Cite as: 523 U. S. 491 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
questions whether the Brother Jonathan is subject to the ASA and whether the ASA pre-empts § 6313. 520 U. S. 1263 (1997).
II
The judicial power of federal courts extends "to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction." Art. III, § 2, cl. 1. The federal courts have had a unique role in admiralty cases since the birth of this Nation, because "[m]aritime commerce was . . . the jugular vein of the Thirteen States." F. Frankfurter & J. Landis, The Business of the Supreme Court 7 (1927). Accordingly, "[t]he need for a body of law applicable throughout the nation was recognized by every shade of opinion in the Constitutional Convention." Ibid. The constitutional provision was incorporated into the first Judiciary Act in 1789, and federal courts have retained "admiralty or maritime jurisdiction" since then. See 28 U. S. C. § 1333(1). That jurisdiction encompasses "maritime causes of action begun and carried on as proceedings in rem, that is, where a vessel or thing is itself treated as the offender and made the defendant by name or description in order to enforce a lien." Madruga v. Superior Court of Cal., County of San Diego, 346 U. S. 556, 560 (1954).
The jurisdiction of the federal courts is constrained, however, by the Eleventh Amendment, under which "[t]he 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." Although the Amendment, by its terms, "would appear to restrict only the Article III diversity jurisdiction of the federal courts," Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida, 517 U. S. 44, 54 (1996), the Court has interpreted the Amendment more broadly. See, e. g., Blatchford v. Native Village of Noatak, 501 U. S. 775, 779 (1991). According to this Court's precedents, a State may not be sued in federal court by one of its own citizens,
501
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