780
Souter, J., dissenting
ing the same, that it be especially expressed, as a part of the Constitution of the United States, that Congress shall not, directly or indirectly, either by themselves or through the judiciary, interfere with any one of the states . . . in liquidating and discharging the public securities of any one state." Id., at 336.
Even more clearly than New York's proposal, this amendment appears to have been intended to clarify Article III as reflecting some theory of sovereign immunity, though without indicating which one.
Unlike the Rhode Island proposal, which hinted at a clarification of Article III, the Virginia and North Carolina ratifying conventions proposed amendments that by their terms would have fundamentally altered the content of Article III. The Virginia Convention's proposal for a new Article III omitted entirely the language conferring federal jurisdiction over a controversy between a State and citizens of another State, see 3 id., at 660-661, and the North Carolina Convention proposed an identical amendment, see 4 id., at 246-247. These proposals for omission suggest that the conventions of Virginia and North Carolina thought they had subjected themselves to citizen suits under Article III as enacted, and that they wished not to have done so.20 There is, thus, no suggestion in their resolutions that Article III as drafted was fundamentally at odds with an indefeasible natural law sovereignty, or with a conception that went to the essence of what it meant to be a State. At all events, the state ratifying conventions' felt need for clarification on the question of
20 The Court says "there is no evidence that [the proposed amendments] were directed toward the question of sovereign immunity or that they reflect an understanding that the States would be subject to private suits without consent under Article III as drafted." Ante, at 725. No evidence, that is, except the proposed amendments themselves, which would have omitted the Citizen-State Diversity Clause. If the proposed omission is not evidence going to sovereign immunity to private suits, one wonders what would satisfy the Court.
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