never became law.[1] In Congress, a resolution for an
Amendment to the Constitution to counteract the
effect of the case had been introduced into the House,
February 19, 1793, the day after the decision, as follows :
"that no State shall be liable to be made a party
defendant in any of the Judicial Courts established or to
be established under the authority of the United States,
at the suit of any person or persons, citizens or foreign-
ers, or of any body politic or corporate whether within or
without the United States." On February 25, the Sen-
ate tabled another resolution, which was re-introduced
January 2, 1794, and which finally became the Eleventh
Amendment that : " The Judicial power of the United
States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law
or equity, conunenced or prosecuted against one of the
United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citi-
zens or Subjects of any Foreign State." Though this
Amendment was agreed to by the Senate, January 14,
1794, by a vote of 23 to 2, and on March 4 by the House
by a vote of 81 to 9, it was not until January 8, 1798,
nearly four years later, that the necessary niunber of
States ratified it. New Jersey and Pennsylvania refused to
ratify and South Carolina and Tennessee failed to take
any action.[2] As soon as ratification took place, however,
- ↑ State Documents on Federal Relaiions (1011), by Hennan V. Ames.
- ↑ It is curious to note the extremely informal and careless manner in which the ratification was promulgated, as described by Allen C. Braxton in Virginia Bar Ate, Rep. (1907), XX: "On January 8, 1798, President Adams transmitted to Congress a report of the Secretary of State containing a certified copy of the ratification by Kentucky of what the President described as ' the Amendment of the Constitution of the United States proposed by Congress in their resolution of the 2nd day of December, 1798, relative to the suability of the States.* The President then added, by the way, that 'this Amendment, having been adopted by three fourths of the several States may now be declared to be a part of the Constitution of the United States/ As a matter of fact, there was no such resolution as the President referred to, but the resolution proposing the Amendment was of Janu- aiy 2, 1794, instead of December 2, 1798. In addition to this, neither the President nor the Secretaiy of State ever did report what States constituted the three fourths which he said had ratified it. On the contrary, the records of the office of Secre- tary of State show only six States as having ratified the Eleventh Amendment.
