Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/601

 CH. XXXVIII.] other claims upon it; but no interest could be felt in so changing the relations between the whole and its parts, as to strip the government of the means of protecting, by the instrumentality of its courts, the constitution and laws from active violation.

§ 1718. The words of the amendment appear to the court to justify and require this construction. The judicial power is not "to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced, or prosecuted against one of the United States by citizens of another state, &c."

§ 1719. What is a suit? We understand it to be the prosecution, or pursuit, of some claim, demand, or request. In law language, it is the prosecution of some demand in a court of justice. The remedy for every species of wrong is, says Judge Blackstone, "the being put in possession of that right whereof the party injured is deprived." "The instruments, whereby this remedy is obtained, are a diversity of suits and actions, which are defined by the Mirror to be 'the lawful demand of one's right;' or, as Bracton and Fleta express it, in the words of Justinian, jus prosequendi in judicio, quod alicui debetur." Blackstone then proceeds to describe every species of remedy by suit; and they are all cases, where the party suing claims to obtain something, to which he has a right.

§ 1720. To commence a suit is to demand something by the institution of process in a court of justice; and to prosecute the suit, is, according to the common acceptation of language, to continue that demand. By a suit commenced by an individual against a state, we should understand process sued out by that individual against the state, for the purpose of establishing some claim against it by the judgment of 75