Opinion of the Court
other because “nothing in the Constitution or formation of the Union altered that balance among the still-sovereign states.” Brief for Respondent 14. Like the majority in Hall, he relies primarily on our early foreign immunity decisions. For instance, he cites Schooner Exchange v. McFaddon, in which the Court dismissed a libel action against a French warship docked in Philadelphia because, under the law of nations, a sovereign’s warships entering the ports of a friendly nation are exempt from the jurisdiction of its courts. 7 Cranch, at 145–146. But whether the host nation respects that sovereign immunity, Chief Justice Marshall noted, is for the host nation to decide, for “[t]he jurisdiction of [a] nation within its own territory is necessarily exclusive and absolute” and “is susceptible of no limitation not imposed by itself.” Id., at 136. Similar reasoning is found in The Santissima Trinidad, 7 Wheat. 283, 353 (1822), where Justice Story noted that the host nation’s consent to provide immunity “may be withdrawn upon notice at any time, without just offence.”
The problem with Hyatt’s argument is that the Constitution affirmatively altered the relationships between the States, so that they no longer relate to each other solely as foreign sovereigns. Each State’s equal dignity and sovereignty under the Constitution implies certain constitutional “limitation[s] on the sovereignty of all of its sister States.” World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson, 444 U. S. 286, 293 (1980). One such limitation is the inability of one State to hale another into its courts without the latter’s consent. The Constitution does not merely allow States to afford each other immunity as a matter of comity; it embeds interstate sovereign immunity within the constitutional design. Numerous provisions reflect this reality.
To begin, Article I divests the States of the traditional diplomatic and military tools that foreign sovereigns possess. Specifically, the States can no longer prevent or
