Cite as: 526 U. S. 687 (1999)
Opinion of Scalia, J.
vant statute of limitations. Since no federal limitations period was provided, the Court had to apply 42 U. S. C. § 1988(a), which stated that, in the event a federal civil rights statute is "deficient in the provisions necessary to furnish suitable remedies and punish offenses against law, the common law, as modified and changed by the constitution and statutes of the State wherein the court having jurisdiction of such civil or criminal cause is held, so far as the same is not inconsistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States, shall be extended to and govern the [federal] courts in the trial and disposition of the cause . . . ." In applying this provision, the Court identified as one of the steps necessary for its analysis resolution of precisely the question I have been discussing here: "[W]e must . . . decide whether all § 1983 claims should be characterized in the same way, or whether they should be evaluated differently depending upon the varying factual circumstances and legal theories presented in each individual case." 471 U. S., at 268. The Court concluded (as I do here) that all § 1983 claims should be characterized in the same way. It said (as I have) that § 1983 was "a uniquely federal remedy," and that it is "the purest coincidence . . . when state statutes or the common law provide for equivalent remedies; any analogies to those causes of action are bound to be imperfect." Id., at 271-272 (citations, footnotes, and internal quotation marks omitted). And the Court was affected (as I am here) by the practical difficulties of the other course, which it described as follows:
"Almost every § 1983 claim can be favorably analogized to more than one of the ancient common-law forms of action, each of which may be governed by a different statute of limitations. . . .
"A catalog of . . . constitutional claims that have been alleged under § 1983 would encompass numerous and diverse topics and subtopics: discrimination in public employment on the basis of race or the exercise of First Amendment rights, discharge or demotion without pro-
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