PROCEEDINGS AGAINST THE STATE IN THE UNITED STATES The rule that the sovereign was immune from suit at the hands of the private citizen is an accepted principle of American law. Both the Federal Government and the States, whose sovereignty had not been surrendered to the national Government, were clothed with this immunity. The Constitution authorized the Supreme Court to take original jurisdiction in all cases "in which a State shall be a Party," and in 1793 the Supreme Court in Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 Da11. 4i9, held that it could take cognizance of a suit by a citizen against a State. This decision, contrary to the general expectation of the framers of the Constitution, so aroused the nation that in 1798 the iith amendment to the Con stitution was adopted which re-established the original theory that the States were immune from suit by private citizens. No such procedure as the "Petition of Right" was known to American law. Claimants against the United States were originally referred to auditors of various governmental departments and, in the event of unsatisfactory treatment, were obliged to petition Congress. Such petitions were ordinarily disposed of before committees who might recommend a pecuniary grant from Congress. In a few instances Congress by special legislation authorized suit to be brought against the Government and the claims would be ad judicated in the courts. The unsatisfactory character of this method of dealing with claims against the Government led in 1855 to the establishment of the court of claims. At first the court was simply authorized to hear claims and by appropriate bills refer them to Congress for payment. In 1863 the court was authorized to give judgments subject to revision by the secretary of Treasury. The secretary was shortly thereafter deprived of this power and the court is now empowered to render final judgments against the United States subject to an appeal to the Supreme Court. The jurisdiction of the court of claims illustrates that in
the United States suits against the Government are governed by much the same principle that underlies the English procedure by petitions of right. No liability arising out of a tort is rec ognized, but sovereign immunity is waived only in a class of cases where the obligation of the Government is contractual in nature. The court is given jurisdiction of all claims, except for pensions, founded upon the Constitution or any law of Congress and upon contracts, express or implied. Jurisdiction of claims sounding in tort is specifically negatived. Claims arising from the taking of property for public use, for which compensation is re quired by the Constitution, for the return of taxes illegally assessed, for the breach of contracts, constitute the great bulk of its litigation. Where the claim does not exceed $ro,000 in amount the lower Federal courts are given concurrent jurisdiction with the court of claims. The grant of jurisdiction in claims upon an "implied contract" has given rise to much confusion. Whether such contracts include obligations implied in law as well as in fact has been a question upon which the decisions of the Supreme Court have not been wholly uniform.
A few of the States have established courts of claims upon the model of the U.S. court of claims, but in most States the procedure of enforcing claims against the State Government is by petitioning the legislature.