11th amendment puzzle.

Hi folks.
"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."

For me to understand it properly so I can explain it to others, I need to know details cause I was told by someone that it was meant only for disallowing Citizens to sue one of the United States........
Is it the comma after "equity," which separates the sentence telling us that the courts have no business at all?
I have a feeling that the comma didn't have to be there if the 11th was meant to be just for what it says about the "the United States not to be sued by Citizen......."

Also "one of the United States", does it mean that we have more than 1 United States (US listed as federal corporation) like US and USA or are they just referring to any state in this union?

The 11th is for me a kind of issue so please help me someone to clarify it. Thanks to all.

Thanks for bringing that discussion here. I have heard about this and some suitors discuss it on the brain trust now and again.

Dumander, I would tend to agree with your take that the comma after "equity" is significant, for grammatical reasons of which the framers would have been well aware. The framers could have chosen a different construction of the sentence altogether if they did not intend to say that the judicial powers of U.S. shall not be construed to any suit in law or equity, period. The judicial power at the federal level was only vaguely defined in the Constitution at any rate. The framers perhaps envisioned most litigation being confined to the local and/or state level. The states being foreign nations with respect to each other, it makes sense to me that the judicial power of the U.S would be properly confined to an admiralty jurisdiction. This would be a limitation on judicial power favored by opponents of a strong judiciary, i.e. anti-Federalists.

The First Judiciary Act would seem to contradict such an interpretation, as it provided for suits in law and equity. However, it is always possible for laws that are passed by Congress to be unconstitutional. The Act passed in the Senate by a vote of 14 to 6. The Act was opposed strongly by Senator William Maclay as a "vile law system, calculated for expense and with a design to draw by degrees all law business into the Federal Courts."

Nowadays, all Federal Courts operate in admiralty anyway, so it would appear to be of historical interest only IMHO.

This case from before the War of Rebellion might shed some light.


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Originally Posted by Dumander

Hi folks.
"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."

For me to understand it properly so I can explain it to others, I need to know details cause I was told by someone that it was meant only for disallowing Citizens to sue one of the United States........
Is it the comma after "equity," which separates the sentence telling us that the courts have no business at all?
I have a feeling that the comma didn't have to be there if the 11th was meant to be just for what it says about the "the United States not to be sued by Citizen......."

Also "one of the United States", does it mean that we have more than 1 United States (US listed as federal corporation) like US and USA or are they just referring to any state in this union?

The 11th is for me a kind of issue so please help me someone to clarify it. Thanks to all.

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Rod Class and "the Informer" talk about this. The former does so quite a bit .....