Cite as: 517 U. S. 44 (1996)
Souter, J., dissenting
would depend upon "laws passed under the Constitution and in conformity to it," ibid.6 Finding no congressional action abrogating Georgia's common-law immunity, Justice Iredell concluded that the State should not be liable to suit.7
C
The Eleventh Amendment, of course, repudiated Chisholm and clearly divested federal courts of some jurisdiction as to cases against state parties:
"The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State."
There are two plausible readings of this provision's text.
Under the first, it simply repeals the Citizen-State Diversity
6 See also 2 Dall., at 435 ("[I]t is certain that in regard to any common law principle which can influence the question before us no alteration has been made by any statute"); id., at 437 (if "no new remedy be provided . . . we have no other rule to govern us but the principles of the preexistent laws, which must remain in force till superseded by others"); Atascadero State Hospital v. Scanlon, 473 U. S. 234, 283 (1985) (Brennan, J., dissenting). But see Justice Iredell's dicta suggesting that the Constitution would not permit suits against a State. Chisholm, supra, at 449 (dissenting opinion); Atascadero, supra, at 283, n. 34 (Brennan, J., dissenting).
7 Of course, even if Justice Iredell had concluded that state sovereign immunity was not subject to abrogation, it would be inappropriate to assume (as it appears the Court does today, and Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U. S. 1 (1890), did as well) that the Eleventh Amendment (regardless of what it says) "constitutionalized" Justice Iredell's dissent, or that it simply adopted the opposite of the holding in Chisholm. It is as odd to read the Eleventh Amendment's rejection of Chisholm (which held that States may be sued in diversity) to say that States may not be sued on a federal question as it would be to read the Twenty-Sixth Amendment's rejection of Oregon v. Mitchell, 400 U. S. 112 (1970) (which held that Congress could not require States to extend the suffrage to 18-year-olds) to permit Congress to require States to extend the suffrage to 12-year-olds.
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