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The Appropriations Power And Sovereign Immunity, Jay Tidmarsh, Paul F. Figley
The Appropriations Power And Sovereign Immunity, Jay Tidmarsh, Paul F. Figley
Jay Tidmarsh
Historical discussions of sovereign immunity assume that the Constitution contains no explicit text regarding sovereign immunity. As a result, arguments about the existence — or non-existence — of sovereign immunity begin with the English and American common-law doctrines of sovereign immunity, and ask whether the founding period altered that doctrine. Exploring political, fiscal, and legal developments in England and the American colonies in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, this article shows that focusing on common-law developments is misguided. The common-law approach to sovereign immunity ended in the early 1700s. The Bankers’ Case (1690-1700), which is often regarded as the first …