Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/19-1039_8n5a.pdf
Page Number: 39

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

7 

BARRETT, J., dissenting 

structural inference, much less any remotely relevant text. 
Supra, at 3–4.  History is the only place left to look for evi-
dence that States consented to private condemnation suits 
in the plan of the Convention.  See, e.g., Katz, 546 U. S., at 
362–363.  None  exists—which  means  that  the  Court  falls 
far short of mustering the “compelling evidence” necessary
to show that a surrender of immunity to private condemna-
tion  suits  was  “inherent  in  the  constitutional  compact.” 
Blatchford, 501 U. S., at 781. 

C 
The Court rejects this conclusion on the ground that state
immunity  from  private  condemnation  suits  would  render 
the federal eminent domain power incomplete.  Ante, at 16– 
18 (stating that the power must be “ ‘complete in itself ’ ”).
The Court is wrong.

To  begin  with,  sovereign  immunity  would  not  permit
States to obstruct construction of a federally approved pipe-
line.  No one disputes that in our constitutional structure, 
the  Federal  Government  is  supreme  within  its  realm.
Art. VI, cl. 2.  At the same time—and this is the proposition 
that the Court resists—the Constitution limits the means 
by which the Federal Government can impose its will on the
States.  Thus, while the Tenth Amendment imposes no bar 
on the federal taking of state land, Guy F. Atkinson Co., 313 
U. S.,  at  534,  the  Eleventh  Amendment  imposes  a  bar  on 
Congress’ ability to accomplish that taking through a pri-
vate condemnation suit like this one.  That does not leave 
the Federal Government without options.  In fact, there is 
an obvious option that the Court barely acknowledges: The 
United States can take state land itself.  See ibid. 

A  direct  taking,  however,  is  not  enough  for  the  Court,
which—continuing to cast eminent domain as a stand-alone
power—claims that allowing a State to assert an immunity
defense in a private condemnation suit would “diminish the
eminent domain authority of the federal sovereign.”  Ante,