The fundamental reasoning upon which these conclusions are based is that the state, the abstract political entity, can speak and act only by valid laws, that an unconstitutional statute cannot be its legal act, that it cannot, legally speaking, authorize any act in conflict with the Constitution, that no officer of a state, not even the governor, can have any legal duty or legal executive function to disregard or violate the Constitution, and that whatever wrong is attempted in its name is to be conclusively imputed to its officer, who cannot plead his representative capacity. The distinction between the government of a state and the state itself is elucidated by Mr. Justice Matthews in the leading case of Poindexter _vs._ Greenhow.[39] Most difficult, however, are questions which arise in connection with suits in equity to restrain state officers from enforcing state statutes alleged to be unconstitutional. The plainest principles of justice would seem in many cases to require a preventive remedy, for it might be of vital importance that an officer be restrained from doing an unlawful act to the irreparable injury of the individual. Manifestly, it would be unfair and unjust to tell the latter that he must wait until his rights have been violated or his property confiscated or destroyed. This point was first presented to the Supreme Court in 1824 in the leading case of Osborn _vs._ Bank of the United States.[40] It was then declared, in one of Chief Justice Marshall's famous opinions, that, notwithstanding the eleventh amendment, a circuit court of the United States had jurisdiction in equity to restrain a state officer from executing or enforcing an unconstitutional state statute when to execute it would violate rights and privileges of a complainant guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States, and would work irreparable damage and injury to him, for which no plain, adequate and complete remedy could be had at law.