Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/561

exempted from any action.^[1] The state does not, by becoming a corporator, identify itself with the corporation. The bank, in such a case, is not the state, although the state holds an interest in it. Nor will it

---

controverted. Is a suit, brought against an individual, for any cause whatever, a suit against a state, in the sense of the constitution?
"The 11th amendment is the limitation of a power supposed to be granted in the original instrument; and to understand accurately the extent of the limitation, it seems proper to define the power that is limited. The words of the constitution, so far as they respect this question, are, 'The judicial power shall extend to controversies between two or more states, between a state and citizens of another state, and between a state and foreign states, citizens, or subjects.' A subsequent clause distributes the power previously granted, and assigns to the Supreme Court original jurisdiction in those cases, in which 'a state shall be a party.' The words of the 11th amendment are, '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 a foreign state.'
"The bank of the United States contends, that in all cases, in which jurisdiction depends on the character of the party, reference is made to the party on the record, not to one, who may be interested, but is not shown by the record to be a party. The appellants admit, that the jurisdiction of the court is not ousted by any incidental or consequential interest, which a state may have in the decision to be made, but is to be considered as a party, where the decision acts directly and immediately upon the state, through its officers.
"If this question were to be determined on the authority of English decisions, it is believed, that no case can be adduced, where any person has been considered as a party, who is not made so in the record. But the court will not review those decisions, because it is thought a question growing out of the constitution of the United States, requires rather an attentive consideration of the words of that instrument, than of the decisions of analogous questions by the courts of any other country.
"Do the provisions, then, of the American constitution, respecting controversies, to which a state may be a party, extend, on a fair construction of that instrument, to cases in which the state is not a party on the record? The first in the enumeration, is a controversy between two or more states. There are not many questions, in which a state would

1. United States Bank v. Planters' Bank of Georgia, 9 Wheat R. 904; Bank of Com'th of Kentucky v. Wister, 3 Peters's Sup. R. 318.

vol. iii.70