Why do we need the 11th amendment

First, some argue that the Eleventh Amendment should be applied according to a simple literal reading of its text to bar suits against states by out-of-state citizens, and foreign citizens or subjects but only by these parties , even if their claim is based on federal law. The accompanying commentaries present further scholarly views. While the states continue to enjoy broad sovereign immunity from suit, the Supreme Court does allow suits against state officers in certain circumstances, thus mitigating the effect of sovereign immunity.

In particular, the Court does not read the Amendment to bar suits against state officers that seek court orders to prevent future violations of federal law. Moreover, suits by other states, and suits by the United States to enforce federal laws, are also permitted. The Eleventh Amendment is thus an important part, but only a part, of a web of constitutional doctrines that shape the nature of judicial remedies against states and their officials for alleged violations of law.

The Eleventh Amendment arose out of a dispute that began during the ratification debates over the meaning of Article III of the original Constitution. Citizens or Subjects. Based partly on these assurances, the states ratified the Constitution in As written, the Eleventh Amendment appears to prevent federal courts from hearing any suit by an out-of-state or foreign citizen against a state, but does not prevent federal courts from hearing suits by citizens against their own states.

Louisiana by prohibiting a citizen of Louisiana from suing Louisiana in federal court. Both of these readings of the Eleventh Amendment contradict the text. The proponents of both readings seek to justify their preferred departure from the text by pointing out that applying the text as written would draw an arbitrary distinction between in- and out-of-state citizens.

They argue that it makes no sense to bar out-of-state citizens from suing a state, while allowing in-state citizens to do so. While agreeing that this disparity creates a problem, they disagree on the solution. One group would expand Eleventh Amendment immunity, and the other group would narrow it. The apparent anomaly created by the text disappears, however, when one considers the Eleventh Amendment in historical context. Those who ratified the Amendment would not have understood its text to create any disparity between in- and out-of-state citizens because they did not understand the Constitution to authorize any suits against any states by any citizens.

Some background is helpful. Under the Articles of Confederation, Congress could regulate states as opposed to individuals , but had no power to enforce its commands.

At the Constitutional Convention, the Virginia Plan proposed giving Congress power to use military force to coerce states to comply with federal commands. This proposal was widely criticized on the ground that it could lead to a civil war, and was not adopted.

Instead, the Constitution gave Congress power to regulate individuals rather than states , thereby enabling the federal government to enforce its commands against individuals without confronting states. Congress originally charged the Philadelphia Convention with merely amending the Articles of Confederation, but the Convention concluded that it could not save the Articles without authorizing the use of force against states and thereby risking a civil war.

Thus, when the Convention proposed an entirely new Constitution, one of the first questions asked by skeptics was why the Articles could not simply be amended. Prominent Federalists explained that the new Constitution regulating individuals rather than states was necessary to avoid authorizing coercive force against states.

The Federalist No. Many found these arguments persuasive until Anti-Federalists pointed out that Article III of the proposed Constitution could be read to authorize suits against states in federal court. They argued that if Article III authorized such suits, then Congress would have power under the Necessary and Proper Clause to enforce any resulting judgment against a state through force if necessary.

They argued that the relevant provisions of Article III should be read only to permit suits by states. Based in part on these assurances, the Constitution was adopted. The text of the Eleventh Amendment reflects this shared goal. The Amendment did not purport to change the Constitution; rather, it sought to restore the preferred construction of Article III judicial power.

The Amendment did not attempt to explain any other portions of Article III because the state-citizen diversity provisions of Article III were the only provisions that anyone ever suggested could be construed to permit individuals to sue states. This was important because the author of the Amendment Senator Strong of Massachusetts undoubtedly meant it to bar the pending case of Vassall v.

The Court allowed a suit for injunctive relief against a state official reasoning that if a state official violated the Constitution he can't be acting on behalf of a state, which can only act constitutionally. Thus, state officials--but not states--might be sued when the violate the Constitution, even when they do so in the name of the state. Ex Parte Young was in turn limited by the Court in Edelman v Jordan , holding that the Eleventh Amendment also bars suits against state officials for restitution or damages that will in fact be paid out of the state treasury.

In Seminole Tribe of Florida v Florida , the Court indicated for the first time that Congress is without power under the Commerce Clause or Indian Commerce Clause to abrogate a state's sovereign immunity. In so doing, the Court overruled an earlier Pennsylvania v Union Gas , decision that found such authority to exist.

According to the Court, only under the Fourteenth Amendment does the Congress have the power to abrogate state sovereign immunity. In dissent, Justice Stevens warned of the far-reaching consequences of the Court's decision, which he called "a shocking affront to a co-equal branch of government. By definition, the crown was the law. It was simply non-nonsensical for it to be brought to court under allegations that it violated the law.

Georgia made the argument, therefore, that an individual citizen could not sue Georgia in federal court. However, the Supreme Court, in Chisholm v. Georgia rejected the idea that sovereign immunity extended to the individual states. Instead it ruled that Article III, the provision of the Constitution establishing the federal courts, essentially acted as a blanket waiver of state sovereign immunity. Meaning, by ratifying the Constitution, the states had actually given up whatever immunity they may have enjoyed previously.

Chisholm v. Georgia Georgia was the 11th Amendment. With the knowledge that the Constitution not only did not protect state sovereign immunity — but actually nullified it — the country quickly ratified this first post-Bill of Rights addition to the Constitution. Individual states could no longer be defendants in federal court in cases prosecuted by citizens from other states.

Exceptions to the 11th Amendment: Waiver, Agency, and Congressional Abrogation Important Cases The 11th Amendment, however, has never truly enjoyed the kind of sweeping effect it was, perhaps, meant to enjoy. In fact, today, states are regularly sued in federal court for a number of reasons. First, states can consent to be sued or waive their sovereign immunity.

In Lapides v. Board of Regents of University System of Georgia , the Georgia public university system was brought to state court. But it voluntarily sought to remove the case to federal court.

Therefore, it waived whatever immunity the 11th Amendment may have otherwise granted it. Ex parte Young Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida Alden v. Maine Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama v.