The proposed amendment was debated to some extent in the Second Congress, but it was not passed. In the Third Congress, on January 2, 1794, Caleb Strong, one of the senators from Massachusetts, moved the adoption of a resolution which changed the form of the proposed amendment so as to read as follows: "The judicial power of the United States shall not _be construed to_ extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by citizens of another state, or by citizens or subjects of any foreign state." The amendment was finally accepted in this form on March 4, 1794, and was at once submitted to the legislatures of the several states for ratification, but up to March, 1797, there were still eight states which had not acted upon it, probably because the political clamor had subsided, and there was no longer any demand for amendment. In fact, Congress had to request the President to communicate with the outstanding states upon the subject. Finally, in a message from President Adams to Congress dated January 8, 1798, the proposed amendment was declared to have been ratified by three-fourths of the states, and it thereupon became the eleventh article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States. New Jersey and Pennsylvania had refused to ratify it, while South Carolina and Tennessee had taken no action. The unusual and peculiar wording of the amendment first attracts attention. Instead of declaring how the Constitution shall read in the future, it declares how it shall "not be construed." This phraseology was used for political reasons and as a concession to the susceptibilities of the advocates of state rights. Extremists wanted a declaration that would not only overrule the recent construction of the Constitution by the Supreme Court and deny that such a power had ever existed, but would also oust all jurisdiction in pending as well as in future cases. The amendment, therefore, does not purport to amend or alter the Constitution, but to maintain it unchanged, while controlling its scope and effect by authoritatively declaring how it shall not be construed.