Summary
LIMITED GOVERNMENT is a government that does not perform any functions or assume any powers other than those granted to it by the people through written law. As citizens write the law, they should seek to limit government influence in their lives by asking government to do only what they cannot do for themselves.
The American people, who are sovereign (see Popular Sovereignty), have granted their national government specific powers that are enumerated in and confined by the Constitution, the supreme law of the land. The Constitution also includes many structural provisions that help limit federal influence in the states and in the lives of individual citizens (see Federalism and Separation of Powers). The federal government should not exceed the scope of powers granted to it.
Responsible citizens should help promote laws and policies – whether state, local, or federal – that limit government spending and the role of government regulations and programs in their lives. To help limit government, citizens should seek to be self-reliant by providing for their families and by working with neighbors, religious organizations, non-profits, and other private entities to solve community problems.
When government does seek to address an issue, the level of government that is closest to the people and is capable of addressing it should do so (see Subsidiarity).
Quotes from the Brethren
Dallin H. Oaks–
Citizens should also be practitioners of civic virtue in their conduct toward government. They should be ever willing to fulfill the duties of citizenship. This includes compulsory duties like military service and the numerous voluntary actions they must take if they are to preserve the principle of limited government through citizen self-reliance. For example, since U.S. citizens value the right of trial by jury, they must be willing to serve on juries, even those involving unsavory subject matter. Citizens who favor morality cannot leave the enforcement of moral laws to jurors who oppose them. (Dallin H. Oaks, “The Divinely Inspired Constitution,” Ensign, Feb. 1992, 68)
Rex E. Lee–
The central feature of the American Constitution is that with only one exception, its provisions are confined to limiting the powers of government. The single exception is the Thirteenth Amendment, which prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude and therefore necessarily governs relationships between private, nongovernmental people and entities. With that single exception, the Constitution leaves untouched those vast bodies of other law that regulate the rights and obligations that individuals, groups, and institutions owe to and enjoy from each other. I suspect that the great majority of Americans don’t know that. It follows that when we speak of our constitutional rights, we are necessarily speaking of rights that we enjoy vis-a-vis government, either national, state, or local. The Constitution is silent with respect to rights that we might enjoy vis-a-vis our employer, our neighbor, or any other nongovernmental person or entity who infringes on our interests in any way other than the imposition of slavery or involuntary servitude, neither of which has been a terribly pressing issue over the past century and a quarter. (“The Constitution and the Restoration,” Lee, Rex E., January 15, 1991)
Ezra Taft Benson–
The powers the people granted to the three branches of government were specifically limited. The Founding Fathers well understood human nature and its tendency to exercise unrighteous dominion when given authority. A Constitution was therefore designed to limit government to certain enumerated functions, beyond which was tyranny. (Ezra Taft Benson, “The Constitution—A Glorious Standard,” Ensign, Sept. 1987)
Spencer W. Kimball–
Out of years of turmoil and tragedy, wars and riots, assassinations and wrongdoings in high places, Americans have recaptured the Spirit of 1776. We again had visions of our revolutionary founders and our immigrant ancestors. Great and consoling is the vision of free men and free women enjoying limited government and unlimited opportunity. (Spencer W. Kimball, “A Report and a Challenge,” Ensign, Nov. 1976, 4)
Neal A. Maxwell–
A little experience with federal and state bureaucracies has taught me that such bureaucracies are inhabited by basically good civil servants, onto whom voters have pushed too much power for their good or ours. What we unwittingly court in such circumstances is learning again, painfully, that “almost all” men can’t handle authority without abusing it. Whether or not the American people, regardless of party, can tame their governments is yet to be determined, but sunset laws alone will not do it. If citizen appetites, once aroused, merely look to a new agency to do what a disestablished agency once did, it won’t be enough. Addicts can always find new pushers. (“Insights from My Life,” Maxwell, Neal A., October 26, 1976)
Neal A. Maxwell–
We rightfully worry about taming our technology so that it serves us, rather than dominates us. But we cannot tame our technology without taming ourselves. We are rightfully concerned about taming our cities so that they are habitable and desirable to live in. But we cannot tame our cities without taming ourselves. We are rightfully worried about the swelling bureaucracies of government, which need to respond to us—not to regiment us. But we cannot tame those bureaucracies unless we first tame our appetites, for a bloated bureaucracy is merely a manifestation of citizen appetites, demands, and the subsequent need for external controls. (Neal A. Maxwell, “Eternalism vs. Secularism,” Ensign, Oct. 1974, 69 )
Quotes from the Founders
Thomas Paine–
Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. (Paine, Thomas Common Sense, 1776)
James Madison–
The great desideratum in Government is, so to modify the sovereignty as that it may be sufficiently neutral between different parts of the Society to controul one part from invading the rights of another, and at the same time sufficiently controuled itself, from setting up an interest adverse to that of the entire Society. (Madison, James letter to Thomas Jefferson, October 24, 1787)
James Madison–
In the first place, it is to be remembered, that the general government is not to be charged with the whole power of making and administering laws: its jurisdiction is limited to certain enumerated objects, which concern all the members of the republic, but which are not to be attained by the separate provisions of any. (Madison, James Federalist No. 14; November 30, 1787)
Speeches and Other Resources
- Rex E. Lee, “The Constitution and the Restoration,” January 15, 1991
- Ezra T. Benson, “The Constitution–A Heavenly Banner,” Sep. 1986
Latest comments