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Argument for Respondents.

citizens of the legislating State. This was not mere comity, since it contemplated a quid pro quo. The Missouri reciprocity statute was more than a mere exemption law. The nature of Missouri's obligation to Massachusetts is much like the contractual obligation expressed in §§ 85 and 90 of the American Law Institute's Restatement of the Law of Contracts.

The interest of a State such as Massachusetts granting an exemption and claiming reciprocity transcends an interest in the individual benefits to accrue to its own citizens. Florida v. Mellon, 273 U. S. 12, 16. It is a public interest which Massachusetts has in the reciprocal exemptions upon which its own exemptions are postulated. Missouri should not be permitted; unless she can show just cause, to violate her statute when her citizens are entitled to exemptions in Massachusetts. There would be a constitutional inhibition against the subsequent withdrawal of the benefit conferred at the date of Mrs. Blake's death. City Bank Farmers' Trust Co. v. New York Central R. Co., 253 N. Y. 49. Reciprocity, it

is believed,' furnishes an expedient of accord without violation of the compact clause; for the obligation arising out of reciprocal legislation is not such as requires the consent of Congress. This is true because (1) the obligation, although contractual in nature, is not rested upon manifestation of assent so as to fall within the meaning of "compact" or "agreement" in the constitutional sense, and (2) no interest of the United States is involved. Virginia v. Tennessee, 148 U. S. 503, 518–519; Stearns v. Minnesota, 179 U. S. 223, 244-245; Union Branch R. Co v. East Tennessee & Georgia R. Co., 14 Ga. 327, 339, State v. Joslin, 116 Kans. 615, 618-619.

A controversy arises on the part of each State against the other by reason of the effect of the other's tax upon its public charities.

Argument for Respondent.

308 U.S.

Controversies between the States and between each of the States and the respondent trustees arise out of the attempts of each State to collect a tax upon the trust property in Missouri. The subject matter is single. With the existence of reciprocity, there can be not more than one tax payable. There being not more than a single liability, damage to the respondent trustees arises from the multiple assertion of claims. The assumption of jurisdiction by this Court would avoid a multiplicity of suits. The existence of controversies capable of being initiated in other courts presupposes the original jurisdiction of this Court.

Mr. Edward H. Miller, with whom Mr. Roy McKittrick, Attorney General of Missouri, was on the brief, for the State of Missouri, respondent.

A request for an opinion does not present a case or controversy. United States v. West Virginia, 295 U. S. 463; Texas v. Interstate Commerce Comm'n, 258 U. S. 158; New Jersey v. Sargent, 269 U. S. 328; Massachusetts v. Mellon, 262 U. S. 447.

Massachusetts is only asking for a declaration of whether it, or Missouri, has the right to levy an inheritance tax, and "this Court may not be called on to give advisory opinions or to pronounce declaratory judgments." Alabama v. Arizona, 291 U. S. 286, 291; Ashwander v. T. V. A., 297 U. S. 288, 324; Arizona v. California, 283 U. S. 423; Pennsylvania v. West Virginia, 262 U. S. 553.

The supposed dispute is political and therefore not justiciable. Fowler 'v. Lindsey, 3 Dall. 410; Virginia v. West Virginia, 11 Wall. 39; Georgia v. Stanton, 6 Wall. 50; Massachusetts v. Mellon, supra; Kansas v. Colorado, 185 U. S. 125; Rhode Island v. Massachusetts, 12 Pet. 657.

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Argument for Respondent.

There is no direct conflict of interests between the two States. The trust assets are far more than adequate for the payment of the total taxes claimed by them both. Distinguishing Texas v. Florida, 306 U. S. 398. The claims of the two are completely independent, are not mutually exclusive in any way, and Missouri has neither done nor threatened any act tending to interfere with the collection by Massachusetts of its asserted tax. Muskrat v. United States, 219 U. S. 346.

Missouri is not threatening any private or property right of Massachusetts. The Court has declared that only certain types of state rights will be protected from threatened invasion. Oklahoma v. Atchison, T. & S. F. Ry. Co., 220 U. S. 277; Georgia v. Stanton, 6 Wall. 50, 77; United States v. West Virginia, 295 U. S. 463.

The right to tax is an attribute of general sovereignty, as distinguished from a property right. McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 428; Providence Bank v. Billings, 4 Pet. 514, 564; Case of the State Freight Tax, 15 Wall. 232, 278; Cooley on Taxation, 3rd ed., p. 7. An invasion by Missouri of the Massachusetts jurisdiction to tax, would not affect a private or property right, and therefore could not present a justiciable controversy. While the property right requirement has been relaxed in water rights cases so as to permit a State to sue as parens patriae, Missouri v. Illinois, 180 U. S. 208; Kansas v. Colorado, 185 U. S. 125, such cases present no analogy to the case at bar.

Massachusetts is not the real party in interest. Oklahoma v. Atchison, T. & S. F. Ry. Co., 220 U. S. 277; Wisconsin v. Pelican Ins. Co., 127 U. S. 265, 287; Nashville, C. & St. L. Ry. Co. v. Wallace, 288 U. S. 249, 259; Oklahoma v. Gulf, C. & S. F. Ry. Co., 220 U. S. 290; New Hampshire v. Louisiana, 108 U. S. 76; Kansas v. United States, 204 U. S. 331; Florida v. Anderson, 91 U. S. 667;

Argument for Respondent.

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Louisiana v. Texas, 176 U. S. 1; North Dakota v. Minnesota, 263 U. S. 365.

If there is a separate controversy between a State and citizens of another State, necessary parties are absent, whose joinder would oust the jurisdiction. California v. Southern Pacific Co., 157 U. S. 228; Arizona v. California, 298 U.S. 558. See also dissents in South Dakota v. North Carolina, 192 U. S. 286, 322, and Pennsylvania v. West Virginia, 262 U. S. 553, 605. The beneficiaries under the trust are the only persons really interested in the issue framed by Massachusetts. Cf. Texas v. Interstate Commerce Comm'n, 258 U. S. 158, 163; Minnesota v. Northern Securities Co., 184 U. S. 199, 246.

The allegations afford no adequate basis for relief according to accepted doctrines of equity jurisprudence. Texas v. Florida, 306 U. S. 398. Massachusetts was faced with no possible risk of loss from anything that Missouri might do.

Even if the Court has jurisdiction it may decline to exercise it. Courts need not in every case exercise a jurisdiction which they admittedly possess. The statement in Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264, repeated in Employers' Liability Cases, 223 U. S. 1, 58; Hyde v. Stone, 20 How. 170; Chicot County v. Sherwood, 148 U. S. 529; and McClellan v. Carland, 217 U. S. 268, that a court can not decline to exercise its jurisdiction, is subject to exceptions. Canada Malting Co. v. Paterson Steamships, 285 U. S. 413; Rogers v. Guaranty Trust Co., 288 U. S. 123; Pennsylvania v. Williams, 294 U. S. 176. Cf., Douglas v. New York, N. H., & H. R. Co., 279 U. S. 377.

The constitutional provision conferring jurisdiction in controversies between States, and between States and citizens of other States, is not mandatory. If the language of the first Judiciary Act can properly be used as a contemporaneous interpretation of the constitutional

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Argument for Respondent.

provisions, Ames v. Kansas, 111 U. S. 449, it would seem that "all" controversies where a State is a party, the language of the statute, would have required the reading of the word "all" into the constitutional provision of clause 1 dealing with controversies between States, especially since clause 2 apparently distributes to the Supreme Court jurisdiction in "all" cases in which a State is a party. However, the Court has declined to accept that interpretation, has said that the omission in clause 1 of the word "all" was apparently deliberate, and intended to be a contrast between the classes of cases in clause 1 which are preceded by the word "all," and thus that the judicial power does not extend to all controversies to which the United States is a party, or to all controversies between a State and citizens of another State, but rather only to certain types of those controversies. Williams v. United States, 289 U. S. 553; Oklahoma v. Gulf, C. & S. F. Ry. Co., 220 U. S. 290. And it has read into the constitutional language certain cases not even mentioned. The Court has approved Mr. Justice Iredell's dissent in Chisholm v. Georgia, and has declared that the doctrine of the implied immunity of a sovereign from suit must be read into the constitutional language, and that its literal construction is inadmissible. Williams v. United States, supra; Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U. S. 1. The Court has also read into the constitutional provision a prohibition against suits by a foreign State against a State. Principality of Monaco v. Mississippi, 292 U. S. 313, 322; Oklahoma v. Gulf, C. & S. F. Ry. Co., 200 U. S. 290. In fact, in Williams v. United States, supra, the Court said that the phrase "Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party" in Article III, § 2, clause 1, which it placed upon precisely the same footing as the clause "Controversies between two or more States," must be construed in accordance with the practical construction put upon it by the first Judiciary Act, as though it