Cite as: 517 U. S. 44 (1996)
Stevens, J., dissenting
The question thus becomes whether the relatively modest jurisdictional bar that the Eleventh Amendment imposes should be understood to reveal that a more general jurisdictional bar implicitly inheres in Article III.
The language of Article III certainly gives no indication that such an implicit bar exists. That provision's text specifically provides for federal-court jurisdiction over all cases arising under federal law. Moreover, as I have explained, Justice Iredell's dissent argued that it was the Judiciary Act of 1789, not Article III, that prevented the federal courts from entertaining Chisholm's diversity action against Georgia. Therefore, Justice Iredell's analysis at least suggests that it was by no means a fixed view at the time of the founding that Article III prevented Congress from rendering States suable in federal court by their own citizens. In sum, little more than speculation justifies the conclusion that the Eleventh Amendment's express but partial limitation on the scope of Article III reveals that an implicit but more general one was already in place.
II
The majority appears to acknowledge that one cannot deduce from either the text of Article III or the plain terms of
Kroger, 437 U. S. 365, 377, n. 21 (1978); Sosna v. Iowa, 419 U. S. 393, 398 (1975); California v. LaRue, 409 U. S. 109, 112-113, n. 3 (1972); American Fire & Casualty Co. v. Finn, 341 U. S. 6, 17-18, and n. 17 (1951); Mitchell v. Maurer, 293 U. S. 237, 244 (1934); Jackson v. Ashton, 8 Pet. 148, 149 (1834). We have, however, construed the Amendment, despite its text, to apply only to unconsenting States. See, e. g., Clark v. Barnard, 108 U. S. 436, 447 (1883). In so doing, we of course left it for Congress to determine whether federal courts should entertain any claim against a State in federal court. A departure from the text to expand the class of plaintiffs to whom the Eleventh Amendment's bar applies would, however, limit Congress' authority to exercise its considered judgment as to the propriety of federal-court jurisdiction. The absence of a textual warrant for imposing such a broad limitation on the legislative branch counsels against this Court extratextually imposing one.
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