The Eleventh Amendment states plainly: “The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.” Despite decades of vociferous debate, this seemingly docile text has eluded even the most valiant efforts to produce scholarly consensus.

Hans v. Louisiana and Ex parte Young are two of the most important pillars bracing sovereign immunity law. They are also the two most misunderstood. Hans is widely accepted as standing for a simple proposition: the Eleventh Amendment precludes citizens from bringing suits against their own states. Practically every discussion of Hans implicitly yet erroneously assumes that the decision represented some sort of departure from prior case law. Moreover, scholars and judges currently understand Hans as a decision that, in interpreting the Eleventh Amendment, either obfuscated its text or illuminated its soul. Hans does neither or, at least, it meant to do neither. Hans was not an atextual exegesis of the Eleventh Amendment; it was not even a reading of the Eleventh Amendment. More importantly, and contrary to conventional wisdom, Hans was consistent with every sovereign immunity case that preceded it. Hans was, in fact, a mundane application of a remarkably consistent set of common law doctrines...