What Size Government Did the Founding Fathers Create?

It’s commonly thought that liberals like big government and conservatives like small government. But it might surprise you to learn that the Founding Fathers did not really hold either of these positions.

What they believed in was limited government.

Limited government means that the operation of government is not necessarily constrained by the amount of money they can spend or the size of their staff, but rather the level and spheres of their authority.
One set of restrictions on the federal government can be inferred from the 
Enumerated Powers found in Article I Section 8 of the Constitution. Congress is given authority to pass laws related to a specific set of functions, such as operating a post office, maintaining military forces, and making treaties with foreign nations. 

We know congressional authority was intended to be limited to these functions by what we see in the Tenth Amendment:

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.

Similarly, the Executive branch is limited to administrative tasks authorized by the laws passed by Congress.

Some Founding Fathers supported the idea of a stronger federal government more than others. But they all agreed that there should be separate areas of jurisdiction. The federal government should be limited to operating only in those spheres where the states do not have authority.

We see restrictions on the government's power in several other amendments that make up the Bill of Rights. Many of them specifically use language such as “Congress shall make no law...” or “this right shall not be infringed.”

Of course, limiting its spheres of jurisdiction will most likely result in a government being somewhat smaller than it would be otherwise. But it is still possible for specific functions of government, such as the military, to be quite large in terms of budget and staffing, while at the same time operating according to the principle of limited government.

Sadly, this principle that guided the framework of our Constitution has been undermined by those who view government power as the solution to all societal ills. We see this in the misinterpretation of key provisions such as the Commerce Clause and the General Welfare Clause that have allowed the federal government an almost unlimited amount of power.

One of the exciting aspects of an Article V convention is that it gives the American people the opportunity to return, not to small government, but to the ideal of the Founding Fathers: limited government.