a State from suit does not extend to actions
against State officials for damages arising out of willful and negligent
disregard of State laws.[43]

Suits to Recover Taxes

Recent decisions, however, have rendered suits against State officials
to recover taxes increasingly difficult to maintain. Although the Court
long ago held that the sovereign immunity of the State prevented a suit
to recover money in the general treasury,[44] it also held that a suit
would lie against a revenue officer to recover tax moneys illegally
collected and still in his possession.[45] Beginning, however, with
Great Northern Life Insurance Co. _v._ Read[46] in 1944 the Court has
held that this kind of suit cannot be maintained unless the State
expressly consents to suits in the federal courts. In this case the
State statute provided for the payment of taxes under protest and for
suits afterwards against State tax collection officials for the recovery
of taxes illegally collected. The act also provided for the segregation
by the collector of taxes paid under protest. The Read Case has been
followed in two more recent cases[47] involving a similar state of
facts, with the result that the rule once permitting such suits to
recover taxes from a segregated fund has been distinguished away.

Consent of State to be Sued

Although _dicta_ in some cases suggested that once a State consented
generally to be sued in a court of competent jurisdiction,[48] suits
could be maintained against it in the federal courts, later decisions
involving statutory provisions for the payment of taxes under protest
followed by a suit in a court of competent jurisdiction to recover do
not authorize suits in the federal courts. These rulings are based on
the assumption that when the court is dealing "with the sovereign
exemption from judicial interference in the vital field of financial
administration a clear declaration of the State's intention to submit
its fiscal problems to other courts than those of its own creation must
be found."[49] Long before these decisions it had been settled that a
State could confine to its own courts suits against it to recover
taxes.[50] Thus the questions involved in the cases laying down the
above rule concerned only the lack of an express consent to suit in the
federal courts.

Waiver of Immunity

The immunity of a State from suit is a privilege which it may waive at
pleasure by voluntary submission to suit,[51] as distinguis