Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-603_o758.pdf
Page Number: 9

Cite as:  597 U. S. ____ (2022) 

5 

Opinion of the Court 

Union, to which a similar authority in the States would be
absolutely  and  totally  contradictory  and  repugnant.”    The 
Federalist No. 32, p. 200 (J. Cooke ed. 1961) (emphasis in 
original); see id., No. 81, at 548–549 (A. Hamilton). 

Consistent  with  these  principles,  this  Court  has  found
structural waiver as to suits between States, in South Da-
kota v. North Carolina, 192 U. S. 286 (1904), and suits by 
the United States against a State, in United States v. Texas, 
143 U. S. 621 (1892).  The States, we said, must have rec-
ognized that these waivers of immunity from suit were “a 
necessary feature of the formation of a more perfect Union”
and thus “inherent in the constitutional plan.”  Principality 
of  Monaco  v.  Mississippi,  292  U. S.  313,  329  (1934).    The 
alternative to consenting to litigation between sovereigns,
after all, could be civil war. 

A  century  later,  in  Central  Va.  Community  College  v. 
Katz,  546  U. S.  356,  the  Court  recognized  another  struc-
tural waiver.  We held that States could not assert sover-
eign immunity to block suits by private parties pursuant to 
federal bankruptcy laws.  Id., at 359.  There, too, we based 
our holding on the constitutional structure.  We noted the 
text’s insistence on “uniform Laws on the subject of Bank-
ruptcies,”  U. S.  Const.,  Art.  I,  §8,  cl. 4,  the  Framers’  con-
cerns  about  States’  passing  patchwork  legislation  and  re-
fusing  to  discharge  the  debts  of  noncitizens  (as  had 
happened under the Articles of Confederation), and the his-
tory of habeas laws related to bankruptcy.  See 546 U. S., 
at 368–377.  All that evidence led us to conclude that, by
ratifying the Constitution, the States had agreed that their
sovereignty  would  yield  to  ensure  the  effectiveness  of  na-
tional bankruptcy policy.  See id., at 379. 

For several years, both before and after Katz, the Court 
declined to acknowledge additional waivers of sovereign im-
munity under Congress’ Article I powers or to find Article I
authority to abrogate immunity.  See, e.g., Seminole Tribe