Cite as: 535 U. S. 635 (2002)
Souter, J., concurring
the Eleventh Amendment); McKesson Corp. v. Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco, Fla. Dept. of Business Regulation, 496 U. S. 18, 31 (1990) ("The Eleventh Amendment does not constrain the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court over cases arising from state courts") (unanimous Court); cf. U. S. Const., Art. VI ("This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States . . . shall be the supreme Law of the Land").9 Whether an issue comes from a state-agency or a state-court decision, the federal court is reviewing the State's determination of a question of federal law, and it is neither prudent nor natural to see such review as impugning the dignity of the State or implicating the States' sovereign immunity in the federal system.
9 A possible ground for distinction is that the Supreme Court reviews state-court decisions while a federal district court initially reviews state-commission decisions under the Act. The argument would be that the Constitution requires any controversy in which a State's dignitary interests are implicated to be decided by this Court, and no other federal court, as a sign of respect for the State's sovereignty. See Farquhar v. Georgia (C. C. D. Ga. 1791) (Iredell, J.), reprinted in 5 Documentary History of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1789-1800, pp. 148-154 (M. Marcus ed. 1994) ("It may also fairly be presumed that the several States thought it important to stipulate that so awful [and] important a Trial [to which a State is party] should not be cognizable by any Court but the Supreme"). But this position has long been rejected and is inconsistent with the doctrine of congressional abrogation, which presumes that States may be sued in federal district court in the first instance when Congress properly so provides, see Seminole Tribe, 517 U. S., at 55.
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