“ Concededly, he could sue to recover the moneys so paid to the defendant, a tax collector, in a state court in Oklahoma. But to allow the suit to be brought in a federal court sitting in Oklahoma would derogate, this Court now holds, from the sovereignty of Oklahoma. Such a result, I believe, derives from an excessive regard for formalism and from a disregard of the whole trend of legislation, adjudication and legal thought in subjecting the collective responsibility of society to those rules of law which govern as between man and man. ”

“ In view of the history of such a suit as this and of the incongruous consequences of disallowing it in the form in which it was a case in the federal court in Oklahoma, the claims of sovereignty which are sought to be respected must surely be attenuated and capricious.
The Eleventh Amendment has put state immunity from suit into the Constitution. Therefore, it is not in the power of individuals to bring any State into court-the State's or that of the United States-except with its consent. But consent does not depend on some ritualistic formula. ”

“ If the other jurisdictional requirements are present, they can be sued in a federal court without the leave of Oklahoma. It is not, I submit, a rational way to construe the Oklahoma Statute, dealing with a particular type of illegal exaction raising the same kind of issue and involving the same procedure, so as to recognize jurisdiction of federal courts over suits against the county and its sub-division but to find a purpose to exclude suits as to illegal state exactions. ”