Cite as: 527 U. S. 706 (1999)
Opinion of the Court
than established, sovereign immunity as a constitutional principle; it follows that the scope of the States' immunity from suit is demarcated not by the text of the Amendment alone but by fundamental postulates implicit in the constitutional design. As we explained in Principality of Monaco:
"Manifestly, we cannot rest with a mere literal application of the words of § 2 of Article III, or assume that the letter of the Eleventh Amendment exhausts the restrictions upon suits against non-consenting States. Behind the words of the constitutional provisions are postulates which limit and control. There is the essential postulate that the controversies, as contemplated, shall be found to be of a justiciable character. There is also the postulate that States of the Union, still possessing attributes of sovereignty, shall be immune from suits, without their consent, save where there has been 'a surrender of this immunity in the plan of the convention.' " 292 U. S., at 322-323 (quoting The Federalist No. 81 (footnote omitted).
Or, as we have more recently reaffirmed:
"Although the text of the Amendment would appear to restrict only the Article III diversity jurisdiction of the federal courts, 'we have understood the Eleventh Amendment to stand not so much for what it says, but for the presupposition . . . which it confirms.' Blatch-ford v. Native Village of Noatak, 501 U. S. 775, 779 (1991). That presupposition, first observed over a century ago in Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U. S. 1 (1890), has two parts: first, that each State is a sovereign entity in our federal system; and second, that ' "[i]t is inherent in the nature of sovereignty not to be amenable to the suit of an individual without its consent," ' id., at 13 (emphasis deleted), quoting The Federalist No. 81, p. 487 . . . ." Seminole Tribe, supra, at 54.
729
Page: Index Previous 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007