Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/568

 560 were deemed a party to the record. It would be past all legal comprehension, that a party might sue himself, and be on both sides of the controversy. So, that any attempt to deem a state a party to a suit, simply because it has an interest in a suit, or is a stockholder in a corporation on the record, would be to renounce all ordinary doctrines of law applicable to such cases. The framers of the constitution must be presumed, in treating of the judicial department, to have used language in the sense, and with the limitations belonging to it in judicial usage. They must have spoken according to known distinctions, and settled rules of interpretation, incorporated into the very elements of the jurisprudence of every state in the Union.

§ 1682. It may, then, be laid down, as a rule, which admits of no exception, that in all cases under the constitution of the United States, where jurisdiction depends upon the party, it is the party named on the record. Consequently the amendment above referred to, 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 is construed, as it would have been construed, had the jurisdiction never been extended to suits brought against a state by the citizens of another state, or by aliens.

§ 1683. It has been doubted, whether this amendment extends to cases of admiralty and maritime