Amendment XI

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.

The Eleventh Amendment was proposed by Congress on 4 Mar. 1794, when it passed the House, having previously passed the Senate on 14 Jan. (Annals 4:30--31, 477--78). It appears officially in 1 Stat. 402. Ratification was completed on 7 Feb. 1795, when the twelfth State (North Carolina) approved the amendment, there being then fifteen States in the Union. Official announcement of ratification was not made until 8 Jan. 1798, when President John Adams in a message to Congress stated that the 11th Amendment had been adopted by three-fourths of the States and that it "may now be deemed to be a part of the Constitution" (Richardson 1:260). In the interim South Carolina had ratified, and Tennessee had been admitted into the Union as the sixteenth State.

The several State legislatures ratified the Eleventh Amendment on the following dates: New York, 27 Mar. 1794; Rhode Island, 31 Mar. 1794; Connecticut, 8 May 1794; New Hampshire, 16 June 1794; Massachusetts, 26 June 1794; Vermont, between 9 Oct. and 9 Nov. 1794; Virginia, 18 Nov. 1794; Georgia, 29 Nov. 1794; Kentucky, 7 Dec. 1794; Maryland, 26 Dec. 1794; Delaware, 23 Jan. 1795; North Carolina, 7 Feb. 1795; South Carolina, 4 Dec. 1797.