648
Souter, J., dissenting
took care in The Federalist No. 46 to hedge his argument for limited power by explaining the importance of national politics in protecting the States' interests. The National Government "will partake sufficiently of the spirit [of the States], to be disinclined to invade the rights of the individual States, or the prerogatives of their governments." The Federalist No. 46, p. 319 (J. Cooke ed. 1961). James Wilson likewise noted that "it was a favorite object in the Convention" to secure the sovereignty of the States, and that it had been achieved through the structure of the Federal Government. 2 Elliot's Debates 438-439.17 The Framers of the Bill of Rights, in turn, may well have sensed that Madison and Wilson were right about politics as the determinant of the federal balance within the broad limits of a power like commerce, for they formulated the Tenth Amendment without any provision comparable to the specific guarantees proposed for individual liberties.18 In any case, this Court recognized the political component of federalism in the seminal Gibbons opinion. After declaring the plenary character of congressional power within the sphere of activity affecting commerce, the Chief Justice spoke for the Court in explaining that there was only one restraint on its valid exercise:
17 Statements to similar effect pervade the ratification debates. See, e. g., 2 id., at 166-170 (Massachusetts, remarks of Samuel Stillman); 2 id., at 251-253 (New York, remarks of Alexander Hamilton); 4 id., at 95-98 (North Carolina, remarks of James Iredell).
18 The majority's special solicitude for "areas of traditional state regulation," ante, at 615, is thus founded not on the text of the Constitution but on what has been termed the "spirit of the Tenth Amendment," Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, 469 U. S., at 585 (O'Connor, J., dissenting) (emphasis in original). Susceptibility to what Justice Holmes more bluntly called "some invisible radiation from the general terms of the Tenth Amendment," Missouri v. Holland, 252 U. S. 416, 434 (1920), has increased in recent years, in disregard of his admonition that "[w]e must consider what this country has become in deciding what that Amendment has reserved," ibid.
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