Cite as: 514 U. S. 779 (1995)
Kennedy, J., concurring
the measures they adopt do not, on that account, cease to be the measures of the people themselves, or become the measures of the State governments." 4 Wheat., at 403.
The political identity of the entire people of the Union is reinforced by the proposition, which I take to be beyond dispute, that, though limited as to its objects, the National Government is, and must be, controlled by the people without collateral interference by the States. McCulloch affirmed this proposition as well, when the Court rejected the suggestion that States could interfere with federal powers. "This was not intended by the American people. They did not design to make their government dependent on the States." Id., at 432. The States have no power, reserved or otherwise, over the exercise of federal authority within its proper sphere. See id., at 430 (where there is an attempt at "usurpation of a power which the people of a single State cannot give," there can be no question whether the power "has been surrendered" by the people of a single State because "[t]he right never existed"). That the States may not invade the sphere of federal sovereignty is as incontestable, in my view, as the corollary proposition that the Federal Government must be held within the boundaries of its own power when it intrudes upon matters reserved to the States. See United States v. Lopez, ante, p. 549.
Of course, because the Framers recognized that state power and identity were essential parts of the federal balance, see The Federalist No. 39, the Constitution is solicitous of the prerogatives of the States, even in an otherwise sovereign federal province. The Constitution uses state boundaries to fix the size of congressional delegations, Art. I, § 2, cl. 3, ensures that each State shall have at least one representative, ibid., grants States certain powers over the times, places, and manner of federal elections (subject to congressional revision), Art. I, § 4, cl. 1, requires that when the President is elected by the House of Representatives, the delega-
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