722
Opinion of the Court
(condemning the prevailing conception of sovereignty); id., at 468 (Cushing, J.) ("If the Constitution is found inconvenient in practice in this or any other particular, it is well that a regular mode is pointed out for amendment"); id., at 478- 479 (Jay, C. J.) ("[T]here is reason to hope that the people of [Georgia] will yet perceive that [sovereign immunity] would not have been consistent with [republican] equality"); cf. id., at 419-420 (attorney for Chisholm) ("I did not want the remonstrance of Georgia, to satisfy me, that the motion, which I have made is unpopular. Before that remonstrance was read, I had learnt from the acts of another State, whose will must be always dear to me, that she too condemned it"). Finally, two Members of the majority acknowledged that the United States might well remain immune from suit despite Article III's grant of jurisdiction over "Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party," see id., at 469 (Cushing, J.); id., at 478 (Jay, C. J.), and, invoking the example of actions to collect debts incurred before the Constitution was adopted, one raised the possibility of "exceptions," suggesting the rule of the case might not "extend to all the demands, and to every kind of action," id., at 479 (Jay, C. J.). These concessions undercut the crucial premise that either the Constitution's literal text or the principle of popular sovereignty necessarily overrode widespread practice and opinion.
The text and history of the Eleventh Amendment also suggest that Congress acted not to change but to restore the original constitutional design. Although earlier drafts of the Amendment had been phrased as express limits on the judicial power granted in Article III, see, e. g., 3 Annals of Congress 651-652 (1793) ("The Judicial Power of the United States shall not extend to any suits in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States . . ."), the adopted text addressed the proper interpretation of that provision of the original Constitution, see U. S. Const., Amdt. 11 ("The Judicial power of the United States shall not
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