688
Opinion of the Court
(but only in outline form, thankfully) the now-fashionable revisionist accounts of the Eleventh Amendment set forth in other opinions in a degree of repetitive detail that has despoiled our northern woods. Compare post, at 700-701, with Atascadero, supra, at 258-302 (Brennan, J., dissenting); Welch, supra, at 504-516 (Brennan, J., dissenting); Seminole Tribe, 517 U. S., at 76-99 (Stevens, J., dissenting); id., at 100-185 (Souter, J., dissenting). But see Alden v. Maine, post, at 760-808 (Souter, J., dissenting). The arguments recited in these sources have been soundly refuted, and the position for which they have been marshaled has been rejected by constitutional tradition and precedent as clear and conclusive, and almost as venerable, as that which consigns debate over whether Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137 (1803), was wrongly decided to forums more otherworldly than ours. See Union Gas, 491 U. S., at 33-34, 35-42 (Scalia, J., dissenting); Seminole Tribe, supra, at 54-73; Alden, post, at 712-730. On this score, we think nothing further need be said except two minor observations peculiar to this case.
claim under the Contracts Clause of the Constitution itself, which one would think to have greater, rather than lesser, abrogative force than a substantive statute enacted pursuant to the Commerce Clause. Justice Breyer would apparently interpose that the statute in Hans did not expressly " 'purpor[t] to pierce state immunity,' " post, at 700, quoting Seminole Tribe, 517 U. S., at 119 (Souter, J., dissenting)—but the opinion in Hans did not allude to that refinement, nor did Parden think it made any difference. The so-called "clear statement rule" was not even adumbrated until nine years after Parden, in Employees, 411 U. S., at 284-285. It is difficult to square Justice Breyer's reliance upon the distinction that the present case involves a federal question (and is therefore not explicitly covered by the Eleventh Amendment), see post, at 700-701, with its professed fidelity to Hans, the whole point of which was that the sovereign immunity reflected in (rather than created by) the Eleventh Amendment transcends the narrow text of the Amendment itself. Or to put it differently, the "pre-Seminole Tribe sovereign immunity decisions" to which Justice Breyer pledges allegiance appear to include Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 Dall. 419 (1793). But see U. S. Const., Amdt. 11.
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