Cite as: 527 U. S. 706 (1999)
Opinion of the Court
Even the recent statutes, moreover, do not provide evidence of an understanding that Congress has a greater power to subject States to suit in their own courts than in federal courts. On the contrary, the statutes purport to create causes of actions against the States which are enforceable in federal, as well as state, court. To the extent recent practice thus departs from longstanding tradition, it reflects not so much an understanding that the States have surrendered their immunity from suit in their own courts as the erroneous view, perhaps inspired by Parden and Union Gas, that Congress may subject nonconsenting States to private suits in any forum.
3
The theory and reasoning of our earlier cases suggest the States do retain a constitutional immunity from suit in their own courts. We have often described the States' immunity in sweeping terms, without reference to whether the suit was prosecuted in state or federal court. See, e. g., Briscoe v. Bank of Kentucky, 11 Pet. 257, 321-322 (1837) ("No sovereign state is liable to be sued without her consent"); Board of Liquidation v. McComb, 92 U. S. 531, 541 (1876) ("A State, without its consent, cannot be sued by an individual"); In re Ayers, 123 U. S. 443, 506 (1887) (same); Great Northern Life Ins. Co. v. Read, 322 U. S. 47, 51 (1944) ("The inherent nature of sovereignty prevents actions against a state by its own citizens without its consent").
We have said on many occasions, furthermore, that the States retain their immunity from private suits prosecuted in their own courts. See, e. g., Beers v. Arkansas, 20 How. 527, 529 (1858) ("It is an established principle of jurisprudence in all civilized nations that the sovereign cannot be sued in its own courts, or in any other, without its consent and permission"); Railroad Co. v. Tennessee, 101 U. S. 337, 339 (1880) ("The principle is elementary that a State cannot be sued in its own courts without its consent. This is a privilege of sovereignty"); Cunningham v. Macon & Brunswick
745
Page: Index Previous 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007