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16  MURPHY v. NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. 

Opinion of the Court 

to the basic structure of government established under the 
Constitution.  The  Constitution,  she  noted,  “confers  upon
Congress  the  power  to  regulate  individuals,  not  States.” 
Id., at 166.  In this respect, the Constitution represented a 
sharp  break  from  the  Articles  of  Confederation.    “Under 
the Articles of Confederation, Congress lacked the author­
ity in most respects to govern the people directly.”  Id., at 
163.  Instead,  Congress  was  limited  to  acting  “ ‘only  upon 
the States.’ ”  Id., at 162 (quoting Lane County v. Oregon, 7 
Wall.  71,  76  (1869)).    Alexander  Hamilton,  among  others, 
saw this as “ ‘[t]he great and radical vice in . . . the existing
Confederation.’ ”  505 U. S., at 163 (quoting The Federalist 
No. 15, at 108).  The Constitutional Convention considered 
plans that would have preserved this basic structure, but 
it rejected them in favor of a plan under which “Congress
would  exercise  its  legislative  authority  directly  over  indi­
viduals rather than over States.”  505 U. S., at 165. 

As  to  what  this  structure  means  with  regard  to  Con­
gress’s  authority  to  control  state  legislatures,  New  York 
was  clear  and  emphatic.    The  opinion  recalled  that  “no 
Member  of  the  Court  ha[d]  ever  suggested”  that  even  “a 
particularly  strong  federal  interest”  “would  enable  Con­
gress to command a state government to enact state regu­
lation.” 
“We  have 
Id.,  at  178  (emphasis  in  original). 
always  understood  that  even  where  Congress  has  the 
authority under the Constitution to pass laws requiring or
prohibiting  certain  acts,  it  lacks  the  power  directly  to
compel the States to require or prohibit those acts.”  Id., at 
166.  “Congress may not simply ‘commandee[r] the legisla­
tive processes of the States by directly compelling them to
enact  and  enforce  a  federal  regulatory  program.’ ”  Id.,  at 
161  (quoting  Hodel  v.  Virginia  Surface  Mining  &  Recla-
mation  Assn.,  Inc.,  452  U. S.  264,  288  (1981)).    “Where  a 
federal interest is sufficiently strong to cause Congress to
legislate, it must do so directly; it may not conscript state 
governments as its agents.”  505 U. S., at 178.