Opinion of the Court
with unusual vehemence. I hope no gentleman will think that a state will be called at the bar of the federal court…. The intent is, to enable states to recover claims of individuals residing in other states. I contend this construction is warranted by the words.” Id., at 555 (emphasis in original).
Not long after the founding, however, the Antifederalists’ fears were realized. In Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 Dall. 419 (1793), the Court held that Article III allowed the very suits that the “Madison–Marshall–Hamilton triumvirate” insisted it did not. Hall, 440 U. S., at 437 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting). That decision precipitated an immediate “furor” and “uproar” across the country. 1 J. Goebel, Antecedents and Beginnings to 1801, History of the Supreme Court of the United States 734, 737 (1971); see id., at 734–741. Congress and the States accordingly acted swiftly to remedy the Court’s blunder by drafting and ratifying the Eleventh Amendment.[1] See Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U. S. 651, 660–662 (1974); see also Federal Maritime Comm’n, supra, at 753 (acknowledging that Chisholm was incorrect); Alden, supra, at 721–722 (same).
The Eleventh Amendment confirmed that the Constitution was not meant to “rais[e] up” any suits against the States that were “anomalous and unheard of when the Constitution was adopted.” Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U. S. 1, 18 (1890). Although the terms of that Amendment address only “the specific provisions of the Constitution that had raised concerns during the ratification debates and formed the basis of the Chisholm decision,” the “natural inference” from its speedy adoption is that “the Consti-
- ↑ The Eleventh Amendment provides: “The Judicial power 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.”
