It has been suggested
that an assignment of the public securities of one State to the citizens
of another, would enable them to prosecute that State in the federal
courts for the amount of those securities; a suggestion which the
following considerations prove to be without foundation.
It is inherent in the nature of sovereignty not to be amenable to the
suit of an individual without its consent. This is the general sense,
and the general practice of mankind; and the exemption, as one of the
attributes of sovereignty, is now enjoyed by the government of every
State in the Union. Unless, therefore, there is a surrender of this
immunity in the plan of the convention, it will remain with the States,
and the danger intimated must be merely ideal. The circumstances which
are necessary to produce an alienation of State sovereignty were
discussed in considering the article of taxation, and need not be
repeated here. A recurrence to the principles there established will
satisfy us, that there is no color to pretend that the State governments
would, by the adoption of that plan, be divested of the privilege of
paying their own debts in their own way, free from every constraint but
that which flows from the obligations of good faith.
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