Eleventh Amendment to the United States Constitution

Other recent cases (Torres v. Texas Department of Public Safety, Central Virginia Community College v. Katz, PennEast Pipeline Co. v. New Jersey) have identified further exceptions to the general sovereign immunity of states when Congress acts pursuant to its Article I powers, which have alternatively been referred to as "waivers in the plan of the Convention".

"[2] The Eleventh Amendment was proposed by the 3rd Congress on March 4, 1794, when it was approved by the House of Representatives by vote of 81–9,[3] having been previously passed by the Senate, 23–2, on January 14, 1794.

[8] Almost exactly three years after its ratification, the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Hollingsworth v. Virginia, 3 U.S. 378 (1798) resulted in every pending action brought under Chisholm being dismissed due to the amendment's adoption.

As Justice Anthony Kennedy later stated in Alden v. Maine, 527 U.S. 706 (1999): [S]overeign immunity derives not from the Eleventh Amendment but from the structure of the original Constitution itself. ...

Nor can we conclude that the specific Article I powers delegated to Congress necessarily include, by virtue of the Necessary and Proper Clause or otherwise, the incidental authority to subject the States to private suits as a means of achieving objectives otherwise within the scope of the enumerated powers.However, Justice David Souter, writing for a four-Justice dissent in Alden, said the states surrendered their sovereign immunity when they ratified the Constitution.

He read the amendment's text as reflecting a narrow form of sovereign immunity that limited only the diversity jurisdiction of the federal courts.

The amendment's applicability to unincorporated U.S. territories, where constitutional rights do not fully apply, remained unclear for nearly two centuries after its ratification.