President Lincoln's thoughts on Justice and the Duty of Government

[David Lockmiller]

Justice Stevens, in his book Five Chiefs - A Supreme Court Memoir (2011) wrote on this subject of a state's "dignity" (p. 47):

[N]either earlier [Supreme Court] history nor common sense provides any support for the notion that the preservation of a state's "dignity" can justify disobedience of federal law.

In 1821, in his opinion in Cohens v. Marshall, Chief Justice Marshall discussed the history of the Eleventh Amendment. After noting that the amendment was adopted at a time when all the states were greatly indebted and concerned about defending collection claims in federal court, he observed that we must ascribe the amendment "to some other cause than the dignity of a State."