The Eleventh Amendment

"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."

Upon initially reading it, it sounds a little convoluted. In fact, even the Constitution Center mentions three ways of approaching it, so I will link to that but not get into that:

http://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/amendments/amendment-xi

What I find interesting about it is that it gets back to that question of whether the Federal Government is going to the the tyrant over-regulating the lives of citizens, or will it be the protector of individual citizens when the States will not?

One of the key inspirations for the the 11th Amendment was Chisholm v. Georgia, where the estate of one citizen in South Carolina was suing the state of Georgia for supplies that had not been paid for. Georgia declined to appear, arguing that as a sovereign state they could not be sued without permitting it.

Although one can clearly see that this line of reasoning leaves a clear path to abuse - including non-payment of debts - by the states,  and Chisholm was initially victorious, the 11th Amendment was then ratified to remove federal jurisdiction in such cases, causing the dismissal of several pending cases.

Different things can still happen when suits against states are necessary. The State can grant permission or Congress can abrogate the immunity, but imagining a state choosing to be sued when it was not required, or getting Congress to act together, may stretch the imagination.

Fortunately, complaints against states are more likely to come from residents of the states, which is a different issue entirely, but it may be helpful to remember the larger issue of States rights versus Federal rights as we get closer to the amendments dealing with the abolition of slavery.