708
Syllabus
show no compelling evidence that this derogation of the States' sovereignty is inherent in the constitutional compact. Pp. 741-754.
(1) Turning first to evidence of the original understanding of the Constitution: The Founders' silence regarding the States' immunity from suit in their own courts, despite the controversy regarding state sovereign immunity in federal court, suggests the sovereign's right to assert immunity from suit in its own courts was so well established that no one conceived the new Constitution would alter it. The arguments raised for and against the Constitution during ratification confirm this strong inference. Similarly, nothing in Chisholm, the catalyst for the Eleventh Amendment, suggested the States were not immune from suits in their own courts. The Amendment's language, furthermore, was directed toward Article III, the only constitutional provision believed to call state sovereign immunity into question; and nothing in that Article or in any other part of the Constitution suggested the States could not assert immunity in their own courts or that Congress had the power to abrogate such immunity. Finally, implicit in a proposal rejected by Congress—which would have limited the Amend-ment's scope to cases where States had made available a remedy in their own courts—was the premise that States retained their immunity and the concomitant authority to decide whether to allow private suits against the sovereign in their own courts. Pp. 741-743.
(2) The historical analysis is supported by early congressional practice. Early Congresses enacted no statutes purporting to authorize suits against nonconsenting States in state court, and statutes purporting to authorize such suits in any forum are all but absent from the Nation's historical experience. Even recent statutes provide no evidence of an understanding that Congress has a greater power to subject States to suit in their own courts than in federal courts. Pp. 743-745.
(3) The theory and reasoning of this Court's earlier cases also suggest that States retain constitutional immunity from suit in their own courts. The States' immunity has been described in sweeping terms, without reference to whether a suit was prosecuted in state or federal court. See, e. g., Briscoe v. Bank of Kentucky, 11 Pet. 257, 321- 322. The Court has said on many occasions that the States retain their immunity in their own courts, see, e. g., Beers v. Arkansas, 20 How. 527, 529, and has relied on that as a premise in its Eleventh Amendment rulings, see, e. g., Hans v. Louisiana, supra, at 10. Pp. 745-748.
(4) A review of the essential principles of federalism and the state courts' special role in the constitutional design leads to the conclusion that a congressional power to subject nonconsenting States to private suits in their own courts is inconsistent with the Constitution's structure.
Page: Index Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007