Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/19-1039_8n5a.pdf
Page Number: 20.0

Cite as:  594 U. S. ____ (2021) 

15 

Opinion of the Court 

ject States to suit pursuant to its commerce power, it is un-
doubtedly true under our precedents that—with the excep-
tion of the Bankruptcy Clause, see Katz, 546 U. S., at 379— 
“Article I cannot justify haling a State into federal court,” 
Allen, 589 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 7).  In Seminole Tribe of 
Fla. v. Florida, 517 U. S. 44 (1996), we held that state sov-
ereign immunity “restricts the judicial power under Article 
III, and Article I cannot be used to circumvent the constitu-
tional limitations placed upon federal jurisdiction.”  Id., at 
72–73.  Seminole Tribe concluded that States’ inherent im-
munity from suit would be “eviscerated” if Congress were 
allowed to abrogate States’ immunity pursuant to its Arti-
cle I powers.  Id., at 64. 

But  congressional  abrogation  is  not  the  only  means  of
subjecting States to suit.  As noted above, States can also 
be sued if they have consented to suit in the plan of the Con-
vention.  And where the States “agreed in the plan of the 
Convention not to assert any sovereign immunity defense,” 
“no congressional abrogation [is] needed.”  Allen, 589 U. S., 
at ___ (slip op., at 8). 

As the cases discussed in Part III show, the States con-
sented in the plan of the Convention to the exercise of fed-
eral eminent domain power, including in condemnation pro-
ceedings  brought  by  private  delegatees.  The  plan  of  the
Convention reflects the “fundamental postulates implicit in 
the constitutional design.”  Alden, 527 U. S., at 729.  And 
we have said regarding the exercise of federal eminent do-
main within the States that one “postulate of the Constitu-
tion  [is]  that  the  government  of  the  United  States  is  in-
vested  with  full and  complete  power  to  execute  and  carry
out its purposes.”  Cherokee Nation, 135 U. S., at 656 (quot-
ing Stockton, 32 F., at 19).

Put  another  way,  when  the  States  entered  the  federal 
system, they renounced their right to the “highest dominion
in the lands comprised within their limits.”   135 U. S., at