US Term Limits v. Thornton (1995)

514 U.S. 779 (1995) U. S. TERM LIMITS, INC., et al. v. THORNTON ET AL. No. 93-1456. United States Supreme Court. Argued November 29, 1994. Decided May 22, 1995. [*] CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF ARKANSAS *781 *781 Stevens, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Kennedy, J., filed a concurring opinion, post, p. 838. Thomas, J.,filed a dissenting opinion, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and O'Connor and Scalia, JJ., joined, post, p. 845. J. Winston Bryant, Attorney General of Arkansas, pro se, argued the cause for petitioner in No. 93-1828. With him on the briefs were Jeffrey A. Bell, Deputy Attorney General, Ann Purvis and David R. Raupp, Assistant Attorneys General, Griffin B. Bell, Paul J. Larkin, Jr., Richard F. Hatfield, and Cleta Deatherage Mitchell. John G. Kester argued the cause for petitioners in No. 93-1456. With him on the briefs was H. William Allen. Robert H. Bork, Theodore B. Olson, and Thomas G. Hungar filed briefs for Representative Jay Dickey et al., and Edward W. Warren filed briefs for the Republican Party of Arkansas et al., as respondents under this Court's Rule 12.4. Louis R. Cohen argued the cause for respondents in both cases. With him on the brief for respondents in No. 93-1828 were W. Hardy Callcott, Peter B. Hutt II, and Elizabeth J. Robben. Henry Maurice Mitchell, Sherry P. Bartley, Rex E. Lee, Carter G. Phillips, Ronald S. Flagg, Mark D. Hopson, Joseph R. Guerra, and Jeffrey T. Green filed a brief for respondent Thornton in No. 93-1456. Solicitor General Days argued the cause for the United States as amicus curiae urging affirmance. With him on *782 the brief were Assistant Attorneys General Dellinger and Hunger, Deputy Solicitor General Bender, Paul R. Q. Wolfson, and Douglas N. Letter. [ā ] Justice Stevens, delivered the opinion of the Court. The Constitution sets forth qualifications for membership in the Congress of the United States. Article I, § 2, cl. 2, which applies to the House of Representatives, provides: *783 "No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen." Article I, § 3, cl. 3, which applies to the Senate, similarly provides: "No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen." Today's cases present a challenge to an amendment to the Arkansas State Constitution that prohibits the name of an otherwise-eligible candidate for Congress from appearing on the general election ballot if that candidate has already served three terms in the House of Representatives or two terms in the Senate. The Arkansas Supreme Court held that the amendment violates the Federal Constitution. We agree with that holding. Such a state-imposed restriction is contrary to the "fundamental principle of our representative democracy," embodied in the Constitution, that "the people should choose whom they please to govern them." Powell v. McCormack, 395 U. S. 486, 547 (1969) (internal quotation marks omitted). Allowing individual States to adopt their own qualifications for congressional service would be inconsistent with the Framers' vision of a uniform National Legislature representing the people of the United States. If the qualifications set forth in the text of the Constitution are to be changed, that text must be amended. I At the general election on November 3, 1992, the voters of Arkansas adopted Amendment 73 to their State Constitution. Proposed as a "Term Limitation Amendment," its preamble stated: *784 "The people of Arkansas find and declare that elected officials who remain in office too long become preoccupied with reelection and ignore their duties as representatives of the people. Entrenched incumbency has reduced voter participation and has led to an electoral system that is less free, less competitive, and less representative than the system established by the Founding Fathers. Therefore, the people of Arkansas, exercising their reserved powers, herein limit the terms of elected officials." The limitations in Amendment 73 apply to three categories of elected officials. Section 1 provides that no elected official in the executive branch of the state government may serve more than two 4-year terms. Section 2 applies to the legislative branch of the state government; it provides that no member of the Arkansas House of Representatives may serve more than three 2-year terms and no member of the Arkansas Senate may serve more than two 4-year terms. Section 3, the provision at issue in these cases, applies to the Arkansas Congressional Delegation. It provides: "(a) Any person having been elected to three or more terms as a member of the United States House of Representatives from Arkansas shall not be certified as a candidate and shall not be eligible to have his/her name placed on the ballot for election to the United States House of Representatives from Arkansas. "(b) Any person having been elected to two or more terms as a member of the United States Senate from Arkansas shall not be certified as a candidate and shall not be eligible to have his/her name placed on the ballot for election to the United States Senate from Arkansas." Amendment 73 states that it is self-executing and shall apply to all persons seeking election after January 1, 1993. On November 13, 1992, respondent Bobbie Hill, on behalf of herself, similarly situated Arkansas "citizens, residents, *785 taxpayers and registered voters," and the League of Women Voters of Arkansas, filed a complaint in the Circuit Court for Pulaski County, Arkansas, seeking a declaratory judgment that § 3 of Amendment 73 is "unconstitutional and void." Her complaint named as defendants then-Governor Clinton, other state officers, the Republican Party of Arkansas, and the Democratic Party of Arkansas. The State of Arkansas, through its Attorney General, petitioner Winston Bryant, intervened as a party defendant in support of the amendment. Several proponents of the amendment also intervened, including petitioner U. S. Term Limits, Inc. On cross-motions for summary judgment, the Circuit Court held that § 3 of Amendment 73 violated Article I of the Federal Constitution. [1] With respect to that holding, in a 5-to-2 decision, the Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed. U. S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Hill, 316 Ark. 251 , 872 S. W. 2d 349, 351 (1994). Writing for a plurality of three justices, Justice Robert L. Brown concluded that the congressional restrictions in Amendment 73 are unconstitutional because the States have no authority "to change, add to, or diminish" the requirements for congressional service enumerated in the Qualifications Clauses. Id. , at 265, 872 S. W. 2d, at 356 . He noted: "If there is one watchword for representation of the various states in Congress, it is uniformity. Federal legislators speak to national issues that affect the citizens of every state. . . . The uniformity in qualifications mandated *786 in Article 1 provides the tenor and the fabric for representation in the Congress. Piecemeal restrictions by State would fly in the face of that order." Ibid. Justice Brown's plurality opinion also rejected the argument that Amendment 73 is "merely a ballot access amendment," concluding that "[t]he intent and the effect of Amendment 73 are to disqualify congressional incumbents from further service." Id. , at 265-266, 872 S. W. 2d, at 356-357 . Justice Brown considered the possibilities that an excluded candidate might run for Congress as a write-in candidate or be appointed to fill a vacancy to be "glimmers of opportunity. . . [that] are faint indeedā so faint in our judgment that they cannot salvage Amendment 73 from constitutional attack." Id. , at 266, 872 S. W. 2d, at 357 . In separate opinions, Justice Dudley and Justice Gerald P. Brown agreed that Amendment 73 violates the Federal Constitution. Two justices dissented from the federal constitutional holding. Justice Hays started from "the premise that all political authority resides in the people, limited only by those provisions of the federal or state constitutions specifically to the contrary." Id., at 281 , 872 S. W. 2d, at 367 . Because his examination of the text and history of the Qualifications Clauses convinced him that the Constitution contains no express or implicit restriction on the States' ability to impose additional qualifications on candidates for Congress, Justice Hays concluded that § 3 is constitutional. Special Chief Justice Cracraft, drawing a distinction between a measure that "impose[s] an absolute bar on incumbent succession" and a measure that "merely makes it more difficult for an incumbent to be elected," id. , at 284, 872 S. W. 2d, at 368 , concluded that Amendment 73 does not even implicate the Qualifications Clauses, and instead is merely a permissible ballot access restriction. The State of Arkansas, by its Attorney General, and the intervenors petitioned for writs of certiorari. Because of the importance of the issues, we granted both petitions and *787 consolidated the cases for argument. See 512 U. S. 1218 (1994). We now affirm. II As the opinions of the Arkansas Supreme Court suggest, the constitutionality of Amendment 73 depends critically on the resolution of two distinct issues. The first is whether the Constitution forbids States to add to or alter the qualifications specifically enumerated in the Constitution. The second is, if the Constitution does so forbid, whether the fact that Amendment 73 is formulated as a ballot access restriction rather than as an outright disqualification is of constitutional significance. Our resolution of these issues draws upon our prior resolution of a related but distinct issue: whether Congress has the power to add to or alter the qualifications of its Members. Twenty-six years ago, in Powell v. McCormack, 395 U. S. 486 (1969), we reviewed the history and text of the Qualifications Clauses [2] in a case involving an attempted exclusion *788 of a duly elected Member of Congress. The principal issue was whether the power granted to each House in Art. I, § 5, cl. 1, to judge the "Qualifications of its own Members" [3] includes the power to impose qualifications other than those set forth in the text of the Constitution. In an opinion by Chief Justice Warren for eight Members of the Court, [4] we held that it does not. Because of the obvious importance of the issue, the Court's review of the history and meaning of the relevant constitutional text was especially thorough. We therefore begin our analysis today with a full statement of what we decided in that case. The Issue in Powell In November 1966, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., was elected from a District in New York to serve in the United States House of Representatives for the 90th Congress. Allegations that he had engaged in serious misconduct while serving as a committee chairman during the 89th Congress led to the appointment of a Select Committee to determine his eligibility to take his seat. That committee found that Powell met the age, citizenship, and residency requirements set forth in Art. I, § 2, cl. 2. The committee also found, however, that Powell had wrongfully diverted House funds for the use of others and himself and had made false reports on expenditures of foreign currency. Based on those findings, the House after debate adopted House Resolution 278, excluding *789 Powell from membership in the House, and declared his seat vacant. See 395 U. S., at 489-493 . Powell and several voters of the district from which he had been elected filed suit seeking a declaratory judgment that the House Resolution was invalid because Art. I, § 2, cl. 2, sets forth the exclusive qualifications for House membership. We ultimately accepted that contention, concluding that the House of Representatives has no "authority to exclude [5] any person, duly elected by his constituents, who meets all the requirements for membership expressly prescribed in the Constitution." 395 U. S., at 522 (emphasis in original); see also id., at 547 . [6] In reaching that conclusion, we undertook a detailed historical review to determine the intent of the Framers. Though recognizing that the Constitutional Convention debates themselves were inconclusive, see id. , at 532, we determined that the "relevant historical materials" reveal that Congress has no power to alter the qualifications in the text of the Constitution, id. , at 522. Powell's Reliance on History We started our analysis in Powell by examining the British experience with qualifications for membership in Parliament, focusing in particular on the experience of John Wilkes. While serving as a member of Parliament, Wilkes had published an attack on a peace treaty with France. This *790 literary endeavor earned Wilkes a conviction for seditious libel and a 22-month prison sentence. In addition, Parliament declared Wilkes ineligible for membership and ordered him expelled. Despite (or perhaps because of) these difficulties, Wilkes was reelected several times. Parliament, however, persisted in its refusal to seat him. After several years of Wilkes' efforts, the House of Commons voted to expunge the resolutions that had expelled Wilkes and had declared him ineligible, labeling those prior actions "`subversive of the rights of the whole body of electors of this kingdom.' " Id. , at 528, quoting 22 Parliamentary History of England 1411 (1782) (Parl. Hist. Eng.). After reviewing Wilkes' "long and bitter struggle for the right of the British electorate to be represented by men of their own choice," 395 U. S., at 528 , we concluded in Powell that "on the eve of the Constitutional Convention, English precedent stood for the proposition that `the law of the land had regulated the qualifications of members to serve in parliament' and those qualifications were `not occasional but fixed.' " Ibid. , quoting 16 Parl. Hist. Eng. 589, 590 (1769). Against this historical background, we viewed the Convention debates as manifesting the Framers' intent that the qualifications in the Constitution be fixed and exclusive. We found particularly revealing the debate concerning a proposal made by the Committee of Detail that would have given Congress the power to add property qualifications. James Madison argued that such a power would vest "`an improper & dangerous power in the Legislature,' " by which the Legislature "`can by degrees subvert the Constitution.' " 395 U. S., at 533-534 , quoting 2 Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, pp. 249-250 (M. Farrand ed. 1911) (hereinafter Farrand). [7] Madison continued: "`A Republic may be *791 converted into an aristocracy or oligarchy as well by limiting the number capable of being elected, as the number authorised to elect.' " 395 U. S., at 534 , quoting 2 Farrand 250. We expressly noted that the "parallel between Madison's arguments and those made in Wilkes' behalf is striking." 395 U. S., at 534 . The Framers further revealed their concerns about congressional abuse of power when Gouverneur Morris suggested modifying the proposal of the Committee of Detail to grant Congress unfettered power to add qualifications. We noted that Hugh Williamson "expressed concern that if a majority of the legislature should happen to be `composed of any particular description of men, of lawyers for example,. . . the future elections might be secured to their own body.' " Id. , at 535, quoting 2 Farrand 250. We noted, too, that Madison emphasized the British Parliament's attempts to regulate qualifications, and that he observed: "`[T]he abuse they had made of it was a lesson worthy of our attention.' " 395 U. S., at 535 , quoting 2 Farrand 250. We found significant that the Convention rejected both Morris' modification and the Committee's proposal. We also recognized in Powell that the post-Convention ratification debates confirmed that the Framers understood the qualifications in the Constitution to be fixed and unalterable by Congress. For example, we noted that in response to the antifederalist charge that the new Constitution favored the wealthy and well born, Alexander Hamilton wrote: "`The truth is that there is no method of securing to the rich the preference apprehended but by prescribing qualifications of property either for those who may elect or be elected. But this forms no part of the power to be conferred upon the national government. . . . The *792 qualifications of the persons who may choose or be cho- sen, as has been remarked upon other occasions, are defined and fixed in the Constitution, and are unalter- able by the legislature. ` " 395 U. S., at 539 , quoting The Federalist No. 60, p. 371 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961) (emphasis added) (hereinafter The Federalist). We thus attached special significance to "Hamilton's express reliance on the immutability of the qualifications set forth in the Constitution." 395 U. S., at 540 . Moreover, we reviewed the debates at the state conventions and found that they "also demonstrate the Framers' understanding that the qualifications for members of Congress had been fixed in the Constitution." Ibid.; see, e. g., id. , at 541, citing 3 Debates on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution 8 (J. Elliot ed. 1863) (hereinafter Elliot's Debates) (Wilson Carey Nicholas, Virginia). [8] The exercise by Congress of its power to judge the qualifications of its Members further confirmed this understanding. We concluded that, during the first 100 years of its existence, "Congress strictly limited its power to judge the qualifications of its members to those enumerated in the Constitution." 395 U. S., at 542 . As this elaborate summary reveals, our historical analysis in Powell was both detailed and persuasive. We thus conclude now, as we did in Powell , that history shows that, with *793 respect to Congress, the Framers intended the Constitution to establish fixed qualifications. [9] Powell's Reliance on Democratic Principles In Powell , of course, we did not rely solely on an analysis of the historical evidence, but instead complemented that analysis with "an examination of the basic principles of our democratic system." Id. , at 548. We noted that allowing Congress to impose additional qualifications would violate that "fundamental principle of our representative democracy. . . `that the people should choose whom they please to govern them.' " Id. , at 547, quoting 2 Elliot's Debates 257 (A. Hamilton, New York). Our opinion made clear that this broad principle incorporated at least two fundamental ideas. [10] First, we emphasized *794 the egalitarian concept that the opportunity to be elected was open to all. [11] We noted in particular Madison's statement in The Federalist that "`[u]nder these reasonable limitations [enumerated in the Constitution], the door of this part of the federal government is open to merit of every description, whether native or adoptive, whether young or old, and without regard to poverty or wealth, or to any particular profession of religious faith.' " Powell, 395 U. S., at 540, n. 74 , quoting The Federalist No. 52, at 326. Similarly, we noted that Wilson Carey Nicholas defended the Constitution against the charge that it "violated democratic principles" by arguing: "`It has ever been considered a great security to liberty, that very few should be excluded from the right of being chosen to the legislature. This Constitution has amply attended to this idea. We find no qualifications required except those of age and residence.' " 395 U. S., at 541 , quoting 3 Elliot's Debates 8. Second, we recognized the critical postulate that sovereignty is vested in the people, and that sovereignty confers on the people the right to choose freely their representatives to the National Government. For example, we noted that "Robert Livingston . . . endorsed this same fundamental principle: `The people are the best judges who ought to represent them. To dictate and control them, to tell them whom they shall not elect, is to abridge their natural *795 rights.' " 395 U. S., at 541, n. 76 , quoting 2 Elliot's Debates 292-293. Similarly, we observed that "[b]efore the New York convention . . . , Hamilton emphasized: `The true principle of a republic is, that the people should choose whom they please to govern them. Representation is imperfect in proportion as the current of popular favor is checked. This great source of free government, popular election, should be perfectly pure, and the most unbounded liberty allowed.' " 395 U. S., at 540-541 , quoting 2 Elliot's Debates 257. Quoting from the statement made in 1807 by the Chairman of the House Committee on Elections, we noted that "restrictions upon the people to choose their own representatives must be limited to those `absolutely necessary for the safety of the society.' " 395 U. S., at 543 , quoting 17 Annals of Cong. 874 (1807). Thus, in Powell , we agreed with the sentiment expressed on behalf of Wilkes' admission to Parliament: "`That the right of the electors to be represented by men of their own choice, was so essential for the preservation of all their other rights, that it ought to be considered as one of the most sacred parts of our constitution.' " 395 U. S., at 534, n. 65 , quoting 16 Parl. Hist. Eng. 589-590 (1769). Powell thus establishes two important propositions: first, that the "relevant historical materials" compel the conclusion that, at least with respect to qualifications imposed by Congress, the Framers intended the qualifications listed in the Constitution to be exclusive; and second, that that conclusion is equally compelled by an understanding of the "fundamental principle of our representative democracy . . . `that the people should choose whom they please to govern them.' " 395 U. S., at 547 . Powell's Holding Petitioners argue somewhat half-heartedly that the narrow holding in Powell , which involved the power of the House to exclude a Member pursuant to Art. I, § 5, does not control the more general question whether Congress has the *796 power to add qualifications. Powell , however, is not susceptible to such a narrow reading. Our conclusion that Congress may not alter or add to the qualifications in the Constitution was integral to our analysis and outcome. See, e. g., id. , at 540 (noting "Framers' understanding that the qualifications for members of Congress had been fixed in the Constitution"). Only two Terms ago we confirmed this understanding of Powell in Nixon v. United States, 506 U. S. 224 (1993). After noting that the three qualifications for membership specified in Art. I, § 2, are of "a precise, limited nature" and " unalterable by the legislature, " we explained: "Our conclusion in Powell was based on the fixed meaning of `[q]ualifications' set forth in Art. I, § 2. The claim by the House that its power to `be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members' was a textual commitment of unreviewable authority was defeated by the existence of this separate provision specifying the only qualifications which might be imposed for House membership." Id. , at 237. [12] *797 Un surprisingly, the state courts and lower federal courts have similarly concluded that Powell conclusively resolved the issue whether Congress has the power to impose additional qualifications. See, e. g., Joyner v. Mofford, 706 F. 2d 1523, 1528 (CA9 1983) ("In Powell . . . , the Supreme Court accepted this restrictive view of the Qualifications Clauseā at least as applied to Congress"); Michel v. Anderson, 14 F. 3d 623 (CADC 1994) (citing Nixon `s description of Powell `s holding); Stumpf v. Lau, 108 Nev. 826, 830 , 839 P. 2d 120, 122 (1992) (citing Powell for the proposition that "[n]ot even Congress has the power to alter qualifications for these constitutional federal officers"). [13] *798 In sum, after examining Powell `s historical analysis and its articulation of the "basic principles of our democratic system," we reaffirm that the qualifications for service in Congress set forth in the text of the Constitution are "fixed," at least in the sense that they may not be supplemented by Congress. III Our reaffirmation of Powell does not necessarily resolve the specific questions presented in these cases. For petitioners argue that whatever the constitutionality of additional qualifications for membership imposed by Congress, the historical and textual materials discussed in Powell do not support the conclusion that the Constitution prohibits additional qualifications imposed by States. In the absence of such a constitutional prohibition, petitioners argue, the Tenth Amendment and the principle of reserved powers require that States be allowed to add such qualifications. Before addressing these arguments, we find it appropriate to take note of the striking unanimity among the courts that have considered the issue. None of the overwhelming array of briefs submitted by the parties and amici has called to our attention even a single case in which a state court or federal court has approved of a State's addition of qualifications for a Member of Congress. To the contrary, an impressive number of courts have determined that States lack the authority to add qualifications. See, e. g., Chandler v. Howell, 104 Wash. 99 , 175 P. 569 (1918); Eckwall v. Stadelman, 146 Ore. 439, 446 , 30 P. 2d 1037, 1040 (1934); Stockton v. McFarland, 56 Ariz. 138, 144 , 106 P. 2d 328, 330 (1940); State ex rel. Johnson v. Crane, 65 Wyo. 189 , 197 P. 2d 864 (1948); Dillon v. Fiorina, 340 F. Supp. 729, 731 (N. M. 1972); Stack v. Adams, 315 F. Supp. 1295, 1297-1298 (ND Fla. 1970); Buckingham v. State, 42 Del. 405 , 35 A. 2d 903, 905 (1944); Stumpf v. Lau, 108 Nev. 826, 830 , 839 P. 2d 120, 123 (1992); Danielson v. Fitzsimmons, 232 Minn. 149, 151 , 44 N. W. 2d 484, 486 (1950); In re Opinion of Judges, 79 S. D. 585, 587, *799 116 N. W. 2d 233, 234 (1962). Courts have struck down state-imposed qualifications in the form of term limits, see, e. g., Thorsted v. Gregoire, 841 F. Supp. 1068, 1081 (WD Wash. 1994); Stumpf v. Lau, 108 Nev., at 830 , 839 P. 2d, at 123 , district residency requirements, see, e. g., Hellmann v. Collier, 217 Md. 93, 100 , 141 A. 2d 908, 911 (1958); Dillon v. Fiorina, 340 F. Supp., at 731 ; Exon v. Tiemann, 279 F. Supp. 609, 613 (Neb. 1968); State ex rel. Chavez v. Evans, 79 N. M. 578, 581, 446 P. 2d 445, 448 (1968) (per curiam) , loyalty oath requirements, see, e. g., Shub v. Simpson, 196 Md. 177, 199 , 76 A. 2d 332, 341 , appeal dism'd, 340 U. S. 881 (1950); In re O'Connor, 173 Misc. 419, 421 , 17 N. Y. S. 2d 758, 760 (Super. Ct. 1940), and restrictions on those convicted of felonies, see, e. g., Application of Ferguson, 57 Misc. 2d 1041, 1043 , 294 N. Y. S. 2d 174, 176 (Super. Ct. 1968); Danielson v. Fitzsimmons, 232 Minn., at 151 , 44 N. W. 2d, at 486 ; State ex rel. Eaton v. Schmahl, 140 Minn. 219, 220 , 167 N. W. 481 (1918) (per curiam) . Prior to Powell, the commentators were similarly unanimous. See, e. g., 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries, Appendix 213 (S. Tucker ed. 1803) ("[T]hese provisions, as they require qualifications which the constitution does not, may possibly be found to be nugatory"); 1 Story § 627 (each Member of Congress is "an officer of the union, deriving his powers and qualifications from the constitution, and neither created by, dependent upon, nor controllable by, the states"); 1 J. Kent, Commentaries on American Law 228, n. a (3d ed. 1836) ("[T]he objections to the existence of any such power [on the part of the States to add qualifications are] . . . too palpable and weighty to admit of any discussion"); G. McCrary, American Law of Elections § 322 (4th ed. 1897) ("It is not competent for any State to add to or in any manner change the qualifications for a Federal office, as prescribed by the Constitution or laws of the United States"); T. Cooley, General Principles of Constitutional Law 268 (2d ed. 1891) ("The Constitution and laws of the United States determine what shall be the qualifications for federal offices, and state *800 constitutions and laws can neither add to nor take away from them"); C. Burdick, Law of the American Constitution 160 (1922) ("It is clearly the intention of the Constitution that all persons not disqualified by the terms of that instrument should be eligible to the federal office of Representative"); id. , at 165 ("It is as clear that States have no more right to add to the constitutional qualifications of Senators than they have to add to those for Representatives"); Warren 422 ("The elimination of all power in Congress to fix qualifications clearly left the provisions of the Constitution itself as the sole source of qualifications"). [14] This impressive and uniform body of judicial decisions and learned commentary indicates that the obstacles confronting petitioners are formidable indeed. Petitioners argue that the Constitution contains no express prohibition against state-added qualifications, and that Amendment 73 is therefore an appropriate exercise of a State's reserved power to place additional restrictions on the choices that its own voters may make. We disagree for two independent reasons. First, we conclude that the power to add qualifications is not within the "original powers" of the States, and thus is not reserved to the States by the Tenth Amendment. Second, even if States possessed some original power in this area, we conclude that the Framers intended *801 the Constitution to be the exclusive source of qualifications for Members of Congress, and that the Framers thereby "divested" States of any power to add qualifications. The "plan of the convention" as illuminated by the historical materials, our opinions, and the text of the Tenth Amendment draws a basic distinction between the powers of the newly created Federal Government and the powers retained by the pre-existing sovereign States. As Chief Justice Marshall explained, "it was neither necessary nor proper to define the powers retained by the States. These powers proceed, not from the people of America, but from the people of the several States; and remain, after the adoption of the constitution, what they were before, except so far as they may be abridged by that instrument." Sturges v. Crowninshield, 4 Wheat. 122, 193 (1819). This classic statement by the Chief Justice endorsed Hamilton's reasoning in The Federalist No. 32 that the plan of the Constitutional Convention did not contemplate "[a]n entire consolidation of the States into one complete national sovereignty," but only a partial consolidation in which "the State governments would clearly retain all the rights of sovereignty which they before had, and which were not, by that act, exclusively delegated to the United States." The Federalist No. 32, at 198. The text of the Tenth Amendment unambiguously confirms this principle: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." As we have frequently noted, "[t]he States unquestionably do retain a significant measure of sovereign authority. They do so, however, only to the extent that the Constitution has not divested them of their original p

Justice Stevens delivered the opinion of the Court. The Constitution sets forth qualifications for membership in the Congress of the United States. Article I, §2, cl. 2, which applies to the House of Representatives, provides: *783 “No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.” Article I, §3, cl. 3, which applies to the Senate, similarly provides: “No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.” Today’s cases present a challenge to an amendment to the Arkansas State Constitution that prohibits the name of an otherwise-eligible candidate for Congress from appearing on the general election ballot if that candidate has already served three terms in the House of Representatives or two terms in the Senate. The Arkansas Supreme Court held that the amendment violates the Federal Constitution. We agree with that holding. Such a state-imposed restriction is contrary to the “fundamental principle of our representative democracy,” embodied in the Constitution, that “the people should choose whom they please to govern them.” Powell v. McCormack, 395 U. S. 486, 547 (1969) (internal quotation marks omitted). Allowing individual States to adopt their own qualifications for congressional service would be inconsistent with the Framers’ vision of a uniform National Legislature representing the people of the United States. If the qualifications set forth in the text of the Constitution are to be changed, that text must be amended. I At the general election on November 3, 1992, the voters of Arkansas adopted Amendment 73 to their State Constitution. Proposed as a “Term Limitation Amendment,” its preamble stated: *784 “The people of Arkansas find and declare that elected officials who remain in office too long become preoccupied with reelection and ignore their duties as representatives of the people. Entrenched incumbency has reduced voter participation and has led to an electoral system that is less free, less competitive, and less representative than the system established by the Founding Fathers. Therefore, the people of Arkansas, exercising their reserved powers, herein limit the terms of elected officials.” The limitations in Amendment 73 apply to three categories of elected officials. Section 1 provides that no elected official in the executive branch of the state government may serve more than two 4-year terms. Section 2 applies to the legislative branch of the state government; it provides that no member of the Arkansas House of Representatives may serve more than three 2-year terms and no member of the Arkansas Senate may serve more than two 4-year terms. Section 3, the provision at issue in these cases, applies to the Arkansas Congressional Delegation. It provides: “(a) Any person having been elected to three or more terms as a member of the United States House of Representatives from Arkansas shall not be certified as a candidate and shall not be eligible to have his/her name placed on the ballot for election to the United States House of Representatives from Arkansas. “(b) Any person having been elected to two or more terms as a member of the United States Senate from Arkansas shall not be certified as a candidate and shall not be eligible to have his/her name placed on the ballot for election to the United States Senate from Arkansas.” Amendment 73 states that it is self-executing and shall apply to all persons seeking election after January 1, 1993. On November 13, 1992, respondent Bobbie Hill, on behalf of herself, similarly situated Arkansas “citizens, residents, *785 taxpayers and registered voters,” and the League of Women Voters of Arkansas, filed a complaint in the Circuit Court for Pulaski County, Arkansas, seeking a declaratory judgment that §3 of Amendment 73 is “unconstitutional and void.” Her complaint named as defendants then-Governor Clinton, other state officers, the Republican Party of Arkansas, and the Democratic Party of Arkansas. The State of Arkansas, through its Attorney General, petitioner Winston Bryant, intervened as a party defendant in support of the amendment. Several proponents of the amendment also intervened, including petitioner U. S. Term Limits, Inc. On cross-motions for summary judgment, the Circuit Court held that §3 of Amendment 73 violated Article I of the Federal Constitution. 1 With respect to that holding, in a 5-to-2 decision, the Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed. U S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Hill, 316 Ark. 251 , 872 S. W. 2d 349, 351 (1994). Writing for a plurality of three justices, Justice Robert L. Brown concluded that the congressional restrictions in Amendment 73 are unconstitutional because the States have no authority “to change, add to, or diminish” the requirements for congressional service enumerated in the Qualifications Clauses. Id., at 265 , 872 S. W. 2d, at 356 . He noted: “If there is one watchword for representation of the various states in Congress, it is uniformity. Federal legislators speak to national issues that affect the citizens of every state. . . . The uniformity in qualifications man *786 dated in Article 1 provides the tenor and the fabric for representation in the Congress. Piecemeal restrictions by State would fly in the face of that order.” Ibid. Justice Brown’s plurality opinion also rejected the argument that Amendment 73 is “merely a ballot access amendment,” concluding that “[t]he intent and the effect of Amendment 73 are to disqualify congressional incumbents from further service.” Id., at 265-266 , 872 S. W. 2d, at 356-357 . Justice Brown considered the possibilities that an excluded candidate might run for Congress as a write-in candidate or be appointed to fill a vacancy to be “glimmers of opportunity . . . [that] are faint indeed — so faint in our judgment that they cannot salvage Amendment 73 from constitutional attack.” Id., at 266 , 872 S. W. 2d, at 357 . In separate opinions, Justice Dudley and Justice Gerald P. Brown agreed that Amendment 73 violates the Federal Constitution. Two justices dissented from the federal constitutional holding. Justice Hays started from “the premise that all political authority resides in the people, limited only by those provisions of the federal or state constitutions specifically to the contrary.” Id., at 281 , 872 S. W. 2d, at 367 . Because his examination of the text and history of the Qualifications Clauses convinced him that the Constitution contains no express or implicit restriction on the States’ ability to impose additional qualifications on candidates for Congress, Justice Hays concluded that § 3 is constitutional. Special Chief Justice Cracraft, drawing a distinction between a measure that “impose[s] an absolute bar on incumbent succession” and a measure that “merely makes it more difficult for an incumbent to be elected,” id., at 284, 872 S. W. 2d, at 368 , concluded that Amendment 73 does not even implicate the Qualifications Clauses, and instead is merely a permissible ballot access restriction. The State of Arkansas, by its Attorney General, and the intervenors petitioned for writs of certiorari. Because of the importance of the issues, we granted both petitions and *787 consolidated the cases for argument. See 512 U. S. 1218 (1994). We now affirm. II As the opinions of the Arkansas Supreme Court suggest, the constitutionality of Amendment 73 depends critically on the resolution of two distinct issues. The first is whether the Constitution forbids States to add to or alter the qualifications specifically enumerated in the Constitution. The second is, if the Constitution does so forbid, whether the fact that Amendment 73 is formulated as a ballot access restriction rather than as an outright disqualification is of constitutional significance. Our resolution of these issues draws upon our prior resolution of a related but distinct issue: whether Congress has the power to add to or alter the qualifications of its Members. Twenty-six years ago, in Powell v. McCormack, 395 U. S. 486 (1969), we reviewed the history and text of the Qualifications Clauses 2 in a case involving an attempted exclusion *788 of a duly elected Member of Congress. The principal issue was whether the power granted to each House in Art. I, § 5, cl. 1, to judge the “Qualifications of its own Members” 3 includes the power to impose qualifications other than those set forth in the text of the Constitution. In an opinion by Chief Justice Warren for eight Members of the Court, 4 we held that it does not. Because of the obvious importance of the issue, the Court’s review of the history and meaning of the relevant constitutional text was especially thorough. We therefore begin our analysis today with a full statement of what we decided in that case. The Issue in Powell In November 1966, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., was elected from a District in New York to serve in the United States House of Representatives for the 90th Congress. Allegations that he had engaged in serious misconduct while serving as a committee chairman during the 89th Congress led to the appointment of a Select Committee to determine his eligibility to take his seat. That committee found that Powell met the age, citizenship, and residency requirements set forth in Art. I, § 2, cl. 2. The committee also found, however, that Powell had wrongfully diverted House funds for the use of others and himself and had made false reports on expenditures of foreign currency. Based on those findings, the House after debate adopted House Resolution 278, excluding *789 Powell from membership in the House, and declared his seat vacant. See 395 U. S., at 489-493 . Powell and several voters of the district from which he had been elected filed suit seeking a declaratory judgment that the House Resolution was invalid because Art. I, §2, cl. 2, sets forth the exclusive qualifications for House membership. We ultimately accepted that contention, concluding that the House of Representatives has no “authority to exclude 5 any person, duly elected by his constituents, who meets all the requirements for membership expressly prescribed in the Constitution.” 395 U. S., at 522 (emphasis in original); see also id., at 547 . 6 In reaching that conclusion, we undertook a detailed historical review to determine the intent of the Framers. Though recognizing that the Constitutional Convention debates themselves were inconclusive, see id., at 532 , we determined that the “relevant historical materials” reveal that Congress has no power to alter the qualifications in the text of the Constitution, id., at 522 . Powell’s Reliance on History We started our analysis in Powell by examining the British experience with qualifications for membership in Parliament, focusing in particular on the experience of John Wilkes. While serving as a member of Parliament, Wilkes had published an attack on a peace treaty with France. This *790 literary endeavor earned Wilkes a conviction for seditious libel and a 22-month prison sentence. In addition, Parliament declared Wilkes ineligible for membership and ordered him expelled. Despite (or perhaps because of) these difficulties, Wilkes was reelected several times. Parliament, however, persisted in its refusal to seat him. After several years of Wilkes’ efforts, the House of Commons voted to expunge the resolutions that had expelled Wilkes and had declared him ineligible, labeling those prior actions “‘subversive of the rights of the whole body of electors of this kingdom.’” Id., at 528 , quoting 22 Parliamentary History of England 1411 (1782) (Parl. Hist. Eng.). After reviewing Wilkes’ “long and bitter struggle for the right of the British electorate to be represented by men of their own choice,” 395 U. S., at 528 , we concluded in Powell that “on the eve of the Constitutional Convention, English precedent stood for the proposition that ‘the law of the land had regulated the qualifications of members to serve in parliament’ and those qualifications were ‘not occasional but fixed.’” Ibid., quoting 16 Parl. Hist. Eng. 589, 590 (1769). Against this historical background, we viewed the Convention debates as manifesting the Framers’ intent that the qualifications in the Constitution be fixed and exclusive. We found particularly revealing the debate concerning a proposal made by the Committee of Detail that would have given Congress the power to add property qualifications. James Madison argued that such a power would vest “‘an improper & dangerous power in the Legislature,’ ” by which the Legislature “‘can by degrees subvert the Constitution.’” 395 U. S., at 533-534 , quoting 2 Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, pp. 249-250 (M. Farrand ed. 1911) (hereinafter Farrand). 7 Madison continued: “‘A Republic may be *791 converted into an aristocracy or oligarchy as well by limiting the number capable of being elected, as the number authorised to elect.’ ” 395 U. S., at 534 , quoting 2 Farrand 250. We expressly noted that the “parallel between Madison’s arguments and those made in Wilkes’ behalf is striking.” 395 U. S., at 534 . The Framers further revealed their concerns about congressional abuse of power when Gouverneur Morris suggested modifying the proposal of the Committee of Detail to grant Congress unfettered power to add qualifications. We noted that Hugh Williamson “expressed concern that if a majority of the legislature should happen to be ‘composed of any particular description of men, of lawyers for example, ... the future elections might be secured to their own body.’ ” Id., at 535 , quoting 2 Farrand 250. We noted, too, that Madison emphasized the British Parliament’s attempts to regulate qualifications, and that he observed: “ ‘[T]he abuse they had made of it was a lesson worthy of our attention.’ ” 395 U. S., at 535 , quoting 2 Farrand 250. We found significant that the Convention rejected both Morris’ modification and the Committee’s proposal. We also recognized in Powell that the post-Convention ratification debates confirmed that the Framers understood the qualifications in the Constitution to be fixed and unalterable by Congress. For example, we noted that in response to the antifederalist charge that the new Constitution favored the wealthy and well born, Alexander Hamilton wrote: “‘The truth is that there is no method of securing to the rich the preference apprehended but by prescribing qualifications of property either for those who may elect or be elected. But this forms no part of the power to be conferred upon the national government. . . . The *792 qualifications of the persons who may choose or be chosen, as has been remarked upon other occasions, are defined and fixed in the Constitution, and are unalterable by the legislature.’” 395 U. S., at 539 , quoting The Federalist No. 60, p. 371 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961) (emphasis added) (hereinafter The Federalist). We thus attached special significance to “Hamilton’s express reliance on the immutability of the qualifications set forth in the Constitution.” 395 U. S., at 540 . Moreover, we reviewed the debates at the state conventions and found that they “also demonstrate the Framers’ understanding that the qualifications for members of Congress had been fixed in the Constitution.” Ibid.; see, e. g., id., at 541 , citing 3 Debates on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution 8 (J. Elliot ed. 1863) (hereinafter Elliot’s Debates) (Wilson Carey Nicholas, Virginia). 8 The exercise by Congress of its power to judge the qualifications of its Members further confirmed this understanding. We concluded that, during the first 100 years of its existence, “Congress strictly limited its power to judge the qualifications of its members to those enumerated in the Constitution.” 395 U. S., at 542 . As this elaborate summary reveals, our historical analysis in Powell was both detailed and persuasive. We thus conclude now, as we did in Powell , that history shows that, with *793 respect to Congress, the Framers intended the Constitution to establish fixed qualifications. 9 Powell’s Reliance on Democratic Principles In Powell , of course, we did not rely solely on an analysis of the historical evidence, but instead complemented that analysis with “an examination of the basic principles of our democratic system.” Id., at 548 . We noted that allowing Congress to impose additional qualifications would violate that “fundamental principle of our representative democracy . . . ‘that the people should choose whom they please to govern them.’” Id., at 547 , quoting 2 Elliot’s Debates 257 (A. Hamilton, New York). Our opinion made clear that this broad principle incorporated at least two fundamental ideas. 10 First, we empha *794 sized the egalitarian concept that the opportunity to be elected was open to all. 11 We noted in particular Madison’s statement in The Federalist that “ ‘[u]nder these reasonable limitations [enumerated in the Constitution], the door of this part of the federal government is open to merit of every description, whether native or adoptive, whether young or old, and without regard to poverty or wealth, or to any particular profession of religious faith.’ ” Powell, 395 U. S., at 540, n. 74 , quoting The Federalist No. 52, at 326. Similarly, we noted that Wilson Carey Nicholas defended the Constitution against the charge that it “violated democratic principles” by arguing: “ ‘It has ever been considered a great security to liberty, that very few should be excluded from the right of being chosen to the legislature. This Constitution has amply attended to this idea. We find no qualifications required except those of age and residence.’ ” 395 U. S., at 541 , quoting 3 Elliot’s Debates 8. Second, we recognized the critical postulate that sovereignty is vested in the people, and that sovereignty confers on the people the right to choose freely their representatives to the National Government. For example, we noted that “Robert Livingston . . . endorsed this same fundamental principle: ‘The people are the best judges who ought to represent .them. To dictate and control them, to tell them whom they shall not elect, is to abridge their natural *795 rights.’” 395 U. S., at 541, n. 76 , quoting 2 Elliot’s Debates 292-293. Similarly, we observed that “[b]efore the New York convention ..., Hamilton emphasized: ‘The true principle of a republic is, that the people should choose whom they please to govern them. Representation is imperfect in proportion as the current of popular favor is checked. This great source of free government, popular election, should be perfectly pure, and the most unbounded liberty allowed.’” 395 U. S., at 540-541 , quoting 2 Elliot’s Debates 257. Quoting from the statement made in 1807 by the Chairman of the House Committee on Elections, we noted that “restrictions upon the people to choose their own representatives must be limited to those ‘absolutely necessary for the safety of the society.’” 395 U. S., at 543 , quoting 17 Annals of Cong. 874 (1807). Thus, in Powell , we agreed with the sentiment expressed on. behalf of Wilkes’ admission to Parliament: “ ‘That the right of the electors to be represented by men of their own choice, was so essential for the preservation of all their other rights, that it ought to be considered as one of the most sacred parts of our constitution.’” 395 U. S., at 534, n. 65 , quoting 16 Parl. Hist. Eng. 589-590 (1769). Powell thus establishes two important propositions: first, that the “relevant historical materials” compel the conclusion that, at least with respect to qualifications imposed by Congress, the Framers intended the qualifications listed in the Constitution to be exclusive; and second, that that conclusion is equally compelled by an understanding of the “fundamental principle of our representative democracy . . . ‘that the people should choose whom they please to govern them.’” 395 U. S., at 547 . Powell’s Holding Petitioners argue somewhat half-heartedly that the narrow holding in Powell , which involved the power of the House to exclude a Member pursuant to Art. I, § 5, does not control the more general question whether Congress has the *796 power to add qualifications. Powell , however, is not susceptible to such a narrow reading. Our conclusion that Congress may not alter or add to the qualifications in the Constitution was integral to our analysis and outcome. See, e. g., id., at 540 (noting “Framers’ understanding that the qualifications for members of Congress had been fixed in the Constitution”). Only two Terms ago we confirmed this understanding of Powell in Nixon v. United States, 506 U. S. 224 (1993). After noting that the three qualifications for membership specified in Art. I, § 2, are of “a precise, limited nature” and “unalterable by the legislature,” we explained: “Our conclusion in Powell was based on the fixed meaning of ‘[qualifications’ set forth in Art. I, § 2. The claim by the House that its power to ‘be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members’ was a textual commitment of unreviewable authority was defeated by the existence of this separate provision specifying the only qualifications which might be imposed for House membership.” Id., at 237. 12 *797 Unsurprisingly, the state courts and lower federal courts have similarly concluded that Powell conclusively resolved the issue whether Congress has the power to impose additional qualifications. See, e. g., Joyner v. Mofford, 706 F. 2d 1523, 1528 (CA9 1983) (“In Powell . . . , the Supreme Court accepted this restrictive view of the Qualifications Clause— at least as applied to Congress”); Michel v. Anderson, 14 F. 3d 623 (CADC 1994) (citing Nixon’s description of Powell’s holding); Stumpf v. Lau, 108 Nev. 826, 830 , 839 P. 2d 120, 122 (1992) (citing Powell for the proposition that “[n]ot even Congress has the power to alter qualifications for these constitutional federal officers”). 13 *798 In sum, after examining Powell’s historical analysis and its articulation of the “basic principles of our democratic system,” we reaffirm that the qualifications for service in Congress set forth in the text of the Constitution are “fixed,” at least in the sense that they may not be supplemented by Congress. Ill Our reaffirmation of Powell does not necessarily resolve the specific questions presented in these cases. For petitioners argue that whatever the constitutionality of additional qualifications for membership imposed by Congress, the historical and textual materials discussed in Powell do not support the conclusion that the Constitution prohibits additional qualifications imposed by States. In the absence of such a constitutional prohibition, petitioners argue, the Tenth Amendment and the principle of reserved powers require that States be allowed to add such qualifications. Before addressing these arguments, we find it appropriate to take note of the striking unanimity among the courts that have considered the issue. None of the overwhelming array of briefs submitted by the parties and amici has called to our attention even a single case in which a state court or federal court has approved of a State’s addition of qualifications for a Member of Congress. To the contrary, an impressive number of courts have determined that States lack the authority to add qualifications. See, e. g., Chandler v. Howell, 104 Wash. 99 , 175 P. 569 (1918); Eckwall v. Stadelman, 146 Ore. 439, 446 , 30 P. 2d 1037, 1040 (1934); Stockton v. McFarland, 56 Ariz. 138, 144 , 106 P. 2d 328, 330 (1940); State ex rel. Johnson v. Crane, 65 Wyo. 189 , 197 P. 2d 864 (1948); Dillon v. Fiorina, 340 F. Supp. 729, 731 (N. M. 1972); Stack v. Adams, 315 F. Supp. 1295, 1297-1298 (ND Fla. 1970); Buckingham v. State, 42 Del. 405 , 35 A. 2d 903, 905 (1944); Stumpf v. Lau, 108 Nev. 826, 830 , 839 P. 2d 120, 123 (1992); Danielson v. Fitzsimmons, 232 Minn. 149, 151 , 44 N. W. 2d 484, 486 (1950); In re Opinion of Judges, 79 S. D. 585, 587, *799 116 N. W. 2d 233, 234 (1962). Courts have struck down state-imposed qualifications in the form of term limits, see, e. g., Thorsted v. Gregoire, 841 F. Supp. 1068, 1081 (WD Wash. 1994); Stumpf v. Lau, 108 Nev., at 830 , 839 P. 2d, at 123 , district residency requirements, see, e. g., Hellmann v. Collier, 217 Md. 93, 100 , 141 A. 2d 908, 911 (1958); Dillon v. Fiorina, 340 F. Supp., at 731 ; Exon v. Tiemann, 279 F. Supp. 609, 613 (Neb. 1968); State ex rel. Chavez v. Evans, 79 N. M. 578, 581, 446 P. 2d 445, 448 (1968) (per curiam), loyalty oath requirements, see, e. g., Shub v. Simpson, 196 Md. 177, 199 , 76 A. 2d 332, 341 , appeal dism’d, 340 U. S. 881 (1950); In re O’Connor, 173 Misc. 419, 421 , 17 N. Y. S. 2d 758, 760 (Super. Ct. 1940), and restrictions on those convicted of felonies, see, e. g., Application of Ferguson, 57 Misc. 2d 1041, 1043 , 294 N. Y. S. 2d 174, 176 (Super. Ct. 1968); Danielson v. Fitzsimmons, 232 Minn., at 151 , 44 N. W. 2d, at 486 ; State ex rel. Eaton v. Schmahl, 140 Minn. 219, 220 , 167 N. W. 481 (1918) (per curiam). Prior to Powell, the commentators were similarly unanimous. See, e. g., 1W. Blackstone, Commentaries, Appendix 213 (S. Tucker ed. 1803) (“[TJhese provisions, as they require qualifications which the constitution does not, may possibly be found to be nugatory”); 1 Story § 627 (each Member of Congress is “an officer of the union, deriving his powers and qualifications from the constitution, and neither created by, dependent upon, nor controllable by, the states”); 1 J. Kent, Commentaries on American Law 228, n. a (3d ed. 1836) (“[TJhe objections to the existence of any such power [on the part of the States to add qualifications are] . . . too palpable and weighty to admit of any discussion”); G. McCrary, American Law of Elections § 322 (4th ed. 1897) (“It is not competent for any State to add to or in any manner change the qualifications for a Federal office, as prescribed by the Constitution or laws of the United States”); T. Cooley, General Principles of Constitutional Law 268 (2d ed. 1891) (“The Constitution and laws of the United States determine what shall be the qualifications for federal offices, and state *800 constitutions and laws can neither add to nor take away from them”); C. Burdick, Law of the American Constitution 160 (1922) (“It is clearly the intention of the Constitution that all persons not disqualified by the terms of that instrument should be eligible to the federal office of Representative”); id., at 165 (“It is as clear that States have no more right to add to the constitutional qualifications of Senators than they have to add to those for Representatives”); Warren 422 (“The elimination of all power in Congress to fix qualifications clearly left the provisions of the Constitution itself as the sole source of qualifications”). 14 This impressive and uniform body of judicial decisions and learned commentary indicates that the obstacles confronting petitioners are formidable indeed. Petitioners argue that the Constitution contains no express prohibition against state-added qualifications, and that Amendment 73 is therefore an appropriate exercise of a State’s reserved power to place additional restrictions on the choices that its own voters may make. We disagree for two independent reasons. First, we conclude that the power to add qualifications is not within the “original powers” of the States, and thus is not reserved to the States by the Tenth Amendment. Second, even if States possessed some original power in this area, we conclude that the Framers in *801 tended the Constitution to be the exclusive source of qualifications for Members of Congress, and that the Framers thereby “divested” States of any power to add qualifications. The “plan of the convention” as illuminated by the historical materials, our opinions, and the text of the Tenth Amendment draws a basic distinction between the powers of the newly created Federal Government and the powers retained by the pre-existing sovereign States. As Chief Justice Marshall explained, “it was neither necessary nor proper to define the powers retained by the States. These powers proceed, not from the people of America, but from the people of the several States; and remain, after the adoption of the constitution, what they were before, except so far as they may be abridged by that instrument.” Sturges v. Crowninshield, 4 Wheat. 122, 193 (1819). This classic statement by the Chief Justice endorsed Hamilton’s reasoning in The Federalist No. 32 that the plan of the Constitutional Convention did not contemplate “[a]n entire consolidation of the States into one complete national sovereignty,” but only a partial consolidation in which “the State governments would clearly retain all the rights of sovereignty which they before had, and which were not, by that act, exclusively delegated to the United States.” The Federalist No. 32, at 198. The text of the Tenth Amendment unambiguously confirms this principle: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” As we have frequently noted, “[t]he States unquestionably do retain a significant measure of sovereign authority. They do so, however, only to the extent that the Constitution has not divested them of their original powers and transferred those powers to the Federal Government.” Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, 469 U. S. 528, 549 (1985) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted) (em *802 phasis added); see also New York v. United States, 505 U. S. 144, 155-156 (1992). Source of the Power Contrary to petitioners’ assertions, the power to add qualifications is not part of the original powers of sovereignty that the Tenth Amendment reserved to the States. Petitioners’ Tenth Amendment argument misconceives the nature of the right at issue because that Amendment could only “reserve” that which existed before. As Justice Story recognized, “the states can exercise no powers whatsoever, which exclusively spring out of the existence of the national government, which the constitution d

Justice Kennedy, concurring. I join the opinion of the Court. The majority and dissenting opinions demonstrate the intricacy of the question whether or not the Qualifications Clauses are exclusive. In my view, however, it is well settled that the whole people of the United States asserted their political identity and unity of purpose when they created the federal system. The dissent’s course of reasoning suggesting otherwise might be construed to disparage the republican character of the National Government, and it seems appropriate to add these few remarks to explain why that course of argumentation runs counter to fundamental principles of federalism. Federalism was our Nation’s own discovery. The Framers split the atom of sovereignty. It was the genius of their idea that our citizens would have two political capacities, one state and one federal, each protected from incursion by the other. The resulting Constitution created a legal system unprecedented in form and design, establishing two orders of government, each with its own direct relationship, its own privity, its own set of mutual rights and obligations to the people who sustain it and are governed by it. It is appropriate to recall these origins, which instruct us as to the *839 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 *840 power is reposed in representatives of the entire body of the people.” In one sense it is true that “the people of each State retained their, separate political identities,” post, at 849, for the Constitution takes care both to preserve the States and to make use of their identities and structures at various points in organizing the federal union. It does not at all follow from this that the sole political identity of an American is with the State of his or her residence. It denies the dual character of the Federal Government which is its very foundation to assert that the people of the United States do not have a political identity as well, one independent of, though consistent with, their identity as citizens of the State of their residence. Cf. post, at 848-850. It must be recognized that “ ‘[f]or all the great purposes for which the Federal government was formed, we are one people, with one common country.’” Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U. S. 618, 630 (1969) (quoting Passenger Cases, 7 How. 283, 492 (1849) (Taney, C. J., dissenting); see Crandall v. Nevada, 6 Wall. 35, 43 (1868) (“The people of these United States constitute one nation” and “have a government in which all of them are deeply interested”). It might be objected that because the States ratified the Constitution, the people can delegate power only through the States or by acting in their capacities as citizens of particular States. See post, at 846. But in McCulloch v. Maryland , the Court set forth its authoritative rejection of this idea: “The Convention which framed the constitution was indeed elected by the State legislatures. But the instrument . . . was submitted to the people. ... It is true, they assembled in their several States — and where else should they have assembled? No political dreamer was ever wild enough to think of breaking down the lines which separate the States, and of compounding the American people into one common mass. Of consequence, when they act, they act in their States. But *841 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 *842 tions from each State have one vote, Art. II, § 1, cl. 3, and Arndt. 12, and allows States to appoint electors for the President, Art. II, § 1, cl. 2. Nothing in the Constitution or The Federalist Papers, however, supports the idea of state interference with the most basic relation between the National Government and its citizens, the selection of legislative representatives. Indeed, even though the Constitution uses the qualifications for voters of the most numerous branch of the States’ own legislatures to set the qualifications of federal electors, Art. I, §2, cl. 1, when these electors vote, we have recognized that they act in a federal capacity and exercise a federal right. Addressing this principle in Ex parte Yarbrough the Court stated as follows: “[T]he right to vote for a member of Congress” is an “office ... created by that Constitution, and by that alone.... It is not true, therefore, that electors for members of Congress owe their right to vote to the State law in any sense which makes the exercise of the right to depend exclusively on the law of the State.” 110 U. S., at 663-664 . We made the same point in United States v. Classic, 313 U. S. 299, 315 (1941), when we said: “[T]he right of qualified voters within a state to cast their ballots and have them counted at Congressional elections ... is a right secured by the Constitution” and “is secured against the action of individuals as well as of states.” The federal character of congressional elections flows from the political reality that our National Government is republican in form and that national citizenship has privileges and immunities protected from state abridgment by the force of the Constitution itself. Even before the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, the latter proposition was given expression in Crandall v. Nevada where the Court recognized the right of the Federal Government to call “any or all of its citizens to aid in its service, as members of the Congress, of the courts, of the executive departments, and to fill all its other offices,” and further recognized that “this right cannot be made to depend upon the pleasure of a State over whose *843 territory they must pass to reach the point where these services must be rendered.” 6 Wall., at 43 . And without reference to the Privileges and Immunities Clause, the rights of national citizenship were upheld again in United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542, 552 (1876), where the Court said: “The right of the people peaceably to assemble for the purpose of petitioning Congress for a redress of grievances, or for any thing else connected with the powers or the duties of the national government, is an attribute of national citizenship, and, as such, under the protection of, and guaranteed by, the United States. The very idea of a government, republican in form, implies a right on the part of its citizens to meet peaceably for consultation in respect to public affairs and to petition for a redress of grievances.” Cf. Hague v. Committee for Industrial Organization, 307 U. S. 496, 513 (1939) (opinion of Roberts, J., joined by Black, J., and joined in relevant part by Hughes, C. J.) (“Citizenship of the United States would be little better than a name if it did not carry with it the right to discuss national legislation and the benefits, advantages, and opportunities to accrue to citizens therefrom”). In the Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36, 78-80 (1873), the Court was careful to hold that federal citizenship in and of itself suffices for the assertion of rights under the Constitution, rights that stem from sources other than the States. Though the Slaughter-House Cases interpreted the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, its view of the origins of federal citizenship was not confined to that source. Referring to these rights of national dimension and origin the Court observed: “But lest it should be said that no such privileges and immunities are to be found if those we have been considering are excluded, we venture to suggest some which owe their existence to the Federal government, its National character, its Constitution, or its laws.” Id., at 79 . Later cases only reinforced the idea that there are such incidents of national citizenship. See Ex *844 parte Yarbrough, supra; Terral v. Burke Constr. Co., 257 U. S. 529 (1922); United States v. Classic, supra; United States v. Guest, 383 U. S. 745 (1966); Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U. S. 618 (1969). Federal privileges and immunities may seem limited in their formulation by comparison with the expansive definition given to the privileges and immunities attributed to state citizenship, see Slaughter-House Cases, supra, at 78; Hague, supra, at 520 (opinion of Stone, J.), but that federal rights flow to the people of the United States by virtue of national citizenship is beyond dispute. Not the least of the incongruities in the position advanced by Arkansas is the proposition, necessary to its case, that it can burden the rights of resident voters in federal elections by reason of the manner in which they earlier had exercised it. If the majority of the voters had been successful in selecting a candidate, they would be penalized from exercising that same right in the future. Quite apart from any First Amendment concerns, see Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U. S. 23, 30 (1968); Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U. S. 780, 786-788 (1983), neither the law nor federal theory allows a State to burden the exercise of federal rights in this manner. See Terral v. Burke Constr. Co., supra, at 532; Shapiro v. Thompson, supra, at 629-631 . Indeed, as one of the “right[s] of the citizen[s] of this great country, protected by implied guarantees of its Constitution,” the Court identified the right “ ‘to come to the seat of government ... to share its offices, to engage in administering its functions.’” Slaughter-House Cases, supra, at 79 (quoting Crandall v. Nevada, 6 Wall., at 44 ). This observation serves to illustrate the extent of the State’s attempted interference with the federal right to vote (and the derivative right to serve if elected by majority vote) in a congressional election, rights that do not derive from the state power in the first instance but that belong to the voter in his or her capacity as a citizen of the United States. It is maintained by our dissenting colleagues that the State of Arkansas seeks nothing more than to grant its peo *845 pie surer control over the National Government, a control, it is said, that will be enhanced by the law at issue here. The arguments for term limitations (or ballot restrictions having the same effect) are not lacking in force; but the issue, as all of us must acknowledge, is not the efficacy of those measures but whether they have a legitimate source, given their origin in the enactments of a single State. There can be no doubt, if we are to respect the republican origins of the Nation and preserve its federal character, that there exists a federal right of citizenship, a relationship between the people of the Nation and their National Government, with which the States may not interfere. Because the Arkansas enactment intrudes upon this federal domain, it exceeds the boundaries of the Constitution.

Justice Thomas, with whom The Chief Justice, Justice O’Connor, and Justice Scalia join, dissenting. It is ironic that the Court bases today’s decision on the right of the people to “choose whom they please to govern them.” See ante, at 783, 793, 795, 819. Under our Constitution, there is only one State whose people have the right to “choose whom they please” to represent Arkansas in Congress. The Court holds, however, that neither the elected legislature of that State nor the people themselves (acting by ballot initiative) may prescribe any qualifications for those representatives. The majority therefore defends the right of the people of Arkansas to “choose whom they please to govern them” by invalidating a provision that won nearly 60% of the votes cast in a direct election and that carried every congressional district in the State. I dissent. Nothing in the Constitution deprives the people of each State of the power to prescribe eligibility requirements for the candidates who seek to represent them in Congress. The Constitution is simply silent on this question. And where the Constitution is silent, it raises no bar to action by the States or the people. *846 I Because the majority fundamentally misunderstands the notion of “reserved” powers, I start with some first principles. Contrary to the majority’s suggestion, the people of the States need not point to any affirmative grant of power in the Constitution in order to prescribe qualifications for their representatives in Congress, or to authorize their elected state legislators to do so. A Our system of government rests on one overriding principle: All power stems from the consent of the people. To phrase the principle in this way, however, is to be imprecise about something important to the notion of “reserved” powers. The ultimate source of the Constitution’s authority is the consent of the people of each individual State, not the consent of the undifferentiated people of the Nation as a whole. The ratification procedure erected by Article VII makes this point clear. The Constitution took effect once it had been ratified by the people gathered in convention in nine different States. But the Constitution went into effect only “between the States so ratifying the same,” Art. VII; it did not bind the people of North Carolina until, they had accepted it. In Madison’s words, the popular consent upon which the Constitution’s authority rests was “given by the people, not as individuals composing one entire nation, but as composing the distinct and independent States to which they respectively belong.” The Federalist No. 39, p. 243 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961) (hereinafter The Federalist). Accord, 3 Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution 94 (J. Elliot 2d ed. 1876) (hereinafter Elliot) (remarks of James Madison at the Virginia Convention). 1 *847 When they adopted the Federal Constitution, of course, the people of each State surrendered some of their authority to the United States (and hence to entities accountable to the people of other States as well as to themselves). They affirmatively deprived their States of certain powers, see, e.g., Art. I, §10, and they affirmatively conferred certain powers upon the Federal Government, see, e. g., Art. I, § 8. Because the people of the several States are the only true source of power, however, the Federal Government enjoys no authority beyond what the Constitution confers: The Federal Government’s powers are limited and enumerated. In the words of Justice Black: “The United States is entirely a creature of the Constitution. Its power and authority have no other source.” Reid v. Covert, 354 U. S. 1, 5-6 (1957) (plurality opinion) (footnote omitted). In each State, the remainder of the people’s powers— “[t]he powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States,” Arndt. 10 — are either delegated to the state government or retained by the people. The Federal Constitution does not specify which of these two possibilities obtains; it is up to the various state constitutions to declare which powers the people of each State have delegated to their state government. As far as *848 the Federal Constitution is concerned, then, the States can exercise all powers that the Constitution does not withhold from them. The Federal Government and the States thus face different default rules: Where the Constitution is silent about the exercise of a particular power — that is, where the Constitution does not speak either expressly or by necessary implication — the Federal Government lacks that power and the States enjoy it. These basic principles are enshrined in the Tenth Amendment, which declares that all powers neither delegated to the Federal Government nor prohibited to the States “are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” With this careful last phrase, the Amendment avoids taking any position on the division of power between the state governments and the people of the States: It is up to the people of each State to determine which “reserved” powers their state government may exercise. But the Amendment does make clear that powers reside at the state level except where the Constitution removes them from that level. All powers that the Constitution neither delegates to the Federal Government nor prohibits to the States are controlled by the people of each State. To be sure, when the Tenth Amendment uses the phrase “the people,” it does not specify whether it is referring to the people of each State or the people of the Nation as a whole. But the latter interpretation would make the Amendment pointless: There would have been no reason to provide that where the Constitution is silent about whether a particular power resides at the state level, it might or might not do so. In addition, it would make no sense to speak of powers as being reserved to the undifferentiated people of the Nation as a whole, because the Constitution does not contemplate that those people will either exercise power or delegate it. The Constitution simply does not recognize any mechanism for action by the undifferentiated people of the Nation. Thus, the amendment provision of Article *849 V calls for amendments to be ratified not by a convention of the national people, but by conventions of the people in each State or by the state legislatures elected by those people. Likewise, the Constitution calls for Members of Congress to be chosen State by State, rather than in nationwide elections. Even the selection of the President — surely the most national of national figures — is accomplished by an electoral college made up of delegates chosen by the various States, and candidates can lose a Presidential election despite winning a majority of the votes cast in the Nation as a whole. See also Art. II, § 1, cl. 3 (providing that when no candidate secures a majority of electoral votes, the election of the President is thrown into the House of Representatives, where “the Votes shall be taken by States, the Representatives from each State having one Vote”); Arndt. 12 (same). In short, the notion of popular sovereignty that undergirds the Constitution does not erase state boundaries, but rather tracks them. The people of each State obviously did trust their fate to the people of the several States when they consented to the Constitution; not only did they empower the governmental institutions of the United States, but they also agreed to be bound by constitutional amendments that they themselves refused to ratify. See Art. V (providing that proposed amendments shall take effect upon ratification by three-quarters of the States). At the same time, however, the people of each State retained their separate political identities. As Chief Justice Marshall put it, “[n]o political dreamer was ever wild enough to think of breaking down the lines which separate the States, and of compounding the American people into one common mass.” McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 403 (1819). 2 *850 Any ambiguity in the Tenth Amendment’s use of the phrase “the people” is cleared up by the body of the Constitution itself. Article I begins by providing that the Congress of the United States enjoys “[a]ll legislative Powers herein granted,” § 1, and goes on to give a careful enumeration of Congress’ powers, § 8. It then concludes by enumerating certain powers that are prohibited to the States. The import of this structure is the same as the import of the Tenth Amendment: If we are to invalidate Arkansas’ Amendment 73, we must point to something in the Federal Constitution that deprives the people of Arkansas of the power to enact such measures. B The majority disagrees that it bears this burden. But its arguments are unpersuasive. 1 The majority begins by announcing an enormous and untenable limitation on the principle expressed by the Tenth Amendment. According to the majority, the States possess only those powers that the Constitution affirmatively grants to them or that they enjoyed before the Constitution was adopted; the Tenth Amendment “could only ‘reserve’ that *851 which existed before.” Ante, at 802. From the fact that the States had not previously enjoyed any powers over the particular institutions of the Federal Government established by the Constitution, 3 the majority derives a rule precisely opposite to the one that the Amendment actually prescribes: “‘[T]he states can exercise no powers whatsoever, which exclusively spring out of the existence of the national government, which the constitution does not delegate to them.’ ” Ibid, (quoting 1 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States § 627 (3d ed. 1858)). The majority’s essential logic is that the state governments could not “reserve” any powers that they did not control at the time the Constitution was drafted. But it was not the state governments that were doing the reserving. The Constitution derives its authority instead from the consent of the people of the States. Given the fundamental principle that all governmental powers stem from the people of the States, it would simply be incoherent to assert that the people of the States could not reserve any powers that they had not previously controlled. The Tenth Amendment’s use of the word “reserved” does not help the majority’s position. If someone says that the power to use a particular facility is reserved to some group, he is not saying anything about whether that group has previously used the facility. He is merely saying that the peo *852 pie who control the facility have designated that group as the entity with authority to use it. The Tenth Amendment is similar: The people of the States, from whom all governmental powers stem, have specified that all powers not prohibited to the States by the Federal Constitution are reserved “to the States respectively, or to the people.” The majority is therefore quite wrong to conclude that the people of the States cannot authorize their state governments to exercise any powers that were unknown to the States when the Federal Constitution was drafted. Indeed, the majority’s position frustrates the apparent purpose of the Amendment’s final phrase. The Amendment does not preempt any limitations on state power found in the state constitutions, as it might have done if it simply had said that the powers not delegated to the Federal Government are reserved to the States. But the Amendment also does not prevent the people of the States from amending their state constitutions to remove limitations that were in effect when the Federal Constitution and the Bill of Rights were ratified. In an effort to defend its position, the majority points to language in Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, 469 U. S. 528, 549 (1985), which it takes to indicate that the Tenth Amendment covers only “the original powers of [state] sovereignty.” Ante, at 802. But Garcia dealt with an entirely different issue: the extent to which principles of state sovereignty implicit in our federal system curtail Congress’ authority to exercise its enumerated powers. When we are asked to decide whether a congressional statute that appears to have been authorized by Article I is nonetheless unconstitutional because it invades a protected sphere of state sovereignty, it may well be appropriate for us to inquire into what we have called the “traditional aspects of state sovereignty.” See National League of Cities v. Usery, 426 U. S. 833, 841, 849 (1976); see also New York v. United States, 505 U. S. 144, 156-157 (1992). The question *853 raised by the present case, however, is not whether any principle of state sovereignty implicit in the Tenth Amendment bars congressional action that Article I appears to authorize, but rather whether Article I bars state action that it does not appear to forbid. The principle necessary to answer this question is express on the Tenth Amendment’s face: Unless the Federal Constitution affirmatively prohibits an action by the States or the people, it raises no bar to such action. The majority also seeks support for its view of the Tenth Amendment in McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316 (1819). See ante, at 802. But this effort is misplaced. McCulloch did make clear that a power need not be “expressly” delegated to the United States or prohibited to the States in order to fall outside the Tenth Amendment’s reservation; delegations and prohibitions can also arise by necessary implication. 4 True to the text of the Tenth Amendment, however, McCulloch indicated that all powers as to which the Constitution does not speak (whether expressly or by necessary implication) are “reserved” to the state level. Thus, in its only discussion of the Tenth Amendment, McCulloch observed that the Amendment “leav[es] the question, whether the particular power which may become the subject of contest has been delegated to the one government, or prohibited to the other, to depend on a fair construction of the whole [Constitution].” 4 Wheat., at 406 . McCulloch did not qualify this observation by indicating that the question also turned on whether the States had enjoyed the power before the framing. To the contrary, McCulloch seemed to assume that the people had “conferred on the general government the power contained in the constitution, and on the States the whole residuum of power.” Id., at 410 . The structure of McCulloch’s analysis also refutes the majority’s position. The question before the Court was *854 whether the State of Maryland could tax the Bank of the United States, which Congress had created in an effort to accomplish objects entrusted to it by the Constitution. Chief Justice Marshall’s opinion began by upholding the federal statute incorporating the bank. Id., at 400-425 . It then held that the Constitution affirmatively prohibited Maryland’s tax on the bank created by this statute. Id., at 425-437 . The Court relied principally on concepts that it deemed inherent in the Supremacy Clause of Article VI, which declares that “[t]his Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof,... shall be the supreme Law of the Land ....” In the Court’s view, when a power has been “delegated to the United States by the Constitution,” Arndt. 10, the Supremacy Clause forbids a State to “retard, impede, burden, or in any manner control, the operations of the constitutional laws enacted by Congress to carry [that power] into execution.” McCulloch, 4 Wheat., at 436 . Thus, the Court concluded that the very nature of state taxation on the bank’s operations was “incompatible with, and repugnant to,” the federal statute creating the bank. See id., at 425 . For the past 175 years, McCulloch has been understood to rest on the proposition that the Constitution affirmatively barred Maryland from imposing its tax on the Bank’s operations. See, e. g., Osborn v. Bank of United States, 9 Wheat. 738, 859-868 (1824) (reaffirming McCulloch’s conclusion that by operation of the Supremacy Clause, the federal statute incorporating the bank impliedly pre-empted state laws attempting to tax the bank’s operations); Maryland v. Louisiana, 451 U. S. 725, 746 (1981) (citing McCulloch for the proposition that the Supremacy Clause deprives the States of the power to pass laws that conflict with federal statutes); see also North Dakota v. United States, 495 U. S. 423, 434 (1990) (plurality opinion) (citing McCulloch for the proposition that state laws may violate the Supremacy Clause when they “regulate the Government directly or discriminate against *855 it”). 5 For the majority, however, McCulloch apparently turned on the fact that before the Constitution was adopted, the States had possessed no power to tax the instrumentalities of the governmental institutions that the Constitution created. This understanding of McCulloch makes most of Chief Justice Marshall’s opinion irrelevant; according to the majority, there was no need to inquire into whether federal law deprived Maryland of the power in question, because the power could not fall into the category of “reserved” powers anyway. 6 *856 Despite the majority’s citation of Garcia and McCulloch , the only true support for its view of the Tenth Amendment comes from Joseph Story’s 1833 treatise on constitutional law. See 2 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States §§623-628. Justice Story was a brilliant and accomplished man, and one cannot casually dismiss his views. On the other hand, he was not a member of the Founding generation, and his Commentaries on the Constitution were written a half century after the framing. Rather than representing the original understanding of the Constitution, they represent only his own understanding. In a range of cases concerning the federal/state relation, moreover, this Court has deemed positions taken in Story’s commentaries to be more nationalist than the Constitution warrants. Compare, e.g., id., §§1063-1069 (arguing that the Commerce Clause deprives the States of the power to regulate any commerce within Congress’ reach), with Cooley v. Board of Wardens of Port of Philadelphia ex rel. Soc. for Relief of Distressed Pilots, 12 How. 299 (1852) (holding that Congress’ Commerce Clause powers are not exclusive). See also 1 Life and Letters of Joseph Story 296 (W. Story ed. 1851) (extract of manuscript written by Story) (“I hold it to be a maxim, which should never be lost sight of by a great statesman, that the Government of the United States is *857 intrinsically too weak, and the powers of the State Governments too strong”). In this case too, Story’s position that the only powers reserved to the States are those that the States enjoyed before the framing conflicts with both the plain language of the Tenth Amendment and the underlying theory of the Constitution. 2 The majority also sketches out what may be an alternative (and narrower) argument. Again citing Story, the majority suggests that it would be inconsistent with the notion of “national sovereignty” for the States or the people of the States to have any reserved powers over the selection of Members of Congress. See ante, at 803, 805. The majority apparently reaches this conclusion in two steps. First, it asserts that because Congress as a whole is an institution of the National Government, the individual Members of Congress “owe primary allegiance not to the people of a State, but to the people of the Nation.” See ante, at 803. Second, it concludes that because each Member of Congress has a nationwide constituency once he takes office, it would be inconsistent with the Framers’ scheme to let a single State prescribe qualifications for him. See ante, at 803-804, 837-838. Political scientists can debate about who commands the “primary allegiance” of Members of Congress once they reach Washington. From the framing to the present, however, the selection of the Representatives and Senators from each State has been left entirely to the people of that State or to their state legislature. See Art. I, § 2, cl. 1 (providing that Members of the House of Representatives are chosen “by the People of the several States”); Art. I, § 3, cl. 1 (originally providing that the Senators from each State are “chosen by the Legislature thereof”); Arndt. 17 (amending § 3 to provide that the Senators from each State are “elected by the people thereof”). The very name “congress” suggests a *858 coming together of representatives from distinct entities. 7 In keeping with the complexity of our federal system, once the representatives chosen by the people of each State assemble in Congress, they form a national body and are beyond the control of the individual States until the next election. But the selection of representatives in Congress is indisputably an act of the people of each State, not some abstract people of the Nation as a whole. The concurring opinion suggests that this cannot be so, because it is the Federal Constitution that guarantees the right of the people of each State (so long as they are qualified electors under state law) to take part in choosing the Members of Congress from that State. See ante, at 842. But the presence of a federally guaranteed right hardly means that the selection of those representatives constitutes “the exercise of federal authority.” See ante, at 841. When the people of Georgia pick their representatives in Congress, they are acting as the people of Georgia, not as the corporate agents for the undifferentiated people of the Nation as a whole. See In re Green, 134 U. S. 377, 379 (1890) (“Although [Presidential] electors are appointed and act under and pursuant to the Constitution of the United States, they are no more officers or agents of the United States than are the members of the state legislatures when acting as electors of federal senators, or the people of the States when acting as electors of representatives in Congress”). The concurring opinion protests that the exercise of “reserved” powers in the area of congressional elections would constitute “state interference with the most basic relation between the Na *859 tional Government and its citizens, the selection of legislative representatives.” See ante, at 842. But when one strips away its abstractions, the concurring opinion is simply saying that the people of Arkansas cannot be permitted to inject themselves into the process by which they themselves select Arkansas’ representatives in Congress. The concurring opinion attempts to defend this surprising proposition by pointing out that Americans are “citizens of the United States” as well as “of the State wherein they reside,” Arndt. 14, § 1, and that national citizenship (particularly after the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment) “has privileges and immunities protected from state abridgment by the force of the Constitution itself,” ante, at 842. These facts are indeed “beyond dispute,” ante, at 844, but they do not contradict anything that I have said. Although the United States obviously is a Nation, and although it obviously has citizens, the Constitution does not call for Members of Congress to be elected by the undifferentiated national citizenry; indeed, it does not recognize any mechanism at all (such as a national referendum) for action by the undifferentiated people of the Nation as a whole. See supra, at 848-849. Even at the level of national politics, then, there always remains a meaningful distinction between someone who is a citizen of the United States and of Georgia and someone who is a citizen of the United States and of Massachusetts. The Georgia citizen who is unaware of this distinction will have it pointed out to him as soon as he tries to vote in a Massachusetts congressional election. In short, while the majority is correct that the Framers expected the selection process to create a “direct link” between Members of the House of Representatives and the people, ante, at 803, the link was between the Representatives from each State and the people of that State; the people of Georgia have no say over whom the people of Massachusetts select to represent them in Congress. This arrange *860 ment must baffle the majority, 8 whose understanding of Congress would surely fit more comfortably within a system of nationwide elections. But the fact remains that when it comes to the selection of Members of Congress, the people of each State have retained their independent political identity. As a result, there is absolutely nothing strange about the notion that the people of the States or their state legislatures possess “reserved” powers in this area. The majority seeks support from the Constitution’s specification that Members of Congress “shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States.” Art. I, §6, cl. 1; see ante, at 804. But the fact that Members of Congress draw a federal salary once they have assembled hardly means that the people of the States lack reserved powers over the selection of their representatives. Indeed, the historical evidence about the compensation provision suggests that the States’ reserved powers may even extend beyond the selection stage. The majority itself indicates that if the Constitution had made no provision for congressional compensation, this topic would have been “left to state legislatures.” Ante, at 809; accord, 1 Farrand 215-216 (remarks of James Madison and George Mason); id., at 219, n. *. Likewise, Madison specifically indicated that even with the compensation provision in place, the individual States still *861 enjoyed the reserved power to supplement the federal salary. 3 id., at 315 (remarks at the Virginia ratifying convention). As for the fact that a State has no reserved power to establish qualifications for the office of President, see ante, at 803-804, it surely need not follow that a State has no reserved power to establish qualifications for the Members of Congress who represent the people of that State. Because powers are reserved to the States “respectively,” it is clear that no State may legislate for another State: Even though the Arkansas Legislature enjoys the reserved power to pass a minimum-wage law for Arkansas, it has no power to pass a minimum-wage law for Vermont. For the same reason, Arkansas may not decree that only Arkansas citizens are eligible to be President of the United States; the selection of the President is not up to Arkansas alone, and Arkansas can no more prescribe the qualifications for that office than it can set the qualifications for Members of Congress from Florida. But none of this suggests that Arkansas cannot set qualifications for Members of Congress from Arkansas. In fact, the Constitution’s treatment of Presidential elections actively contradicts the majority’s position. While the individual States have no “reserved” power to set qualifications for the office of President, we have long understood that they do have the power (as far as the Federal Constitution is concerned) to set qualifications for their Presidential electors — the delegates that each State selects to represent it in the electoral college that actually chooses the Nation’s chief executive. Even respondents do not dispute that the States may establish qualifications for their delegates to the electoral college, as long as those qualifications pass muster under other constitutional provisions (primarily the First and Fourteenth Amendments). See Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U. S. 23, 29 (1968); McPherson v. Blacker, 146 U. S. 1, 27-36 (1892). As the majority cannot argue that the Consti *862 tution affirmatively grants this power, 9 the power must be one that is “reserved” to the States. It necessarily follows that the majority’s understanding of the Tenth Amendment is incorrect, for the position of Presidential elector surely “ ‘spring[s] out of the existence of the national government.’ ” See ante, at 802. 3 In a final effort to deny that the people of the States enjoy “reserved” powers over the selection of their representatives in Congress, the majority suggests that the Constitution expressly delegates to the States certain powers over congressional elections. See ante, at 805. Such delegations of power, the majority argues, would be superfluous if the people of the States enjoyed reserved powers in this area. Only one constitutional provision — the Times, Places and Manner Clause of Article I, § 4 — even arguably supports the majority’s suggestion. It reads: “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.” Contrary to the majority’s assumption, however, this Clause does not delegate any authority to the States. Instead, it simply imposes a duty upon them. The majority gets it exactly right: By specifying that the state legislatures “shall” prescribe the details necessary to hold congressional elections, the Clause “expressly requires action by the States.” *863 See ante, at 804. This command meshes with one of the principal purposes of Congress’ “make or alter” power: to ensure that the States hold congressional elections in the first place, so that Congress continues to exist. As one reporter summarized a speech made by John Jay at the New York ratifying convention: “[E]very government was imperfect, unless it had a power of preserving itself. Suppose that, by design or accident, the states should neglect to appoint representatives; certainly there should be some constitutional remedy for this evil. The obvious meaning of the paragraph was, that, if this neglect should take place, Congress should have power, by law, to support the government, and prevent the dissolution of the Union. [Jay] believed this was the design of the federal Convention.” 2 Elliot 326 (emphasis in original). 10 Constitutional provisions that impose affirmative duties on the States are hardly inconsistent with the notion of reserved powers. *864 Of course, the second part of the Times, Places and Manner Clause does grant a power rather than impose a duty. As its contrasting uses of the words “shall” and “may” confirm, however, the Clause grants power exclusively to Congress, not to the States. If the Clause did not exist at all, the States would still be able to prescribe the times, places, and manner of holding congressional elections; the deletion of the provision would simply deprive Congress of the power to override these state regulations. The majority also mentions Article II, §1, cl. 2: “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of [Presidential] Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress . . . .” But this Clause has nothing to do with congressional elections, and in any event it, too, imposes an affirmative obligation on the States. In fact, some such barebones provision was essential in order to coordinate the creation of the electoral college. As mentioned above, moreover, it is uncontested that the States enjoy the reserved power to specify qualifications for the Presidential electors who are chosen pursuant to this Clause. See supra, at 861-862. Respondent Thornton seeks to buttress the majority’s position with Article I, § 2, cl. 1, which provides: “The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.” According to respondent Thornton, this provision “grants States authority to prescribe the qualifications of [voters]” in congressional elections. Brief for Respondent Congressman Ray Thornton 4. If anything, however, the Clause limits the power that the States would otherwise enjoy. Though it does leave States with the ability to control who may vote *865 in congressional elections, it has the effect of restricting their authority to establish special requirements that do not apply in elections for the state legislature. Our case law interpreting the Clause affirmatively supports the view that the States enjoy reserved powers over congressional elections. We have treated the Clause as a one-way ratchet: While the requirements for voting in congressional elections cannot be more onerous than the requirements for voting in elections for the most numerous branch of the state legislature, they can be less so. See Tashjian v. Republican Party of Conn., 479 U. S. 208, 225-229 (1986). If this interpretation of the Clause is correct, it means that even with the Clause in place, States still have partial freedom to set special voting requirements for congressional elections. As this power is not granted in Article I, it must be among the “reserved” powers. II I take it to be established, then, that the people of Arkansas do enjoy “reserved” powers over the selection of their representatives in Congress. Purporting to exercise those reserved powers, they have agreed among themselves that the candidates covered by §3 of Amendment 73 — those whom they have already elected to three or more terms in the House of Representatives or to two or more terms in the Senate — should not be eligible to appear on the ballot for reelection, but should nonetheless be returned to Congress if enough voters are sufficiently enthusiastic about their candidacy to write in their names. Whatever one might think of the wisdom of this arrangement, we may not override the decision of the people of Arkansas unless something in the Federal Constitution deprives them of the power to enact such measures. The majority settles on “the Qualifications Clauses” as the constitutional provisions that Amendment 73 violates. See ante, at 806. Because I do not read those provisions to im *866 pose any unstated prohibitions on the States, it is unnecessary for me to decide whether the majority is correct to identify Arkansas’ ballot-access restriction with laws fixing true term limits or otherwise prescribing “qualifications” for congressional office. As I discuss in Part A below, the Qualifications Clauses are merely straightforward recitations of the minimum eligibility requirements that the Framers thought it essential for every Member of Congress to meet. They restrict state power only in that they prevent the States from abolishing all eligibility requirements for membership in Congress. Because the text of the Qualifications Clauses does not support its position, the majority turns instead to its vision of the democratic principles that animated the Framers. But the majority’s analysis goes to a question that is not before us: whether Congress has the power to prescribe qualifications for its own members. As I discuss in Part B, the democratic principles that contributed to the Framers’ decision to withhold this power from Congress do not prove that the Framers also deprived the people of the States of their reserved authority to set eligibility requirements for their own representatives. In Part C, I review the majority’s more specific historical evidence. To the extent that they bear on this case, the records of the Philadelphia Convention affirmatively support my unwillingness to find hidden meaning in the Qualifications Clauses, while the surviving records from the ratification debates help neither side. As for the postratification period, five States supplemented the constitutional disqualifications in their very first election laws. The historical evidence thus refutes any notion that the Qualifications Clauses were generally understood to be exclusive. Yet the majority must establish just such an understanding in order to justify its position that the Clauses impose unstated prohibitions on the States and the people. In my view, the historical evidence is simply inadequate to warrant the majority’s *867 conclusion that the Qualifications Clauses mean anything more than what they say. A The provisions that are generally known as the Qualifications Clauses read as follows: “No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.” Art. I, §2, cl. 2. “No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.” Art. I, §3, cl. 3. Later in Article I, the “Ineligibility Clause” imposes another nationwide disqualification from congressional office: “[N]o Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office.” §6, cl. 2. The majority is quite correct that the “negative phrasing” of these Clauses has little relevance. See ante, at 792, n. 8. The Qualifications Clauses would mean the same thing had they been enacted in the form that the Philadelphia Convention referred them to the Committee of Style: “Every Member of the House of Representatives shall be of the age of twenty-five years at least; shall have been a citizen of the United States for at least seven years before his election; and shall be, at the time of his election, an inhabitant of the State in which he shall be chosen.” 2 Farrand 565. See also id., at 567 (same phrasing for Senate Qualifications Clause). But these different formulations — whether negative or affirmative — merely establish minimum qualifica *868 tions. They are quite different from an exclusive formulation, such as the following: “Every Person who shall have attained to the age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen, shall be eligible to be a Representative.” At least on their face, then, the Qualifications Clauses do nothing to prohibit the people of a State from establishing additional eligibility requirements for their own representatives. Joseph Story thought that such a prohibition was nonetheless implicit in the constitutional list of qualifications, because “[f]rom the very nature of such a provision, the affirmation of these qualifications would seem to imply a negative of all others.” 1 Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States § 624 (1833); see also ante, at 793, n. 9. This argument rests on the maxim expressio unius est exclusio alterius. When the Framers decided which qualifications to include in the Constitution, they also decided not to include any other qualifications in the Constitution. In Story’s view, it would conflict with this latter decision for the people of the individual States to decide, as a matter of state law, that they would like their own representatives in Congress to meet additional eligibility requirements. To spell out the logic underlying this argument is to expose its weakness. Even if one were willing to ignore the distinction between requirements enshrined in the Constitution and other requirements that the Framers were content to leave within the reach of ordinary law, Story’s application of the expressio unius maxim takes no account of federalism. At most, the specification of certain nationwide disqualifications in the Constitution implies the negation of other nationwide disqualifications; it does not imply that individual States or their people are barred from adopting their own *869 disqualifications on a state-by-state basis. Thus, the one delegate to the Philadelphia Convention who voiced anything approaching Story’s argument said only that a recital of qualifications in the Constitution would imply that Congress lacked any qualification-setting power. See 2 Farrand 123 (remarks of John Dickinson); cf. ante, at 793, n. 9, and 815-816, n. 27.