306
Souter, J., dissenting
law allows to every person, natural or artificial, for the vindication and assertion of its rights"). See also Treasure Salvors, supra, at 688 (opinion of Stevens, J.).8 This, of course, is a right that a State always has after an official has lost a Young suit, whatever its particular subject.
In sum, the Tribe seeks no damages or restitution to compensate for the State's exercise of authority over the land, nor does it ask for rescission of a past transfer of property. It says that state officers, by their continuing regulation, are committing an ongoing violation of federal law that may be halted by an injunction against the state officers. If the Tribe were to prove what it claims, it would establish "precisely the type of continuing violation for which a remedy may permissibly be fashioned under Young." Papasan v. Allain, 478 U. S. 265, 282 (1986).
II
A
The first of the two points common to the opinions displacing Ex parte Young here is that this case pierces Young's distinction between State and officer because the relief
8 In this case, were the District Court to hold for the Tribe and conclude that federal law precludes state regulation, the Quiet Title Act, 28 U. S. C. § 2409a, may well preclude the State from bringing a subsequent action to quiet title to the land at issue, unless the United States consents to suit. This fact, however, has no bearing on Young's application. The absence of jurisdiction under the statute to entertain a suit where the Tribe would be the defendant says nothing about whether the Eleventh Amendment, as construed by this Court, bars a suit (i. e., whether the State is the true defendant) where the Tribe is the plaintiff. The two questions are simply independent of each other. Nor (even assuming that the Young and sovereign immunity rules are convertible into doctrines of equity) does this state of affairs provide any equitable justification for foreclosing the Tribe's suit: a congressionally imposed limitation on federal-question jurisdiction is hardly a fault within the meaning of equity practice, see, e. g., D. Dobbs, Law of Remedies § 2.4(2) (2d ed. 1993), and the Tribe, in any event, bears no responsibility for Congress's decision to enact the statute.
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