734
Opinion of the Court
conventions states, or even implies, such an understanding. Although the dissent seizes upon Justice Iredell's statutory analysis in Chisholm in an attempt to attribute this view to Justice Iredell, see post, at 787-789, citing Chisholm, 2 Dall., at 449, Justice Iredell's views on the underlying constitutional question are clear enough from other portions of his dissenting opinion:
"So much, however, has been said on the Constitution, that it may not be improper to intimate that my present opinion is strongly against any construction of it, which will admit, under any circumstances, a compulsive suit against a State for the recovery of money. I think every word in the Constitution may have its full effect without involving this consequence, and that nothing but express words, or an insurmountable implication (neither of which I consider, can be found in this case) would authorize the deduction of so high a power." Id., at 449-450.
Despite the dissent's assertion to the contrary, the fact that a right is not defeasible by statute means only that it is protected by the Constitution, not that it derives from natural law. Whether the dissent's attribution of our reasoning and conclusions to natural law results from analytical confusion or rhetorical device, it is simply inaccurate. We do not contend the Founders could not have stripped the States of sovereign immunity and granted Congress power to subject them to private suit but only that they did not do so. By the same token, the contours of sovereign immunity are determined by the Founders' understanding, not by the principles or limitations derived from natural law.
The dissent has offered no evidence that the Founders believed sovereign immunity extended only to cases where the sovereign was the source of the right asserted. No such limitation existed on sovereign immunity in England, where sovereign immunity was predicated on a different theory al-
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