462 



LAW, CONSTITUTIONAL. 



were it not for the exceeding importance and 

 interest of the case, the great ability with 

 which it has been argued, and the difference 

 of opinion that has been manifested as to the 

 extent and application of the precedents." Jus- 

 tice Gray then proceeded to cite and apply nu- 

 merous English and American decisions in sup- 

 port of the views of the minority of the court. 

 SUITS AGAINST A STATE. On March 5, 1883, 

 the Court rendered an important opinion, 

 holding that one State can not be sued in the 

 Federal courts by another State acting as the 

 assignee of one of its citizens. The question 

 was raised in two similar suits brought by New 

 York and New Hampshire against Louisiana. 

 The essential facts were substantially the same 

 in both cases. It appeared that each of the 

 plaintiff States had passed a law providing that 

 any of its citizens holding bonds or other obli- 

 gations of another State might transfer them 

 to his own State, and have it bring suit against 

 the defendant State. Under these laws alleged 

 " repudiated " bonds of Louisiana were assigned 

 to New York and New Hampshire by citizens 

 of those States respectively, and suits were ac- 

 cordingly brought. The Constitution express- 

 ly authorizes suits to be brought by, one State 

 against another in the Federal courts. But the 

 eleventh amendment declares that " the judi- 

 cial 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." 

 In an elaborate opinion on the question raised, 

 Chief-Justice Waite expressed in substance the 

 following views : 



Under the operation of this amendment the actual 

 owners of bonds and coupons held by New Hamp- 

 shire and New York are precluded from prosecuting 

 these suits in their own names. The real question, 

 therefore, is whether they can sue in the name of their 

 respective States after getting the consent of the State, 

 or, to put it in another way, whether a State can allow 

 the use of its name in such a suit for the benefit of 

 one of its citizens. The language of the amendment 

 is in eft'ect that the judicial power of the United States 

 shall not extend to any suit commenced or prosecuted 

 by citizens of one State against another State. No one 

 can look at the pleadings and testimony in these cases 

 without being satisfied beyond all doubt that they 

 were in legal eifect commenced, and are now prose- 

 cuted solely by the owners of the bonds and coupons. 

 The State and the Attorney-General are only nominal 

 actors in the proceeding. The bond-owner, whoever 

 he may be, is the promoter and manager of the suit. 

 He pays the expenses, is the only one authorized to 

 conclude a compromise, and if any money is ever col- 

 lected it must be paid to him without even passing 

 through the form of getting into the Treasury of the 

 State. The State is nothing more nor less than a mere 

 collecting agent of the owners of the bonds and cou- 

 pons, and, while the suits are in the names of the 

 States, they are under the control of individual citi- 

 zens, and are prosecuted and carried on altogether by 

 and for them. 



It is contended, however, that notwithstanding the 

 prohibition of the amendment the States may prose- 

 cute the suits, because as the " sovereign and trustee 

 of its citizen*" a State is " clothed with the right and 

 faculty of making an imperative demand upon another 

 independent State for the payment of debts which it 



owes to the citizens of the former." There is no 

 doubt but one nation may, if it see fit, demand of 

 another nation the payment of a debt owing by the 

 latter to a citizen of the former ; but the States are not 

 nations either as between themselves or toward for- 

 eign nations. They are sovereign within their spheres, 

 but their sovereignty stops short of nationality. Their 

 political status at home and abroad is that of States in 

 the United States. But it is said that even if a State, 

 as sovereign trustee for its citizens, did surrender to 

 the national Government its power of prosecuting the 

 claims of its citizens against another State by force, it 

 got in lieu the constitutional right of suit in the na- 

 tional courts. There is no principle of international 

 law which makes it the duty of one nation to assume 

 the collection of the claims of its citizens against an- 

 other nation, if the citizens themselves have ample 

 means of redress without the intervention of their 

 government. Under the Constitution, as it was origi- 

 nally construed, a citizen of one State could sue an- 

 other State in the courts of the United States for him- 

 self and obtain the same relief that his State could get 

 for him if it should sue. Certainly, when he can sue 

 for himself, there is no necessity for power in his State 

 to sue in his behalf, and we can not believe it was in- 

 tended by the framers of the Constitution to allow 

 both remedies in such a case. Therefore, the special 

 remedies granted to the citizen himself must be deemed 

 to have been the only remedy the citizen of one State 

 could have under the Constitution against another 

 State, for the redress of his grievances, except such as 

 the delinquent State saw fit itself to grant. In other 

 words, the giving of the direct remedy to the citizen 

 himself was equivalent to taking away any indirect 

 remedy he might otherwise have claimed through the 

 intervention of his State upon any principle of the law 

 of nations. It follows that, when the amendment took 

 away the special remedy, there was no other left. 

 Nothing was added to the Constitution by what was 

 thus done. No power taken away by the grant of 

 the special remedy was restored by the amendment. 

 The effect of the amendment was simply to revoke the 

 new right that had been given, and leave the limita- 

 tions to stand as they were. The evident purpose of 

 the amendment was to prohibit all suits against a State 

 by or for citizens of other States or aliens, without the 

 consent of the State to be sued ; and in our opinion 

 one State can not create a controversy with another 

 State, within the meaning of that term as used in the 

 judicial clauses of the Constitution, by assuming the 

 prosecution of debts- owing hy the other States to its 

 citizens. Such being the case, we are satisfied that 

 we are prohibited both by the letter and the spirit of 

 the Constitution from entertaining these suits, and the 

 bill in each of them is consequently dismissed. 



A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT PROPOSED. 



On January 19, 1883, William E. Moore, 



of Tennessee, introduced into the House of 

 Eepresentatives the following joint resolu- 

 tion, proposing a sixteenth amendment to the 

 Constitution of the United States : 



Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives 

 (two thirds of each House concurring therein), That 

 the following amendment to the Constitution be and 

 is hereby proposed to the States, to become valid 

 when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of 

 the several States, as provided in the Constitution : 

 ARTICLE XVI. 



SECTION 1. That Article XI of the present Consti- 

 tution be and the same is hereby rescinded. 



SEO. 2. That Congress shall have power to provide, 

 by appropriate legislation, for the legal enforcement 

 of the obligation of contracts entered into by any ot 

 the States of this Union. 



The repeal of the eleventh amendment would 

 enable any citizen of one State to sue another 

 State in the Federal courts. The alleged pur- 



