Eleventh Amendment to the United States Constitution

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Amendment XI in the National Archives

Amendment XI (the Eleventh Amendment) of the United States Constitution was passed by the U.S. Congress on March 4, 1794 and was ratified on January 8, 1798.

1 Text
2 Summary
3 Proposal and ratification
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Text

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The Judicial powers of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.

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[edit] Summary

The amendment was passed after the ruling of the United States Supreme Court in Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 U.S. 419 (1793), that federal courts had the authority to hear cases in law and equity against states by private citizens, and that states did not enjoy sovereign immunity from suits made by citizens of other states. Thus, the amendment clarified Article III, Section 2 of the original Constitution, which gave diversity jurisdiction to the judiciary to hear cases "between a state and citizens of another state."

Although the amendment's text does not by its own terms include suits brought by a citizen against his own state, the Supreme Court has consistently held (e.g., in Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U.S. 1 (1890)) that a broader principle of state sovereign immunity exists. As the Court stated in Alden v. Maine (1999):

“

[S]overeign immunity derives not from the Eleventh Amendment but from the structure of the original Constitution itself....Nor can we conclude that the specific Article I powers delegated to Congress necessarily include, by virtue of the Necessary and Proper Clause or otherwise, the incidental authority to subject the States to private suits as a means of achieving objectives otherwise within the scope of the enumerated powers.

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The dissenting view, which has never garnered more than four justices' support, is that the states surrendered their sovereign immunity when they ratified the Constitution (and certainly when they ratified the Fourteenth Amendment), and that the Eleventh Amendment should therefore be read narrowly as a constitutional limitation on the diversity jurisdiction of the federal courts.

The Eleventh Amendment confers on non-consenting states immunity from suit for money damages or other equitable relief. Nonetheless, federal courts may enjoin state officials from violating federal law under Ex parte Young (1908). Furthermore, the Supreme Court has held that Congress, under the enforcement provision of the Fourteenth Amendment, may abrogate state immunity from suit. See, e.g., Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer, 427 U.S. 445 (1976). Also, in Central Virginia Community College v. Katz (2006), the Court narrowed the scope of its previous sovereign immunity rulings, and held that the Bankruptcy Clause of Article I abrogated state sovereign immunity.