Eleventh Amendment to the United States Constitution
The idea of sovereign immunity originated in English common law. It was also proposed by political theorists like Thomas Hobbes and Jean Bodin. The founding fathers of the Constitution were aware of the traditional doctrine that states were immune from private lawsuits. Several Anti-Federalists were afraid that Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution, which declares that the federal judicial power extends to suits "between a State and Citizens of another State", would override that doctrine.