Court Opinion

ID: 9427477
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:20:55.830262+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:06.204838
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Brennan,
with whom Mr. Justice Marshall joins as to Parts I, II, and III, concurring in the judgment.
For the reasons set forth in my dissent in Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U. S. 651, 687 (1974), I concur in the judgment of the Court.1
*350I
It is deeply disturbing, however, that the Court should engage in today’s gratuitous departure from customary judicial practice and reach out to decide an issue unnecessary to its holding. The Court today correctly rules that the explanatory notice approved by the Court of Appeals below is “properly viewed as ancillary to . . . prospective relief.” Ante, at 349. This is sufficient to sustain the Court’s holding that such notice is not barred by the Eleventh Amendment. But the Court goes on to conclude, in what is patently dicta, that a State is not a “person” for purposes of 42 U. S. C. § 1983, Rev. Stat. § 1979.2
This conclusion is significant because, only three Terms ago, Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer, 427 U. S. 445 (1976), held that “Congress may, in determining what is 'appropriate legislation’ for the purpose of enforcing the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment, provide for private suits against States or state officials which are constitutionally impermissible in other contexts.” Id., at 456. If a State were a “person” for purposes of § 1983, therefore, its immunity under the Eleventh *351Amendment would be abrogated by the statute.3 Edelman v. Jordan, supra, had held that § 1983 did not override state immunity, for the reason, as the Court later stated in Fitzpatrick, that “[t]he Civil Rights Act of 1871, 42 U. S. C. § 1983, had been held in Monroe v. Pape, 365 U. S. 167, 187-191 (1961), to exclude cities and other municipal corporations from its ambit; that being the case, it could not have been intended to include States as parties defendant.” 427 U. S., at 452.4 The premise of this reasoning was undercut last Term, however, when Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Services, 436 U. S. 658 (1978), upon re-examination of the legislative history of § 1983, held that a municipality was indeed a “person” for purposes of that statute.5 As I stated in my concurrence in Hutto v. Finney, 437 U. S. 678, 703 (1978), Monell made it “surely at least an open question whether § 1983 properly construed does not make the States liable for relief of all kinds, notwithstanding the Eleventh Amendment.”
The Court’s dicta today would close that open question on the basis of Alabama v. Pugh, 438 U. S. 781 (1978). In that case the State of Alabama had been named as a party defendant in a suit alleging unconstitutional conditions of confine*352ment. The question presented was “[wjhether the mandatory injunction issued against the State of Alabama and the Alabama Board of Corrections violates the State’s Eleventh Amendment immunity or exceeds the jurisdiction granted federal courts by 42 U. S. C. § 1983.” Id., at 782-783, n. 2. The Court held that the State should not have been named as a party defendant.
Pugh, however, does not stand for the proposition that a State is not a “person” for purposes of § 1983. Not only does the Court’s opinion in that case fail even to mention § 1983, it frames the issue addressed as whether Alabama had “consented to the filing of such a suit.” 438 U. S., at 782. Since Alabama’s consent would have been irrelevant if Congress had intended States to be encompassed within the reach of § 1983, the Court apparently decided the first half of the question presented — “[wjhether the mandatory injunction issued against the State of Alabama . . . violates the State’s Eleventh Amendment immunity” — without considering or deciding the second half — whether the mandatory injunction “exceeds the jurisdiction granted federal courts by 42 U. S. C. § 1983.” 6
This parsing of Pugh is strengthened by a consideration of the circumstances surrounding that decision. Pugh, a short per curiam, was issued on the last day of the Term without the assistance of briefs on the merits or argument. Alabama’s petition for certiorari and respondents’ brief in opposition were filed on February 6, 1978, and April 6, 1978, respectively, months before Monell was announced. They were thus necessarily without the benefit of Monell’s major re-evaluation of *353the legislative history of § 1983.7 Respondents did not even raise the possibility that Alabama might be a “person” for purposes of § 1983.8 Since the issue is not, as the Court now *354phrases it, whether the Members of this Court were then aware of Monell, ante, at 340 n. 9, but rather whether they had before them briefs and arguments detailing the implications of Monell for the question of whether a State is a “person” for purposes of § 1983, it is not anomalous that the Court's opinion in Pugh failed to address or consider this issue.
The Court's reliance on Pugh is particularly significant because the question whether a State is a “person” for purposes of § 1983 is neither briefed nor argued by the parties in the instant case. Indeed, petitioner states flatly that “the en banc decision of the Seventh Circuit does not rest upon a conclusion that the term 'person' for purposes of § 1983 includes sovereign states, as opposed to state officials, within its ambit. That issue is not the issue before this Court on Petitioner’s Writ for Certiorari.” Reply Brief for Petitioner 14. Respondent concurs, stating that “it is unnecessary in this case to confront directly the far-reaching question of whether Congress intended in § 1983 to provide for relief directly against States, as it did against municipalities.” Brief for Respondent 55 n. 37.
Thus, the Court today decides a question of major significance without ever having had the assistance of a considered presentation of the issue, either in briefs or in arguments. The result is pure judicial fiat.
II
This fiat is particularly disturbing because it is most likely incorrect. Section 1983 was originally enacted as § 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1871. The Act was enacted for the purpose of enforcing the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment.9 That Amendment exemplifies the “vast transformation” worked on the structure of federalism in this Nation by the Civil War. Mitchum v. Foster, 407 U. S. 225, 242 (1972). *355The prohibitions of that Amendment “are directed to the States .... They have reference to actions of the political body denominated a State, by whatever instruments or in whatever modes that action may be taken.” Ex parte Virginia, 100 U. S. 339, 346-347 (1880).10 The fifth section of the Amendment provides Congress with the power to enforce these prohibitions “by appropriate legislation.” “Congress, by virtue of the fifth section . . . , may enforce the prohibitions whenever they are disregarded by either the Legislative, the Executive, or the Judicial Department of the State. The mode of enforcement is left to its discretion.” Virginia v. Rives, 100 U. S. 313, 318 (1880).
The prohibitions of the Fourteenth Amendment and Congress’ power of enforcement are thus directed at the States themselves, not merely at state officers. It is logical to assume, therefore, that § 1983, in effectuating the provisions of the Amendment by “interpos [ing] the federal courts between the States and the people, as guardians of the people’s federal rights,” Mitchum v. Foster, supra, at 242, is also addressed to the States themselves. Certainly Congress made this intent plain enough on the face of the statute.
Section 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1871 created a federal cause of action against “any person” who, “under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage of any State,” deprived another of “any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution of the United States.” On *356February 25, 1871, less than two months before the enactment of the Civil Rights Act, Congress provided that “in alNacts hereafter passed . . . the word ‘person' may extend and be applied to bodies politic and corporate . . . unless the context shows that such words were intended to be used in a more limited sense.”11 § 2, 16 Stat. 431. Monell, held that “[s]ince there is nothing in the ‘context’ of the Civil Rights Act calling for a restricted interpretation of the word ‘person,’ the language of that section should prima facie be construed to include ‘bodies politic’ among the entities that could be sued.” 436 U. S., at 689-690, n. 53. Even the Court’s opinion today does not dispute the fact that in 1871 the phrase “bodies politic and corporate” would certainly have referred to the States.12 See Heim v. McCall, 239 U. S. 175, 188 (1915); McPherson v. Blacker, 146 U. S. 1, 24 (1892); Poin*357dexter v. Greenhow, 114 U. S. 270, 288 (1885); Cotton v. United States, 11 How. 229, 231 (1851); Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 Dall. 419, 447 (Iredell, J.), 468 (Cushing, J.) (1793); Utah State Building Comm’n v. Great American Indemnity Co., 105 Utah 11, 16, 140 P. 2d 763, 766 (1943); Board of Comm’rs of Hamilton County v. Noyes, 3 Am. L. Rec. 745, 748 (Super. Ct. Cincinnati 1874); 1 J. Wilson, Works 305 (1804); cf. Keith v. Clark, 97 U. S. 454, 460-461 (1878); Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113, 124 (1877); Georgia v. Stanton, 6 Wall. 50, 76-77 (1868); Butler v. Pennsylvania, 10 How. 402, 416-417 (1851); Penhallow v. Doane’s Administrators, 3 Dall. 54, 92-93 (1795) (Iredell, J.); Mass. Const., Preamble. Indeed, during the- very debates surrounding the enactment of the Civil Rights Act, States were referred to as bodies politic and corporate. See, e. g., Cong. Globe, 42d Cong., 1st Sess., 661— 662 (1871) (hereinafter Globe) (Sen. Vickers) (“What is a State? Is it not a body politic and corporate?”); cf. id., at 696 (Sen. Edmunds). Thus the expressed intent of Congress, manifested virtually simultaneously with the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1871, was that the States themselves, as bodies corporate and politic, should be embraced by the term “person” in § 1 of that Act.
The legislative history of the Civil Rights Act of 1871 reinforces this conclusion. The Act was originally reported to the House as H. R. 320 by Representative Shellabarger. At that time Representative Shellabarger stated that the bill was meant to be remedial “in aid of the preservation of human liberty and human rights,” and thus to be “liberally and beneficently construed.”13 Globe App. 68. The bill *358was meant to give “[f]ull force and effect ... to section five” of the Fourteenth Amendment, Globe 322 (Rep. Stough-ton),14 see id., at 800 (Rep. Perry); Monell, 436 U. S., at 685 n. 45, and therefore, like the prohibitions of that Amendment, to be addressed against the States themselves.15 See, e. g., *359Globe 481-482 (Rep. Wilson); 696 (Sen. Edmunds).16 It was, as Representative Kerr who opposed the bill instantly recognized, “against the rights of the States of this Union.” *360Globe App. 46. Representative Shellabarger, in introducing the bill, made this explicit, stressing the need for “necessary affirmative legislation to enforce the personal rights which the *361Constitution guaranties, as between persons in the State and the State itself.” Id., at 70. See, e. g., id., at 80 (Rep. Perry); Globe 375 (Rep. Lowe); 481-482 (Rep. Wilson); 568 (Sen. Edmunds). Representative Bingham elaborated the point:
“The powers of the States have been limited and the powers of Congress extended by the last three amendments of the Constitution. These last amendments— thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen — do, in my judgment, vest in Congress a power to protect the rights of citizens against States, and individuals in States, never before granted.
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“Why not in advance provide against the denial of rights by States, whether the denial be acts of omission or commission, as well as against the unlawful acts of combinations and conspiracies against the rights of the people?
“The States never had the right, though they had the power, to inflict wrongs upon free citizens by a denial of *362the full protection of the laws; because all State officials are by the Constitution required to be bound by oath or affirmation to support the Constitution. As I have already said, the States did deny to citizens the equal protection of the laws, they did deny the rights of citizens under the Constitution, and except to the extent of the express limitations upon the States, as I have shown, the citizen had no remedy. . . . They took property without compensation, and he had no remedy. They restricted the freedom of the press, and he had no remedy. They restricted the freedom of speech, and he had no remedy. They restricted the rights of conscience, and he had no remedy. They bought and sold men who had no remedy. Who dare say, now that the Constitution has been amended, that the nation cannot by law provide against all such abuses and denials of right as these in States and by States, or combination of persons?” Globe App. 83, 85 (emphasis added).17
H. R. 320 was necessary, as Senator Edmunds stated, to protect citizens “in the rights that the Constitution gave *363them . . . against any assault by any State or under any State or through the neglect of any State . . . Globe 697, and by a “State,” Edmunds meant “a corporation ... an organized thing . . . manifested, represented entirely, and fully in respect to every one of its functions, by that department of its government on which the execution of those functions is respectively devolved.” Id., at 696. See id., at 607-608 (Sen. Pool).
It was common ground, therefore, that, as Representative Wilson argued, the prohibitions of the Fourteenth Amendment were directed against the State, meaning “the government of the State . . . the legislative, the judicial, and the executive”; that the fifth section of the Amendment had given Congress the power to enforce it by “appropriate legislation,” meaning “legislation adequate to meet the difficulties to be encountered, to suppress the wrongs existing, to furnish remedies and inflict penalties adequate to the suppression of all infractions of the rights of the citizens”; and that H. R. 320 was such legislation. Globe 481-483. Those who opposed the bill were fully aware of the major implications of such a statute. Representative Blair, for example, rested his opposition on the fact that the bill, including § 1, was aimed at the States in their “corporate and legislative capacity”:
“The inhibitions in the [Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth] amendments against the United States and the States are against them in their corporate and legislative capacities, for the thing or acts prohibited can alone be performed by them in their corporate or legislative capacities.
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“As the States have the power to violate them and not individuals, we must presume that the legislation provided for is against the States in their corporate and legislative capacity or character and those acting under their laws, and not against the individuals, as such, of the *364States. I am sustained in this view of the case by the tenth section of the first article of the Constitution of the United States. In it are a number of inhibitions against the States, which it is evident are against them in their corporate and legislative capacity; and to which I respectfully call the attention of the gentlemen who favor this bill.” Globe App. 208.18
See id., at 209. This conclusion produced an anguished outcry from those committed to unrevised notions of state sovereignty. Representative Arthur, for example, complained that § 1
“reaches out and draws within the despotic circle of central power all the domestic, internal, and local institutions and offices of the States, and then asserts over them an arbitrary and paramount control as of the rights, privileges, and immunities secured and protected, in a peculiar sense, by the United States in the citizens thereof. Having done this, having swallowed up the States and their institutions, tribunals, and functions, it leaves them the shadow of what they once were.” Globe 365.
The answer to such arguments was, of course, that the Civil War had irrevocably and profoundly altered the balance of power between Federal and State Governments:
“If any one thinks it is going too far to give the United States this national supervisory power to protect the fundamental rights of citizens of the United States, I do not agree with him. It is not wise to permit our devotion to the reserved rights of the States to be carried so far as to deprive the citizen of his privileges and immunities.
“We must remember that it was State rights, perverted I admit from their true significance, that arrayed them*365selves against the nation and threatened its existence. We must remember that it was for the very purpose of placing in the General Government a check upon this arrogance of some of the States that the fourteenth amendment was adopted by the people. We must remember that, if the legislation we propose does trench upon what have been, before the fourteenth amendment, considered the rights of the States, it is in behalf and for the protection of immunities and privileges clearly given by the Constitution; and that Federal laws and Federal rights must be protected whether domestic laws or their administration are interfered with or not, because the Constitution and the laws made in pursuance thereof are the supreme law of the land. We are not making a constitution, we are enacting a law, and its virtue can be tested without peril by the experiment.” Id., at 502 (Sen. Frelinghuysen).
In the reconstructed union, national rights would be guaranteed federal protection even from the States themselves.
Ill
The plain words of § 1983, its legislative history and historical context, all evidence that Congress intended States to be embraced within its remedial cause of action. .The Court today pronounces its conclusion in dicta by avoiding such evidence. It chooses to hear, in the eloquent and pointed legislative history of § 1983, only “silence.” Such silence is in fact deafening to those who have ears to listen. But without reason to reach the question, without briefs, without argument, relying on a precedent that was equally ill-informed and in any event not controlling, the Court resolutely opines that a State is not a “person” for purposes of § 1983. The 42d Congress, of course, can no longer pronounce its meaning with unavoidable clarity. Fitzpatrick, however, cedes to the *366present Congress the power to rectify this erroneous misinterpretation. It need only make its intention plain.

 In Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U. S., at 687-688, I stated:
“This suit is brought by Illinois citizens against Illinois officials. In that circumstance, Illinois may not invoke the Eleventh Amendment, since that Amendment bars only federal court suits against States by citizens of other States. Rather, the question is whether Illinois may avail itself of the non-constitutional but ancient doctrine of sovereign immunity as a bar to respondent’s claim for retroactive AABD payments. In my view Illinois may not assert sovereign immunity for the reason I expressed in dissent in Employees v. Missouri Public Health Dept., 411 U. S. 279, 298 (1973): the States surrendered that immunity in Hamilton’s words, ‘in the plan of the Convention,’ that formed the Union, at least insofar as the States granted Congress specifically enumerated powers. See id., at 319 n. 7; Parden v. Terminal R. Co., 377 U. S. 184 (1964). Congressional authority to enact the Social Security Act, of which AABD is a part, former 42 U. S. C. §§ 1381-1385 (now replaced by similar provisions in 42 U. S. C. §§ 801-804 *350(1970 ed., Supp. II), is to be found in Art. I, §8, cl. 1, one of the enumerated powers granted Congress by the States in the Constitution. I remain of the opinion that ‘because of its surrender, no immunity exists that can be the subject of a congressional declaration or a voluntary waiver,’ 411 U. S., at 300, and thus have no. occasion to inquire whether or not Congress authorized an action for AABD retroactive benefits, or whether or not Illinois voluntarily waived the immunity by its continued participation in the program against the background of precedents which sustained judgments ordering retroactive payments.”

 Section 1983 states:
“Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress.”

 There is no question but that § 1983 was enacted by Congress under § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. Section 1983 was originally the first section of an Act entitled “An Act to enforce the Provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States . . . .” 17 Stat. 13.

 This reasoning had been employed by several lower courts which had considered this question. See, e. g., United States ex rel. Gittlemacker v. County of Philadelphia, 413 F. 2d 84, 86 n. 2 (CA3 1969) (“In view of the Supreme Court’s holding in Monroe v. Pape . . . that a municipal corporation is not a ‘person’ subject to suit within the meaning of the Civil Rights Act, the conclusion that states are not persons within the meaning of the Act is inescapable”); Williford v. California, 352 F. 2d 474, 476 (CA9 1965).

 For a discussion of the implications of Monell for this question, see Aldridge v. Turlington, Civ. Act. No. TCA-78-830 (ND Fla., Nov. 17, 1978).

 This is what I take to be the significance of the observation of my Brother Stevens in Pugh:
“Surely the Court does not intend to resolve summarily the issue debated by my Brothers in their separate opinions in Hutto v. Finney, 437 U. S. 678, 700 (Brennan, J., concurring), and 708-709, n. 6 (Powell, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).” 438 U. S., at 783 n. * (1978) (Stevens, J., dissenting). Cf. The Supreme Court, 1977 Term, 92 Harv. L. Rev. 57, 325-326 (1978).

 Indeed, the entire discussion of the issue in the petition for certiorari is as follows:
“The grant of an injunction against the State and the Board of Corrections in an action based upon 42 U. S. C. § 1983 is in direct conflict with decisions of other courts of appeal which hold that neither a State nor a State agency is a ‘person’ within the meaning of the statute and amenable to suit under it. Meredith v. Arizona, 523 F. 2d 481 (9th Cir. 1975); Curtis v. Everette, 489 F. 2d 516 (3rd Cir. 1973). The decisions below conflict, at least in principle, with this Court’s holding in City of Kenosha v. Bruno, 412 U. S. 507 (1973), that municipalities are not ‘persons’ under 42 U. S. C. § 1983.” Pet. for Cert. in Alabama v. Pugh, O. T. 1977, No. 77-1107, pp. 11-12.

 The discussion of the issue by the respondents in Pugh was unilluminating:
“Supreme Court Rule 19 (1) states that certiorari will only be ‘granted where there are special and important reasons therefor.’ The second issue raised by the Petitioners challenges the injunction against the State of Alabama and the Alabama Board of Corrections alleging: (1) each is immune from suit under the Eleventh Amendment; (2) neither is a ‘person’ subject to 42 U. S. C. 1983 jurisdiction; and (3) Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U. S. 651 (1974) and Ex Parte Young, 209 U. S. 123 (1908) bar judgments against the State for prospective costs of compliance with an order. Under the facts of these cases, the questions presented are not only unimportant but are essentially irrelevant.
“First, additional defendants enjoined include all members of the Alabama Board of Corrections and numerous other prison officials who would clearly remain bound by the injunction issued, Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U. S. 232 (1974); Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U. S. 651 (1974) and have the authority in their official capacity to carry out the court’s orders. Second, the State of Alabama and the Board of Corrections were only named defendants in the Pugh case and not the James case. Therefore, any action taken on this issue in Pugh would not affect the same relief granted in James. Third, this issue was never thought important enough by counsel for the petitioners to raise, brief or argue in the trial court. Fourth, the Court of Appeals did not see fit to speak to this issue at all. Fifth, whether the State of Alabama and/or the Board of Corrections are enjoined in addition to the members of the Board of Corrections has absolutely no practical effect on what has happened or will happen under the *354court’s order.” Brief in Opposition in Alabama v. Pugh, O. T. 1977, No. 77-1107, pp. 9-10.

 See n. 3, supra.

 “We have said the prohibitions of the Fourteenth Amendment are addressed to the States. They are, 'No State shall make or enforce a law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, . . . nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.’ ” 100 U. S., at 346.
“It is these which Congress is empowered to enforce, and to enforce against State action, however put forth, whether that action be executive, legislative, or judicial. Such enforcement is no invasion of State sovereignty. No law can be, which the people of the States have, by the Constitution of the United States, empowered Congress to enact.” Ibid.

 Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Services, 436 U. S. 658 (1978), held that the word “may” in the Act was to be interpreted as the equivalent of “shall”: “Such a mandatory use of the extended meanings of the words defined by the Act is . . . required for it to perform its intended function — to be a guide to ‘rules of construction' of Acts of Congress. See [Cong. Globe, 41st Cong., 3d Sess., 775 (1871)] (remarks of Sen. Trumbull).” Id., at 689 n. 53.

 The phrase would also have referred to the United States. As Mr. Chief Justice Marshall stated: “The United States is a government, and, consequently, a body politic and corporate_” United States v. Maurice, 2 Brock. 96, 109 (CC Va. 1823). See Van Brocklin v. Tennessee, 117 U. S. 151, 154 (1886); Dugan v. United States, 3 Wheat. 172, 178 (1818) (argument of Attorney General William Wirt).
In construing the meaning of the term “person” in a Texas law creating a statute of limitations for suits to recover real estate “as against any person in peaceable and adverse possession thereof,” this Court stated:
“Of course, the United States were not bound by the laws of the State, yet the word ‘person’ in the statute would include them as a body politic and corporate. Sayles, Art. 3140; Martin v. State, 24 Texas, 61, 68.” Stanley v. Schwalby, 147 U. S. 508, 514, 517 (1893).
See United States v. Shirey, 359 U. S. 255, 257 n. 2 (1959); Ohio v. Helvering, 292 U. S. 360, 370 (1934); cf. Pfizer Inc. v. India, 434 U. S. 308, 315-316, n. 15 (1978).

 Monell, supra, stated that “there can be no doubt that § 1 of the Civil Rights Act was intended ... to be broadly construed . . . .” 436 U. S., at 700. See Lake Country Estates, Inc. v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, post, at 399-400, and n. 17. Senator Thurman of Ohio, who opposed the Act, stated with respect to § 1 that “there is no limitation whatsoever upon the terms that are employed, and they are as comprehensive as can he used.” Cong. Globe, 42d Cong., 1st Sess., App. 217 (1871) (hereinafter Globe App.) (emphasis added).

 One of the reasons given by the Court in Hutto v. Finney, 437 U. S. 678 (1978), for not requiring an “express statutory waiver of the State's immunity,” ante, at 344 n. 16, before applying to the States the Civil Rights Attorney’s Fees Award Act of 1976, 42 U. S. C. § 1988, was that the Act had been “enacted to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment.” 437 U. S., at 698 n. 31.

 It was common ground, at least after the Fourteenth Amendment, that Congress could “dea[l] with States and with citizens.” Globe 777 (Sen. Frelinghuysen). See id., at 793 (Rep. Poland). Representative Willard of Vermont, for example, who voted for H. R. 320, opposed the Sherman amendment, which would have held a municipal corporation liable for damages to its inhabitants by private persons “ 'riotously and tumultuously assembled,’ ” Monell, supra, at 664, on the grounds that the Fourteenth Amendment imposed liability directly on the States and not on such municipal corporations:
“I hold that this duty of protection, if it rests anywhere, rests on the State, and that if there is to be any liability visited upon anybody for a failure to perform that duty, such liability should be brought home to the State. Hence, in my judgment, this section would be liable to very much less objection, both in regard to its justice and its constitutionality, if it provided that if in any State the offenses named in this section were committed, suit might be brought against the State, judgment obtained, and payment of the judgment might be enforced upon the treasury of the State.” Globe 791.
See id., at 756-757 (Sen. Edmunds).
There was general agreement, however, that just as Congress could not impose affirmative obligations on municipalities, Monell, supra, at 681 n. 40, so it could not “command a State officer to do any duty whatever, as such.” Globe 795 (Rep. Blair). See id., at 799 (Rep. Farnsworth); Collector v. Day, 11 Wall. 113 (1871); Kentucky v. Dennison, 24 How. 66 (1861); Prigg v. Pennsylvania, 16 Pet. 539 (1842). Contrary to the suggestion of the Court, ante, at 341 n. 14, however, the Prigg-Dennison-Day line of cases, which stands for the principle that “the Federal Gov-*359eminent . . . has no power to impose on a State officer, as such, any duty whatever/’ 24 How., at 107, no more “militate [s] against” the conclusion that States are “persons” for purposes of § 1983, than it militates against the conclusion that municipalities are such persons. Everyone agreed, after all, that state officers, as such, would be subject to liability for violations of § 1983. The doctrine of coordinate sovereignty, relied on in the Prigg-Dennison-Day line of cases, would not have distinguished between such liability and the liability of the State itself. See Monell, 436 U. S., at 682.

 A view of the reach of § 1 suggested by occasional remarks in the legislative history of H. R. 320 to the effect that “[t]he Government can act only upon individuals,” Globe App. 251 (Sen. Morton), was rejected last Term when Monell held that municipalities were “persons” for purposes of § 1983. It was a view colored by the belief that, since a “State always acts through instrumentalities,” Globe 334 (Rep. Hoar), State violations of the Fourteenth Amendment could most effectively be reached through imposing liability on the state officials through whom States acted. As Representative Burchard stated:
“In the enforcement of the observance of duties imposed directly upon the people by the Constitution, the General Government applies the law directly to persons and individual acts. It may punish individuals for interference with its prerogatives and infractions of the rights it is authorized to protect. For the neglect or refusal of a State to perform a constitutional duty, the remedies and power of enforcement given to the General Government are few and restricted. It cannot perform the duty the Constitution enjoins upon the State. If a State fails to appoint presidential electors, or its Legislature to choose Senators, or its people to elect Representatives, Congress cannot act for them. Nor do prohibitions upon States authorize Congress to exercise the forbidden power. It may doubtless require State officers to discharge duties imposed upon them as such officers by the Constitution of the United States. A State office must be assumed with such limitations and burdens, such duties and obligations, as the Constitution of the United States attaches to it. The General Government cannot punish the State, but the officer who violates his official constitutional duty can be punished under Federal law. What more appropriate legislation for enforcing a constitutional prohibition upon a State than to compel State officers to observe it? Its violation by the *360State can only be consummated through the officers by whom it acts.” Globe App. 314.
It is noteworthy that, even under this view, § 1983 would abrogate the Eleventh Amendment immunity of States to the extent necessary to provide full relief for any plaintiff suing a state officer. Cf. Globe 365-366 (Rep. Arthur); '385 (Rep. Lewis); Globe App. 217 (Sen. Thurman). Thus, even if this limited approach had emerged out of concern for the Eleventh Amendment immunity of States, the distinction “between prospective relief on one hand and retrospective relief on the other,” ante, at 337, which was drawn by Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U. S. 651 (1974), would be eliminated by the congressional enactment of § 1983. This is not anomalous, however, since the 42d Congress would have had no way to anticipate Edelman’s distinction, and would much more probably have had in mind the decision of Mr. Chief Justice Marshall in Osborn v. Bank of United States, 9 Wheat. 738 (1824), which held:
“It may, we think, be laid down as a rule which admits of no exception, that, in all cases where jurisdiction depends on the party, it is the party named in the record. Consequently, the 11th amendment, which restrains the jurisdiction granted by the constitution over suits against States, is, of necessity, limited to those suits in which a State is a party on the record. The amendment has its full effect, if the constitution be construed as it would have been construed, had the jurisdiction of the Court never been extended to suits brought against a State, by the citizens of another State, or by aliens.
“The State not being a party on the record, and the Court having jurisdiction over those who are parties on the record, the true question is, not one of jurisdiction, but whether, in the exercise of its jurisdiction, the Court ought to make a decree against the defendants; whether they are to be considered as having a real interest, or as being only nominal parties.” Id., at 857-858.
Four years later the Court, again per Mr. Chief Justice Marshall, stated that a suit against the office, as opposed to the person, of the Governor of a State had the effect of making the State a party of record, Governor of Georgia v. Madrazo, 1 Pet. 110 (1828), but the essential principle remained unaltered, as evidenced by Davis v. Gray, 16 Wall. 203 (1873), a case decided two years after the Civil Rights Act of 1871:
“In deciding who are parties to the suit the court will not look beyond *361the record. Making a State officer a party does not make the State a party, although her law may have prompted his action, and the State may stand behind him as the real party in interest. A State can be made a party only by shaping the bill expressly with that view, as where individuals or corporations are intended to be put in that relation to the case.” Id., at 220.
For the legislators of the 42d Congress, therefore, an action under § 1983 directed at state officers, regardless of the effect of the suit on the State itself, would preserve the Eleventh Amendment immunity of States, so long as States themselves were not named parties. To the extent subsequent decisions of this Court have introduced an Eleventh Amendment bar to such suits when “the action is in essence one for the recovery of money from the state,” Ford Motor Co. v. Department of Treasury, 323 U. S. 459, 464 (1945), this bar would be eliminated by the congressional enactment of § 1983. Since in the instant case neither the State of Illinois nor the office of the Governor of Illinois are parties “on the record,” even a limited reading of the reach of § 1983 should therefore hold the Eleventh Amendment inapplicable.

 Section 1 of H. R. 320 was modeled after § 2 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, 14 Stat. 27, which imposed criminal penalties on "any person” who, “under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom,” deprived “any inhabitant of any State or Territory” of “any right secured ... by this act.” As Representative Shellabarger stated: “That section [§ 2] provides a criminal proceeding in identically the same case as this one [§ 1] provides a civil remedy . . . .” Globe App. 68. Representative Bingham noted the limited application of the remedy provided by § 2:
“It is clear that if Congress do so provide by penal laws for the protection of these rights [guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment], those violating them must answer for the crime, and not the States. The United States punishes men, not States, for a violation of its law.” Globe App. 85-86.
Representative Bingham was thus able to distinguish, as apparently the Court is not, ante, at 341 n. 11, between the reach of the word “person” in § 2 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and its reach in § 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1871.

 Representative Blair reached this conclusion after reasoning that if the bill were interpreted as applicable only to individuals, it would not be able to fulfill the purposes of the Reconstruction Amendments.