Cite as: 517 U. S. 44 (1996)
Souter, J., dissenting
place of common-law state sovereign immunity even as to federal jurisdiction resting on the Citizen-State Diversity Clauses. Edmund Randolph argued in favor of ratification on the ground that the immunity would not be recognized, leaving the States subject to jurisdiction.38 Patrick Henry opposed ratification on the basis of exactly the same reading. See 3 Elliot's Debates 543. On the other hand, James Madison, John Marshall, and Alexander Hamilton all appear to have believed that the common-law immunity from suit would survive the ratification of Article III, so as to be at a State's disposal when jurisdiction would depend on diversity. This would have left the States free to enjoy a traditional immunity as defendants without barring the exercise of judicial power over them if they chose to enter the federal courts as diversity plaintiffs or to waive their immunity as diversity defendants. See id., at 533 (Madison: the Constitution "give[s] a citizen a right to be heard in the federal courts; and if a state should condescend to be a party, this court may take cognizance of it"); 39 id., at 556 (Marshall: "I see a diffi-38 See 3 Elliot's Debates 573 (the Constitution would "render valid and effective existing claims" against the States). See also 2 id., at 491 (James Wilson, in the Pennsylvania ratification debate: "When a citizen has a controversy with another state, there ought to be a tribunal where both parties may stand on a just and equal footing"). Wilson, as I noted above, took a similar position in addressing the federal question, or arising under, clause, remarking that the effect of the clause would be to require States to honor pre-Revolutionary debt owed to English merchants, as had been promised in the Treaty of 1783. See n. 4, supra.
39 The Court accuses me of quoting this statement out of context, ante, at 70, n. 12, but the additional material included by the Court makes no difference. I am conceding that Madison, Hamilton, and Marshall all agreed that Article III did not of its own force abrogate the States' preexisting common-law immunity, at least with respect to diversity suits. None of the statements offered by the Court, however, purports to deal with federal-question jurisdiction or with the question whether Congress, acting pursuant to its Article I powers, could create a cause of action against a State. As I explain further below, the views of Madison and his
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