Limited Government

A RECURRING DEBATE in American politics has revolved around the size and scope of government, especially of the federal government. The first two political parties, the Federalist and Anti-Federalist parties, grew out of the 1780s debate over these issues. The Federalists included the framers of the Constitution, who sought a stronger national government; the Anti-Federalists wanted to prevent this, and to preserve the Articles of Confederation, which kept most power with the new states. The Constitution was ratified only after great disputes and armed protests. The adoption of the Bill of Rights was a concession to Anti-Federalists, and importantly includes the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, which provides that the rights of the people are not limited to those made explicit by the Constitution, and, similarly that any powers not accounted for by the Constitution are the province of the states and the people. These amendments are as central to proponents of limited government as the Second Amendment is to opponents of gun control.

Assuming a finite amount of power, proponents of limited government seek it because any power the federal government has is power not possessed by the state governments or the people themselves. Throughout American history, power has mostly shifted from the state level to the federal, and proponents of states' rights, in particular, have sought to redress or stay this. The earliest such proponents were Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, who together founded the Democratic-Republican Party in opposition to the Federalists. The Federalists were led by Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, whose interests were largely economic, and thus, included such innovations as a national bank, which the Democratic-Republicans found unconstitutional and outside the power of the federal government. While the Federalists held on to control in the northeast, the Democratic-Republicans (the party of the farmer, not the banker or industrialist, and thus, the party of most Americans beyond the Hudson River) soon dominated Congress and many state governments, and from 1800 to 1824, party members filled all but two presidential terms. They consistently opposed the Ham-iltonians' attempts to increase the power of the federal government and to encourage a national debt, and were accused of being radicals, unfavorably compared to the Jacobins of the French Revolution. George Washington accused them of trying to overturn the government.

The Democratic-Republican Party disintegrated into factions after the tumultuous 1824 presidential election, but Jacksonians took up the cause of limited government, encouraging strong state and local governments across the country, especially during the period between 1824 and 1828, a lengthy and vigorous campaign by Andrew Jackson against John Quincy Adams. Both the Jeffersonians and the Jacksonians associated large government with monarchies. The bigger the government, the less power the people had, and big governments were more prone to corruption and inefficient bureaucracies. Limited government was virtually synonymous with Jackson's image as a man of the people—earthy, and a working man. Big government, by contrast, was the goal of bankers and Boston Brahmins, the feared prospect of an American aristocracy.