Cite as: 514 U. S. 779 (1995)
Kennedy, J., concurring
nature of the two different governments created and confirmed by the Constitution.
A distinctive character of the National Government, the mark of its legitimacy, is that it owes its existence to the act of the whole people who created it. It must be remembered that the National Government, too, is republican in essence and in theory. John Jay insisted on this point early in The Federalist Papers, in his comments on the government that preceded the one formed by the Constitution.
"To all general purposes we have uniformly been one people; each individual citizen everywhere enjoying the same national rights, privileges, and protection. . . .
"A strong sense of the value and blessings of union induced the people, at a very early period, to institute a federal government to preserve and perpetuate it. They formed it almost as soon as they had a political existence . . . ." The Federalist No. 2, pp. 38-39 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961) (hereinafter The Federalist).
Once the National Government was formed under our Constitution, the same republican principles continued to guide its operation and practice. As James Madison explained, the House of Representatives "derive[s] its powers from the people of America," and "the operation of the government on the people in their individual capacities" makes it "a national government," not merely a federal one. Id., No. 39, at 244, 245 (emphasis deleted). The Court confirmed this principle in McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 404-405 (1819), when it said: "The government of the Union, then, . . . is, emphatically, and truly, a government of the people. In form and in substance it emanates from them. Its powers are granted by them, and are to be exercised directly on them, and for their benefit." The same theory led us to observe as follows in Ex parte Yarbrough, 110 U. S. 651, 666 (1884): "In a republican government, like ours, . . . political
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