supreme Court
dismissed an action for want of jurisdiction because the record did not
show the corporation against which the suit was brought was chartered in
another State.[492] Subsequently the Court has ruled that it will not
entertain an action by a State to which its citizens are either parties
of record, or would have to be joined because of the effect of a
judgment upon them.[493] In his dictum in Cohens _v._ Virginia, Chief
Justice Marshall also indicated that perhaps no jurisdiction existed
over suits by States to enforce their penal laws.[494] Sixty-seven years
later the Court wrote this dictum into law in Wisconsin _v._ Pelican
Insurance Co.[495] Here Wisconsin sued a Louisiana corporation to
recover a judgment rendered in its favor by one of its own courts.
Relying partly on the rule of international law that the courts of no
country execute the penal laws of another, partly upon the 13th section
of the Judiciary Act of 1789 which vested the Supreme Court with
exclusive jurisdiction of controversies of a civil nature where a State
is a party, and partly on Justice Iredell's dissent in Chisholm _v._
Georgia,[496] where he confined the term "controversies" to civil suits,
Justice Gray ruled for the Court that for purposes of original
jurisdiction, "controversies between a State and citizens of another
State" are confined to civil suits.[497]

SUITS BY A STATE AS _PARENS PATRIAE_; JURISDICTION DECLINED

The disti